Lords Sitting of 9 August 1972

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

THE LORD BISHOP OF SAINT EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH
Leslie Wilfrid, Lord Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

WOMEN PEERS AND ROYAL HOUSEHOLD APPOINTMENTS
2.11 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: 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 appointment to the offices of Captain of the Gentlemen at Arms and Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard is open to both men and women Peers.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): Yes, my Lords.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that Answer, which I am sure will be favourably received by our women Peers, may I ask him whether, in the event of one of the women Peers being appointed to one of these offices, the "fancy dress" associated with the office will be provided by the State or whether she will be expected to pay for it herself?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord will give notice of that question I will give it the consideration that it undoubtedly deserves.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that his first Answer will give tremendous pleasure to all who believe in the equality of the sexes?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I was aware that that might be so, but of course
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I was basing myself on strong precedents, in the knowledge of the fact that certainly two posts have been held by ladies. The position of Earl Marshal was held by Maud, Countess of Norfolk in 1245; and the post of Constable of England was also, I believe, held by a lady. I think the Dymoke family hold hereditarily the post of Champion of England, so that title, too, may have descended to a lady, though I am afraid that my historical researches have not carried me to the point of ascertaining whether or not it has. This again would have been a post which could have been held by a member of the "other sex".
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, can the noble Earl tell the House whether the uniform is normally provided for male holders of these offices by the State and, if so, why there should be any difficulty in following the same procedure, and in fact using the same uniform (to appropriate measurements) as it is quite customary for women to wear trousers, even in this House?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I believe that there is no difficulty here, except the fact that I have not the foggiest idea of the precise answer to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. I should have thought that it would depend upon the precise measurements of the holder of the office.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, will the noble Earl ensure that if a Lady is promoted to either of these offices she will ride side-saddle and not astride?
LORD CAMOYS: My Lords, might it be a good idea to design a suitable uniform in the style of Boadicea or something along those lines?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords. I suggest that these are all questions which, properly speaking, should be addressed to the Government of the day on these important matters.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, does the noble Earl's reply to my supplementary question imply that the measurements of all male holders of these offices are standardised?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that the Queen

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reviews the Troops in the appropriate uniform, may I ask why there is all this fuss? Can the noble Earl tell us when we may expect the first appointment?
EARL JELLECOE: My Lords, the answer to the noble Baroness's second supplementary would depend on the Prime Ministers of the day and on the talents available. In answer to the first supplementary, I assure her that, so far as I know, there is no fuss.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, there seems to be a degree of fuss about the uniforms, measurements and so on. May we be told what special talents noble Lords on the Government Front Bench possess that women do not have?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, will the noble Earl arrange that possible candidates for either of these posts might sit on the Government Front Bench instead of disguising themselves among the Bishops?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the answer to both supplementary questions is that this is of course a Ministry of all the talents, both male and female, as can be seen on this Front Bench of your Lordships' House, though some of them have crept a little to the left for the moment.

CRIMINAL LAW REVISION COMMITTEE'S REPORT
2.15 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there is any date by which representations about the Eleventh Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee ought to be made.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CUTROSS): My Lords, while my right honourable friend has asked a number of organisations to let him have their comments on the Report by early October, and he would be glad to receive at least preliminary views by that date, repre-
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sentations received after this will not be too late for consideration.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Viscount for that Answer, may I ask him whether it is not a fact that this publication consists of 284 closely printed pages without any summaries on recommendations, that the Report itself occupies 254 paragraphs, that it will require a Bill of 47 clauses and 2 Schedules, that it took the Committee eight years to prepare, that the Home Office sat on it till June 28 and that it is unreasonable to expect reasoned memoranda on it before the end of the year?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, my right honourable friend's view about this Report is that he would like to encourage people to get on with their consideration of it. I do not challenge the statistics adduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. However, there is nothing like setting an early deadline to try to impress on people the seriousness with which we take the necessity to inquire of their views. I have said that views received after the beginning of October will certainly not be rejected and there has been an undertaking by both my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister that there will be a debate on the matter before any legislation is introduced. I suggest therefore that there is plenty of opportunity for people properly to consider this matter.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, would the noble Viscount accept my assurance that I neither wrote nor instigated the leading article in The Times on Monday? Would he agree with the concluding paragraph of that article, which stated:
"A large number of lawyers, parliamentarians, and members of other interested groups are on vacation. It is almost impossible during this period to convene adequately attended committee meetings or do the work of preparing detailed memoranda. The Government is at present giving many persons of responsible opinion cause to fear that it has to a large extent already made up its mind to implement the Committee's proposals and to introduce legislation to that effect at an early stage. It would be unfortunate if that were the case. The Committee spent eight years producing the report. Three months is not time enough to form conclusions on it."
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I accept that the article was

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not written by the noble and learned Lord and I envy those who are on vacation. The final paragraph suggesting that we have already made up our mind to introduce legislation is not true; it is dependent entirely on the consultations, the other views expressed and the debate in the other place which has already been promised.

NORTH SEA GAS PRICES
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state what the current price paid by the Gas Board for North Sea Natural Gas at handing over point is for each of the following fields:

West Sole,

Hewitt,

Leman Bank,

Indefatigable,

Viking;

and whether the price has been fixed for the gas from Ekofisk and Cod.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): The price per therm for basic contract quantities are respectively 1.21p, 1.2p, 1.2p, 1.21p and 1.5p. In the case of Leman Bank the price applies to the first 600 million cubic feet per day, and is 1.19p for the next 600 and 1.18p for the remainder. The price of valley gas—that is, the additional quantities over and above basic gas—is 0.85p per therm for all fields. Negotiations for the purchase of gas from Ekofisk and Cod are still in progress.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for this unusually informative Answer, and I should like to ask how he squares that Answer with that given by the noble Earl, Lord Limerick, that no renegotiation had taken place on any of these prices?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the only renegotiation that did take place was with B.P., and that was in 1970.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, that has not been stated: that is all.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is it a fact that the price being paid by the Gas Council is the lowest price being paid for these supplies of gas by any country in Western Europe?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes my Lords; that is my information.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, inasmuch as the Gas Council has a goodish monopoly power, it is not really an extremely creditable or a very good thing that they should pay the lowest prices, is it?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not know what the answer to that question ought to be. These prices are a matter for negotiation between the Gas Board and the producers, and prices are renegotiated provided that the various contracts come to an end, as happened in the case of B.P.

WATER INDUSTRY: PROPOSED RECONSTRUCTION
2.21 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state their timetable for legislation for the reconstruction which they have proposed of the water industry.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER- SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, it is hoped that legislation will be introduced at the earliest possible opportunity. Meanwhile, the remaining consultation papers on the National Water Council, the Amenity Use of Water Space and the reorganisation of the British Waterways Board are being issued this week. I will send the noble Lord copies.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the very long delay, almost amounting to deadlock, on the issue of the consultation papers with regard to the future of land drainage has raised doubts as to whether

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Her Majesty's Government intend to go ahead with legislation in the next Session? Is my noble friend further aware that as there are several other possible solutions as suggested by the Central Advisory Water Committee for the future structure of the water industry, these are now being widely discussed as alternatives to the one that the Government have already suggested? Can my noble friend give us further words of reassurance that the Government really do intend to go ahead now?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, my noble friend will know that I cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech on legislation for the next Session, but on the particular point with which he opened his supplementary question. I can confirm that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food intends to issue a statement very shortly on the future of land drainage.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the delay in settling this matter is having a seriously unsettling effect throughout the whole water industry? And is my noble friend also aware that there is a general wish throughout the whole community to see cleaner rivers and greater supplies of water to meet the needs of the community? A lengthier transition is going to mean a complete standstill in all the plans of the existing authorities. Will my noble friend please take the thought on board that decision is really urgent?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the need for decisions and very early legislation is a view fully shared by my right honourable friend.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, is not the noble Lord aware that in my opinion the water industry has co-operated exceedingly well in the initial discussion stages? Would he not agree that indecision on the part of the Government at the present moment would have a very serious effect upon the general attitude of the water industry?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am very much aware of those facts.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what point of priority this
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legislation might take in next Session's legislation?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I will not be drawn to that extent.

THIRD LONDON AIRPORT: MAPLIN PROJECT
2.24 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement which was made by my honourable friend, Mr. Eldon Griffiths, in another place this morning about the Maplin project for the Third London airport.
"My right honourable friend has already made clear that the nature of this project, its long timescale and the crucial issues of Government policy that it raises, require substantial public sector involvement. The Government have therefore decided to seek powers to establish a Development Authority to undertake the task of land reclamation; secondly, to make land available to the British Airports Authority for the airport and the Port of London Authority for any seaport development that may be approved; thirdly, to promote, in close co-operation with the private sector, such commercial and industrial development as is consistent with the Government's regional policies; and fourthly to act as landlord for the entire complex.
"Maplin will create a need for large-scale urban development in South-East Essex. My right honourable friend intends that this shall be built to the highest environmental standards. The Government propose to designate a substantial area for development by a New Town Development Corporation, working in close collaboration with the local planning authorities. We expect to publish a draft designation Order early next year.
"On runways, our consultation document identified four possible sites—lettered A, B, C and D—from South-West to North-East. Broadly, the further North one goes the less the noise but the greater the cost. We have carefully considered all the representations made about siting. Many have favoured site D mainly on

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grounds that reduction of noise, however small, should override all other considerations. But site D is further offshore, in deeper water, and its extension into the Crouch estuary could complicate the hydraulic aspects of reclamation. It also creates major problems over removing the Shoeburyness military establishment, with serious risks of delay, and it would rule out any option for future access to the airport from the North.
"Site A is strongly advocated by aviation interests on the grounds that it is cheapest, quickest and easiest to develop and causes least difficulty for the military withdrawal. Site A is also the choice of local authorities, North of the Crouch. Having carefully weighed all the evidence, the Government have decided that, within the limits of practicality, environmental considerations must be uppermost. This is why we chose to go to Maplin in the first place. Notwithstanding the additional cost the Government have decided to locate the runways at a Northerly site—Site C. This will have substantially the same environmental advantages as Site D but without its physical difficulties. This location is acceptable to Essex County Council and we consider that it will safeguard the interests of Kent. I should add that the overall noise impact of the airport should be much less than envisaged by the Roskill Commission because of the development of quieter aircraft—a development the Government will do its utmost to foster.
"Detailed work will be put in hand to reclaim enough land for the first two of the four runways for any seaport development, plus land for industrial and commercial development. Further reclamation will be undertaken when needed."
That is the end of the Statement.
2.28 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON LORD SHACKLETON My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the Statement which, as he said, has already been made in another place. It raises so many important issues that if only there were a spare second we should have liked to debate it; but no doubt the Government will be treating us more kindly in another Session.
I should like to ask one or two questions. The choice of Foulness is still a controversial one; that the Government should have chosen the site most rejected by Roskill. I should like to ask the noble Lord, therefore, how the various airlines and the British Airports Authority—and especially the latter—view this? What is the cost of the front loading for the airfield; that is, the capital on which they will have to meet interest charges before they begin to generate any revenue at all? The noble Lord may not have that figure. If he has I should be grateful if he could tell me. Can the noble Lord tell us what will be the total cost? In that connection, it might be helpful if the Government would consider issuing a White Paper to answer the many questions raised by the Statement. The Statement itself has revealed a great deal of careful consideration by the Government before they arrived at this decision. May I also ask (I think it is implicit) whether the Shoeburyness range will now have to move? There was a slight implication that site D would be more difficult, but I take it that the site that has been chosen equally calls for this move.
Finally, while congratulating the Government on what appears to us to be a fairly firm, public interest-orientated statement, may I ask what role private enterprise is going to play? I know that a number of companies have invested some money. Is the railway to be built by British Railways? Can the noble Lord say anything on the communications? I am sorry; I must stop, but there are so many questions. Perhaps I had better wait for the White Paper which I hope the noble Lord is going to give us. And how far have the Government taken into account modern aircraft development which may, by the time this Airport is ready, make the whole place unnecessary?
LORD WADE LORD WADE My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Lord for repeating this Statement, and I will not attempt to compete with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in the number of questions. I note that it is the intention of the Government that the Government should act as landlords for the entire complex, and I presume that that includes the commercial and industrial development referred to in the Statement.
In view of the recent winding up of the Land Commission, I wonder whether this represents some change in Government policy. I recognise that it is extremely difficult to choose a site. As for noise, would the noble Lord agree that wherever this Airport is placed there will be noise. Lastly, the noble Lord said that the detailed work would be put in hand. Can he say how soon it will be put in hand and how long it is likely to take?
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: Before my noble friend replies—
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, there are so many questions I think it would be better if I tried to deal with this batch first. It is difficult to answer the first question of the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, on overall costs. What we were considering here mainly was the comparative costs of the four alternative sites for the runways. The one we have in fact chosen costs £5 million more than the cheapest, site A; in hard reclamation costs it is £5 million more expensive than site A. The least noisy site, site D, would have been £21 million more than site A. The consultation document went into a lot of other costs, but the site reclamation costs are the firmest ones and the ones with which we are chiefly concerned.
The noble Lord asked about movement of military establishments from Shoeburyness. A number of decisions upon this matter have already been taken; the possibility of moving some of the establishments to existing defence establishments at Tam and Kirkcudbright is already under consideration, as is also the possibility of moving others to Spadeadam; and further dispositions are still under discussion. As for service access, the position is that consultants have for some time been working on this problem, both in respect of the road and the rail access, and we hope to have their report by early next year. The prospects of modern aircraft, requiring shorter runways or no runways at all have been borne in mind from the outset. We had full reports on that matter in the Roskill Commission, and they are still being borne in mind, but in our view they do not alter the necessity for this Third London Airport with the first runway coming into operation in 1980. I wonder
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whether the noble Lord, Lord Wade, could remind me of his question.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I asked whether the intention that the Government should act as landlord for the entire complex represented a change of policy on the part of the Government.
LORD SANDFORD: No, my Lords. Because of the particular nature of this exceptionally complex and large-scale operation, we feel it necessary to have a development authority to act as landlord here, and a new town corporation as well, but both of these will draw in private enterprise.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the rail and road communications into London will be functioning by the time the runways are in use, and that we do not follow what has happened at Heathrow, where we are only building an underground railway 20 years after? Can we have an assurance on that point?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, certainly there will be sufficient road access available by the time the first runway comes into operation in 1980, but no doubt there will be further developments after that.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, could my noble friend bear in mind that it is not just communications to the centres of population and London, but intercommunication between the three London airports which is vitally important. Will this matter be studied, because not only will passengers wish to change airports, but spares and technical personnel will have to travel from London Airport to Maplin. I am sure the House will understand that the noble Lord is wise not to give a global figure of costs, because these are liable to escalate over the period of development, but could he tell us what the first tranche of presumably loan capital will be next year, and possibly the second tranche the year after? What is the sort of order of loan capital which the Government are going to make available?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I really do not think it is possible, for the reasons my noble friend indicated, to give that answer yet. For instance, the area for designation of the new town has

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yet to be precisely defined. The consultants have not yet reported on the access, and we have only just taken the decision as to which particular runway the reclamation will have in mind.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, is the Minister aware that he has made a very extensive Statement, and I take it that it covers the country and not just one particular area. What attitude of mind is the Minister for the Environment showing in regard to land that has been cleared by slum clearance within certain areas of the country, and particularly in my own area in County Durham, in reclaiming such land for development purposes, instead of scheduling so many category D villages? Quite an upset has been caused throughout the whole of the county because of such a policy being pursued by the county authority. What powers does the Minister have in regard to that particular situation, and what redress have the people themselves got who are desirous of keeping to their own particular villages? Because these particular sites could be redeveloped for housing accommodation if local authorities were given that opportunity.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am not sure that I immediately see the connection between the noble Lord's question and my Statement, but I will study what he has said and answer him more fully if I can. All I can confirm is that my right honourable friend has been very much concerned with all the environmental considerations involved in this particular proposal. But that is not to say that we are not concerned with the reclamation of derelict land in the County of Durham, which is now proceeding at a greatly increased rate.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, while thanking the Government for making up their minds without undue delay, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that there are many people who will think that the establishment of a development authority and new town corporation is the right decision and that this should be a real public enterprise? Can he also give some consolation to those private firms and consortia that have been preparing plans, and probably assure them that they will get some of the construction and building contracts, or that they will be eligible for them—let us put
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it no higher than that. Is he further aware that while many people would have preferred the most northern site, many of them will feel that site C is the next best thing and that it lacks some of the disadvantages of the northern site, which would have impinged on the estuary of the Crouch? Finally, may I ask when we are likely to get a progress report concerning road and rail communications, because large numbers of people are in a state of uncertainty as to how and whether their homes are to be affected?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am particularly grateful for the noble Lord's welcome for this Statement, especially as he embodies, as it were, the voice of Essex in these matters. I would confirm that there is certainly scope for private enterprise in this project, as indeed my original Statement indicated. I would also confirm that we do regard it as important that the proposals for the road and rail access are worked out and published as soon as possible, and our expectations are that the consultants will be ready early next year.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, while not wishing to prolong this discussion when there is so much business before your Lordships, will the noble Lord, who, understandably, only answered half my questions, consider adopting the usual courtesy of undertaking to write to me; and, more importantly, will the Government publish either the consultation document, whatever that may be, or a White Paper? There are so many unanswered questions, particularly in the area raised by my noble friend Lord Harvey, as regards the cost of transport and the vital need of rapid communication with London.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, certainly I will read the noble Lord's questions and answer them so far as I can. But it is not the position that we have a lot of answers that we can give at this stage and which we have not already given. There are an enormous number of problems still to be considered and further statements will be issued as it becomes possible to add to what I have already said.
BARONESS STOCKS: While very rightly dwelling on the relevance of this

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question of an airport and the development of South-East Essex, will the noble Lord remember that it is extremely relevant to the development of South-West Essex, now in the early stages of devastation? Its relevance is amply demonstrated by the Buchanan Minority Report of the Roskill Commission.
LORD SANDFORD: I well recall the noble Baroness making this important point in an earlier debate and it is an aspect that we have very much in mind.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, may I ask a question? Is land reclamation for agriculture at the Thames estuary to come under a development corporation or have we to wait for the Minister of Agriculture to do this? I understand that land can be reclaimed in the area at about £1,000 an acre, and with the price of silt land to-day at over £700 an acre it seems to me an economic proposition to reclaim a considerable proportion of the Thames estuary.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that may well be so but I think that is rather another question.

HORSE TOTALISATOR AND BETTING LEVY BOARDS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.
NATIONAL DEBT BILL
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
POISONS BILL
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL
2.45 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE):
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 Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [New local government areas in England]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 8, at beginning insert ("For the administration of local government on and after 1st April 1974 ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, and I suggest that it may be of convenience to the Committee if with it we consider Amendment No. 88, which does for Wales what Amendment No.1 does forEngland. These two Amendments have the simple and straightforward virtue of making clear at the beginning the respective parts to which they apply and what the object of the whole part is. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
2.47 p.m.
LORD JACQUES LORD JACQUES moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 5, at end insert—
( "(4A)(a) Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, in any order made under paragraph 1 of the said Schedule 3, the Secretary of State may designate any district to which the order applies as a special district within a non-metropolitan county in respect of which the district council and the county council shall have such functions and attributes as may be provided in the order, being functions and atributes of the council of a metropolitan district and of the council of a metropolitan county respectively under the provisions of this Act (other than sections 195 and 196 thereof) and, in the case of a district so designated within any such county, the said provisions of this Act shall have effect, in accordance with the provisions of the order and subject as may be provided therein, as if the district were a

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metropolitan district and as if, in relation to that district the county were a metropolitan county.
(b) Any such order may contain such incidental, consequential and supplementary provisions as appear necessary or proper for bringing the order into operation and giving full effect thereto.")
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment of principle rather than one of detail. The principle involved is flexibility. The Bill as it stands is extremely inflexible and this Amendment seeks to give the Government authority to act and to do that more flexibility is required. The Amendment by itself does not give additional functions to any local authority; it simply authorises the Secretary of State in circumstances where he thinks fit to give some or all of the metropolitan functions to districts in a non-metropolitan county. It will give to the proposals embodied in the Bill a mere modicum of flexibility. Each of the counties of England has its own physical economy and social geography and consequently if any principles are to be applied to these counties they can be applied only with flexible proposals.
The Government in the White Paper laid down admirable principles, but to apply those principles to the variation of counties we have in England can be done only by proposals in which there is some flexibility. Unfortunately, the proposals embodied in the Bill are extremely inflexible. As I said on Second Reading, they are on the basis that that which is not black must be white. This Amendment seeks to plead with the Government to bear in mind that there are other shades of colour between black and white and to recognise the facts of life. In terms of the Bill a county is either metropolitan or non-metropolitan; there can be nothing in between. We have counties in England which are graded as non-metropolitan and which have at their perimeter huge urban areas with greater populations than some of the metropolitan districts which will be created elsewhere; they have also needs and capacities which are quite different from the rest of the county and which should have some or all of the functions of a metropolitan district. Furthermore, in these particular counties the population is big enough to allow metropolitan functions to be given to these huge urban areas and still leave in the rest of the
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county a population which is far greater than the minimum laid down by the Government for metropolitan functions.
The two examples that stand out are Devon and Hampshire. In the case of Devon we have the largest administrative county; it has a population of 900,000. The principal feature of the geography of the county is the high land mass of Dartmoor National Park. This is a traditional barrier to communications and the principal roads and railways have to go around this land. Indeed, the problem of Devon was put by the Devon County Council itself. In its written evidence to the Royal Commission, the Devon County Council listed the principal difficulties affecting the administration of the county, and first among those difficulties was placed the problems of distances and communications. Here I quote:
"Devon is more than ordinarily expensive to administer not only because of the mileage of the roads, but also owing to the time taken in travelling from the centre to the outlying areas. In normal travelling conditions, considerable areas of the county are more than one hour's travelling time from Exeter but in the holiday season congestion on the roads involves much longer times. The time wasted is impossible to quantify, but it is a very real factor in increasing the cost of administration. Moreover, it is responsible for a good deal of inconvenience to members of the county council who must travel frequently to Exeter to committee meetings where all the major decisions are taken."
Those are not the words of the County Borough of Plymouth. Those are the words of the Devon County Council, the people on the spot who have to administer the county.
The Royal Commission, having received those representations, put forward proposals which would have made modifications in Devon and would have made the administration easier. But the proposals for Devon embodied in this Bill completely ignore those problems. In fact, they add to them by bringing within the county the county borough of Plymouth which is in the extreme South-West. Plymouth is 43 miles from Exeter. It is already bigger than some of the new education authorities which are being created in metropolitan counties. Its population at the present time is 240,000, but it is clear that within a very short time it will exceed 250,000, which is the minimum laid down by the Government for education and social services. Furthermore, if Plymouth had metropolitan

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functions the rest of the county would have a population of 660,000 which I should have thought was an admirable figure for the administration of education and social services. We hope, therefore, that the Government will have another look at the position of Plymouth and we believe that the Amendment which is before the Committee is perhaps the best way of having that further look.
The other example which I want to give is the county of Hampshire. Hampshire already has a population of 1,500,000 and, if the structure plans which have been accepted by the Government are put into effect, the population of Hampshire will be two million before the end of the century. The Government have themselves said that one million should be the maximum for education and social services. Here we have a county which already has 1,500,000 and is fast climbing to two million. In the extreme south of Hampshire there are two huge urban areas; one is Portsmouth and the other is Southampton. In the case of Portsmouth, there is a population of 200,000. It is 27 miles from Winchester, the county town. There is no through train service between Portsmouth and Winchester. There is not even a through bus service between Portsmouth and Winchester. The county councillors from Portsmouth will have the same kind of inconvenience as the Devon county councillors spoke of in their submissions to the Royal Commission. Southampton is in much the same position, with a population of 214,000. If both of these cities, which have a long history and experience of education, were to keep education and social services by having metropolitan functions, the rest of the county would still have a population in excess of one million; in other words, in excess of the Government's maximum figure. So it cannot be said that the giving of metropolitan functions to these two urban areas would in any way impair the efficiency of the services in the rest of the county.
We know the Government's defence. We have read the reports of the debates in the other place and we know the reply which was given from the Government Front Bench during the Second Reading debate. I should like to place that defence before the Committee and to question it. The Government raised two issues
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in their defence. They said, first, that if metropolitan functions go to places like Plymouth, Portsmouth and Southampton, then Nottingham, Leicester, Hull and Bristol will want them and will be equally entitled to them. That is not so. Nottingham and Leicester are the cores, the very centres, of existing counties. Nobody has ever suggested that the core of the county, where the county administration is should have the education and social services functions devolving upon the districts. That would be an outrageous suggestion. Since the county headquarters are established in an urban area, then it is appropriate that the county should carry out those functions. In the case of Hull and Bristol, the Government themselves are proposing entirely new counties—Humberside and Avon. Hull will be the centre of Humberside and Bristol will be the centre of Avon. So that none of these core towns has anything like the claim of the three towns in Hampshire and Devon which are on the perimeter of the county, divorced from the county town.
The second argument which was used from the Government Front Bench was that the proposals which we are now making would divide the districts in non-metropolitan areas into first-class and second-class districts. I suggest that that is a misuse of words. The proposal is not first-class and second-class. The proposal is each according to his need and capacity. Nobody can suggest that the needs and the capacity of a rural area of 40,000 population are identical with those of an urban area of 250,000. An urban area of 250,000 is an entirely different matter. It has a need for the organisation of education and social services within the urban area to meet the problems of that urban area. It has a capacity to carry on these services efficiently, because it has the population with which to do that. Consequently, I say to the Government that the arguments which have been used so far do not hold water so far as this Amendment is concerned.
I am one of those who would like to see local government, once it has been reorganised, with us without change for a long time. It is not something which we should be meddling with day by day. I would therefore plead with the Government, where there are serious genuine anomalies, to be prepared to have a look

1113
at them. If they have a look at them and do something to put them right, then reorganisation will be permanent or, at least, will last for a very long time. But if they ignore the feeling of injustice among large urban populations, then they will leave behind a feeling not only of injustice, but of dissatisfaction which will lead to considerable insistence that further changes should be made. I would venture to say that in some of the urban areas. particularly the three I have mentioned, the questions which will be put to future candidates for the other place, regardless of Party, will be: Where do you stand on local government? Do you stand for a large area like this, which is on the perimeter of the county, having metropolitan powers, or not? I suggest that any candidate who does not fall in with the wishes of the local people is unlikely to become the candidate. Feeling is so strong. I would ask the Government: Please have a look at this question and see what you can do. If you cannot accept this Amendment, then at some later stage let us have an Amendment which is acceptable. I beg to move.
3.0 p.m.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: The case for special treatment of a number of big county boroughs, and especially Plymouth. Southampton and Portsmouth, was powerfully stated by a number of noble Lords on the first day of the Second Reading debate of this Bill, the Report of which unfortunately has not yet been printed. That case has now again been powerfully deployed by my noble friend Lord Jaques. This modest Amendment seeks to permit a non-metropolitan county to hand over some of its functions to a district as though that district were a metropolitan district. This is already the case for districts where the county is a metropolitan county. Quite recently I received a letter from 33 chief education officers of metropolitan districts who are very happy that education has been left in their hands and who are able to show that their own conduct of education is as efficient as has been the case in the cities of Portsmouth, Southampton and Plymouth, all of which are to lose their control of education.
I have had a letter from the secretary and former chairman of the National Association of Divisional Executives who used to control private education. He
1114
himself is a former chief education officer for Gosport, and he writes:
"It is most unsatisfactory that the whole of the administration of the education service should be concentrated in the new super-large county authorities, especially where these include major cities which hitherto, as county boroughs, have controlled their own education service".
He suggests that whereas there is perhaps a case for centralising some aspects of further education, the day-to-day administration of education should be in the hands of local people, nearer to the people. As the Bill stands, Clause 100(9) prevents education from passing into the hands of the three authorities which my noble friend has mentioned, and our modest Amendment would give the Minister power to change that.
Surely everybody, in theory at any rate, wants the new districts to be bodies with enough worthwhile functions and control of expenditure at local level to be really effective. But in a simple analysis of one county borough, Plymouth, the town clerk has shown that the present Bill, if it goes through unamended, will result in Plymouth having control of only 14 per cent. of the money spent in that city. The rest will be controlled by the new county, on the council of which Plymouth will have a permanent built-in minority; and this is roughly true of Southampton and of Portsmouth. The town clerk of Winchester, who has some 24 years of experience in office, writes with pride about what his city has done in local government, and in a letter to me expresses the fear, which I voiced in the Second Reading debate on behalf of the Associations of Rural Districts, Urban Districts and Municipal Corporations, that the taking away of functions from local authorities, the narrowing of functions of local authorities, will
"have most critical importance to the quality of those who serve on the future council. Parliament should realise that if the details of a local function are entrusted to a county council, this takes away from a local body with locally elected members something about which the county cannot have the local knowledge, time or opportunity to deal with adequately".
If these are the fears of professional local government men who have given their lives to the service, the Government should look sympathetically on attempts to satisfy their desires for the retention of a few more of the functions which the

1115
Bill proposes to take from them. No two counties are alike. In the allocation of functions, the Government and the counties would do well to temper the wind to the shorn lamb: consider each county separately, and consider especially the case of the counties which contain massive county boroughs. By this Amendment, the Minister would be able to treat at least some non-metropolitan districts more generously by retaining for some of the county boroughs some of the functions—not necessarily all—that are being taken away. That can be done by this Amendment, under which he could make certain districts what we call special districts and give them the powers that they would have if their county had been a metropolitan county. If the Bill has one fault, it is that it is too rigid, it is too mathematical. There are indeed special cases. On Second Reading we attempted to show that Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth were just such special cases and ought to be allowed to retain at least some of the functions which they have carried out so splendidly up to the moment. I hope that the Minister will accept this reasonable Amendment, and that, having accepted it, he will implement it with wisdom, after taking the advice of the local authorities who are concerned in it.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I sincerely hope that my noble friend will not agree to this Amendment. Under this Bill my own county of East Sussex is to be incorporated with three county boroughs. If they all claimed this metropolitan status and all got it, we should be right back to square one. The noble Lord says, "Of course, it does not mean that each case will have to be acceded to by the Minister ". I cannot believe that the Minister can be quite so arbitrary as the speakers have been suggesting. They have mentioned Plymouth, Southampton and Portsmouth. I imagine that all major county boroughs would immediately put in for this treatment; they would want to remain as all-purpose authorities. I think it is putting far too much on to the Minister to suggest that he should exercise this power.
But I am really somewhat concerned as to whether something like this cannot happen under the Bill as drafted. I apologise for referring to later clauses,
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but I think that some of the remarks that have been made have taken no account whatever of these clauses. Clause 47 expressly states that, after a review, the Commission may recommend to the Secretary of State
"the conversion of a metropolitan into a non-metropolitan county"
and vice versa, and, in consequence thereof, similar treatment in the case of metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Clause 48 seems to provide that such reviews by the Commission must take place after ten years. I really was amazed that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, paid no attention to this clause. Such a review will take place after ten years. After all this examination and re-examination, is it too much to ask that for ten years we should have the status quo?
But, then, Clause 49 seems to give the Minister power to alter the timing of such reviews. In all this Part of the Bill they refer (if I may use the word in the absence of my noble friend Lord Conesford) to the "metropolitanisation" or "de-metropolitanisation" of large areas at least the size of a county. It would be quite unreasonable to expect my noble friend to explain these clauses in detail at the present stage, but I shall be quite satisfied if my noble friend can assure me that the object sought by Lord Jacques and Lord Maybray-King cannot be met under these clauses.
BARONESS BACON: I find myself rather in a dilemma about this Amendment, because it might appear to be contrary to the view I put forward last week during the Second Reading debate. On that occasion I argued that in the metropolitan counties education ought to be the responsibility of the metropolitan county rather than of the districts, some of which were much too small and much too poor to carry out the functions of a local education authority. I am in this dilemma only because the Government are speaking with two voices on this Bill. The population of the new Hampshire will be fewer even now, without the increase referred to by the noble Lord, than the population of the new South Yorkshire metropolitan county. Yet whereas in South Yorkshire the education functions are to be given to small district councils in Hampshire education is to be the responsibility of the county. I should like to know, because it is germane to

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this discussion, what the Government propose to do about Amendment No. 103 in the names of my noble friends and myself in which we seek to put the responsibility for education in the metropolitan counties in the control of the counties rather than the districts. If as I fear, the Government are going to resist that Amendment, I do not see how they can resist the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, because it is absolutely contradictory to say on the one hand that we must have an education authority with a population of 1½ million, and on the other hand that fewer than 1½ million is much too big an area to be an education authority.
I think that where the Bill falls down is over this very artificial distinction between metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The Government are in a mess and a muddle about this. They argue one thing on one group of Amendments and another thing on another group. We should have clearly from the Government what is in their minds, because it is very difficult for us to make up our minds unless we know what is in the minds of the Government about education.
3.12 p.m.
LORD FOOT: I should like to say a few words in support of this Amendment, and they will be few because of the admirable and comprehensive way in which the Amendment was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King. I want to support the principle of the Amendment which I understand to be that where you have an area with exceptional circumstances and conditions, the best and most sensible thing to do when trying to restructure the local government system is to have regard to those exceptional circumstances and try to meet them, rather than to try to avoid them. Subject to that, you must try to meet the special circumstances without breaking up the structure of the form on which you have decided.
The second reason why I support the Amendment is because, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques explained, if the City of Plymouth were designated under the Amendment as having metropolitan district powers it would go, not all the way, but a long way, to meeting those
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exceptional conditions which exist in the South-West. I do not speak for the City of Plymouth because it is my native town and the place where I have spent most of my life. I do not rise in order to pursue a sort of battle with the rest of Devon or the people of Exeter. I am concerned solely with trying to ensure that we get the best system of local government in the South-West that this Bill can provide.
I studied the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, when he wound up the Second Reading debate, and I very much regretted the brusque way and, apparently, the unqualified way, in which he dismissed this suggestion. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has dealt with the argument that if you designated Plymouth, Southampton and Portsmouth in this way you would have to go on to designate other places like Bristol, Nottingham and Hull. But the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, used a second argument. He said:
"More importantly, it—"
that is the proposal—
"would mean that we should be on the way towards re-creating the present patchwork of counties and county boroughs which the Bill aims to abolish."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1/8/72; col. 253.]
That is much the same sort of argument as I understand was being advanced by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, when he spoke about being back to square one. But I submit that that argument is fallacious. The suggestion is that if you give metropolitan district status and functions to two or three, or four or five, different large urban areas, you would be on the way to re-creating what were formerly county boroughs. But the county borough is an animal of an entirely different kind to the district authority with metropolitan district powers, because the county borough is an all-purpose authority and exercises all the functions of local government within its area. If this proposal were accepted, admittedly, you would have two different kinds of district authority, but it would still be a two-tier system. It would still be county and district authority working side by side. The only change would be that you had passed some functions from the county down to the district.
I hope that the Government have not made up their minds to give us a final,

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"No". This proposal has been put forward by people who are very experienced in local government. It has great authority behind it. It is not a proposal that favourable treatment should be given to one particular place or another; it has nothing to do with that. It is a genuine attempt where it is required to make special provision for those exceptional cases.
3.19 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: With great respect to the distinguished mover of this Amendment I feel that it would be a great mistake if the Committee accepted it. I say that the more sadly because of the lucidity, moderation and restraint with which the mover and his supporters have made their case. But if we were to adopt the Amendment, I believe that we should be in danger of throwing the reformed pattern of local government back again into a condition of uncertainty, instability and confusion. In fact, we should be introducing yet another type of intermediate authority. I am one who feels that you can pay too high a price for a tidy system. Of course, the system we are now considering is not all that tidy. There is provision at the top for ad hoc regional bodies; then we have metropolitan counties, metropolitan districts and the counties and the districts and the parishes. In this case we should be introducing two different types of district within a county. I think that one of the aims of this reform is to bring town and country together and another is to make it as easy as possible for the ordinary citizen to understand which authority does what and to whom he should go. Imagine the confusion in a county with two different types of districts, with two different types of functions! What a source of jealousy, bitterness possibly, and, anyway, confusion of responsibility and of administration I think that there would be! I think the public would find it more difficult to understand such a system than the system described in the Bill.
Then there is another aspect. I think the effect of the Amendment is to give the Secretary of State a power really to create such hybrid authorities. This amounts to giving the Secretary of State power, on his own initiative, to carry out
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further local government reform. I am sure that Parliament would not wish to give the Secretary of State as wide a duty and responsibility as that, and I do not believe the Secretary of State would wish for this kind of power. In spite of the able way in which this case was put forward (and at first sight there are some reasonable aspects of it) I am sure the Committee must not contemplate for a moment approving the Amendment or it will be bound to add confusion to the whole objects set out in the Bill. I believe it would introduce an element of disastrous confusion for the future.
3.22 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: It may be of help to the Committee that I attempt to give the reasons why I support this Amendment. I see it as a means whereby the Government can extract themselves from a difficulty in which I believe they will find themselves in a very short time; because as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said on Second Reading:
"The spreading dissatisfaction with over-centralised authority offers local government a most serious challenge."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 165; 1/8/72]
Indeed, if the proposals embodied in the Bill remain as they are for Hampshire, such over-centralisation will happen.
Those who support this Amendment have attempted to put before the Committee the relevant figures of an authority existing now with a population of 1¼ million rising to 2 million and so on. Were the educational and social service functions to remain with the county council, as proposed in the Bill, such over-centralisation would occur. Already in Hampshire the county council, because they are a realistic authority, have recognised that the existing population (which is already above the upper limit of one million suggested by the Government and in the Redcliffe-Maud proposal) will prove to be too difficult. How it would be with 2 million people remains to be seen. The county authority have already suggested that decentralisation of some of the functions will have to take place. Notwithstanding the fact that the agency agreement cannot apply to the education and social services, they will probably seek some such kind of appointment as, for example, a district education officer. A district education officer looking after,

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say, Portsmouth or Southampton, already with a satisfactory educational set-up, will merely represent a return to the situation envisaged by Lord Aberdare. I will quote what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said in his reply, to which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, referred. He said:
"More importantly, it would mean that we should be on the way towards re-creating the present patchwork of counties and county boroughs…"(col, 253.).
In effect, if as the counties have suggested, there is a decentralisation, one is returning not to the existing patchwork but to a patchwork which is vastly inferior because it has no authority or responsibility.
The noble Viscount, Lord Gage, urged the Committee to reject this proposal because he said it sought to alter the status. It does not do that at all. All it attempts to do is to provide, long before the 10 to 15 year period of review, an opportunity for the Government to reallocate functions where they see fit; in other words, it attempts to be something of a rubbing block in between that which is proposed now and has yet to be proved and the review period 10 to 15 years hence. The noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, said that she found herself in something of a dilemma. I hope that she will find that dilemma removed, because she herself put her finger on the point, which is: why should one authority have an educational and social service responsibility with vastly fewer people to look after and a vastly lower income through rate and grant than that which we are suggesting could pertain to certain district councils within Hampshire?
With great respect I will suggest that the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, also has got wrong the intention of the proposers of the Amendment. We do not wish to create any second or special type of district council. We are very well aware of what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said on Second Reading—albeit Lord Foot said somewhat brusquely (with which I must agree) that we will not have Southampton or Portsmouth as a special circumstance. We are not asking for this. We are suggesting that this Amendment provides a way out of the situation in which the natural abrasions that are going to come about over the next few years between these large urban
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populations, well able to take care of these activities will embarrass the Government.
3.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCK: This is a peculiar Amendment. Before any of the four noble Lords who gave their names to it rise up in wrath, may I say that if you look up the definition you will find that there are four meanings to "peculiar". I do not propose to disclose which one I am using or whether I am using all four. I am reminded of His Majesty of blessed memory King George III who, for the benefit of any old Harrovians present, reigned from 1760 to 1820 and who never understood how the apple got inside the dumpling. This Amendment is nothing but a Devon dumpling. There is the noble Lord, Lord Foot, encased by the three musketeers from Hampshire. It is a broadly-based Amendment, but even with my low intelligence it did not take me long to realise that we should have Plymouth and Portsmouth and Southampton brought up. Devonshire, that beautiful county! I have spent my last 15 annual holidays there and I hope to spend the sixteenth—but do not tell the Whips! In spite of that, I should not have the impertinence to pronounce on Devonshire's internal affairs.
With Hampshire, where I have virtually lived and worked all my life, it is another matter. May I quote one short passage from the Government White Paper of February, 1971? Paragraph 6 says:
"The division between counties and county boroughs has prolonged an artificial separation of big towns from their surrounding hinterlands for functions whose planning and administration need to embrace both town and country."
In my opinion that is an excellent intention. It gets away from the "we" and "they" attitude which we have all met in organisations, whether councils or charities, or whatever. I was rather surprised and very sad to see the names of the three noble Lords from Hampshire who are moving this Amendment, because with their background I would have expected them to be three of the most helpful and co-operative in joining up town and country. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is affectionately known as "King of the Co-ops". Then there is the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who had his early

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education—what I believe people in the Department call the formative years—at Winchester. There is also my dear friend the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, who happens to be both an honorary county alderman and a Freeman of Southampton. They decided that way, and that is the way they must have it.
Nobody has better experience of the ramifications of local government than the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I have been looking round the Chamber to-day and unless the noble Baroness is sitting among the right reverend Prelates she is not here. If she thinks I have gone too far she can always sue me! She, albeit from the safe neutrality of Wiltshire, wrote a powerful letter to The Times last April in which she said—or The Times said she said:
"The straightforward solution is to recognise the reality of Hampshire's social geography and to split it into two."
That is bad enough, but we have gone further since then. There have been suggestions to split the county into three. In another place there was also a proposal that there should be a quartet of metropolitans. It sounds rather like a musical performance by the Greek Church! There was another proposal to make it a hybrid county. Referring again to my old friend the Oxford dictionary, the first definition of "hybrid" is that it is
"the progeny of a tame sow and a wild boar".
That would be interesting, but hardly trustworthy.
In her letter the noble Baroness also said:
"The county council cannot be expected to give to the metropolitan problems of Portsmouth and Southampton the concentrated attention they need."
In the first place I am assured that under the present Bill all the education and social services departments at Portsmouth and Southampton would be retained as a complete entity. Secondly, it is a great mistake to think that county councils consist of a lot of old rustic cabbages. I have never been a county councillor myself so I can say what I think. It may be of interest to your Lordships to know the position of the chief officials of the county council in Hampshire. The clerk was previously deputy town clerk of Wolverhampton which has a popula-
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tion of around 300,000, far bigger than that of either Portsmouth or Southampton; the county medical officer and the county architect have previous experience at Bournemouth; and the director of social services came from Coventry, whose population is well over 300,000.
I have here (and any noble Lord or Baroness may read them with pleasure) signed letters from the Mayor of Gosport, Fareham Urban District Council, Havant and Waterloo Urban District Council, Droxford Rural District Council, Peters-field Rural District Council, the Hampshire Association of Parish Councils—in a minute I shall be going too fast for the Official Reporter !—Basingstoke Borough Council, and the County Councils Association, all protesting against metropolitan status being introduced into Hampshire. It really is ridiculous to think that town and country cannot work together for the benefit of each other. One has seen it done. May I remind your Lordships that the captain of Southampton Football Club was discovered in a Winchester boys' club, which shows a certain amount of co-operation between town and country. Already, in order to make that beautiful county of Dorset viable, we are being asked to sacrifice such valuable assets as the long port and Bournemouth Symphony stretches of sandy beaches, Hum Air-Orchestra. Further than that we cannot go. Metropolitan proposals would leave the county with a population of less than half a million and an area bigger than any metropolitan county.
Here may I apologise for my voice. Curiously enough, I began to lose it last Monday week at a meeting in Southamptin. Whether it caught me by accident or design perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, would be able to answer. To return to the particular. this Amendment in the first place would give the Secretary of State for the time being the biggest headache he had ever experienced, and no metropolitan county would ever know where it stood. I have to apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Malmesbury. He intended to be here to-day, but unfortunately he had a bad attack of laryngitis and a touch of pneumonia. However, I told him that I would tell your Lordships that he agrees with every word I say. It seems to me that, with my noble friend and the noble

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Baroness, Lady Sharp, I shall be in the courts for some time to come!
I sincerely trust that Her Majesty's Government will resist this Amendment. I do not have any clue as to which way they will turn. Should the Amendment be pressed to a Division I ask your Lordships to register an overwhelming vote against it. By so doing you would in the first place prevent the rape of Hampshire and, secondly, you would give Hampshire (and incidentally other non-metropolitan counties) opportunities, which I am sure will be seized, to show the whole country how urban and rural areas can work together for the benefit of both.
3.37 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: Perhaps I should make it plain that, so far as these territorial matters are concerned, we on the Front Bench on this side would propose for the most part to remain neutral. We regard them as private wars between the people concerned and Members of the Government Front Bench. But this particular Amendment raises a matter of principle and it is appropriate to say a word about it. It is a very difficult suggestion, although I have the utmost sympathy with the arguments put forward by those noble Lords who support the Amendment. One can fully understand that people of such experience and standing would not have put forward any such Amendment had they not been concerned with very genuine difficulties.
Frankly, I think the Government have failed to face the genuine difficulties in all the areas which are touched by this Amendment. I am quite sure that one of the reasons for such dissatisfaction was the one emphasised by my noble friend Lady Bacon. Had the Government done what we have so strongly supported—namely, left the education functions with the metropolitan counties rather than the metropolitan districts—my noble friend Lord Maybray-King would have felt a good deal less strongly than, quite plainly, he does in the circumstances. I can very well understand Portsmouth, Plymouth and Southampton, when they see other areas exercising the full powers which they have been given, saying, "If they can, why can't we?" Therefore I think the Government have made difficulties for themselves by giving way and putting the education responsibilities
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upon the metropolitan districts rather than the counties. Had they remained in the metropolitan counties, then this natural sense of grievance of the three great cities that have been discussed would not have been there. There is a later Amendment upon this, and if the Government would accept that Amendment, and go back to putting the education responsibility on the metropolitan counties, certainly the edge would be taken from the grievance which is now affecting the cities concerned.
As I think many of your Lordships know, on our side of the Committee we have broadly said that where Hampshire is concerned we support the metropolitan county in South Hampshire. Again, if that had been accepted, it would have removed the grievances of both Portsmouth and Southampton, because then they would have been metropolitan districts within a metropolitan county. I do not want to rehearse all the arguments at this stage; I just point out to the Government that if they had looked at this matter more realistically than I think they have done, they would have removed the grievances of two of the three cities which are mostly concerned. I feel that the Government have got themselves in a position where people have felt constrained to put forward proposals which frankly, as a matter of principle, I think are dubious. I think this idea of having special metropolitan district powers within a non-metropolitan county, as the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and others have pointed out, would add greatly to the complexity of things. Therefore, with the utmost reluctance—though in this particular Bill I think everybody judges for himself or herself—I do not feel that we can officially support this Amendment. What I have said would not of course meet the particular problems of Plymouth. I will content myself with saying, as I said on Second Reading, that if the Government had been prepared to do for Plymouth what they have done for Cardiff, they would have heard a great deal less about Plymouth in the course of our debates.
I would sincerely ask the Government to think again on the main points of the place of education in relation to the metropolitan counties, and also the position in South Hampshire, because it seems to me that it is only realistic to

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suppose that when the review comes in ten years' time there will then be no doubt about South Hampshire, which is one of the most rapidly developing areas in the Kingdom. Is it really worth while sticking out now and saying, "We will not anticipate the review ten years hence", setting up a system of local government which I think none of us can realistically suppose will last more than ten years, and then having to transmogrify it? Would it not be better, even if it means eating a little humble pie, to say now that this is, on balance, the best thing to do? I have suggested various ways in which the Government might extricate themselves, but with great reluctance we are unable to feel that this is an entirely satisfactory Amendment.
3.44 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: Perhaps it would be convenient if I were to speak at this time. Both the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who proposed the Amendment in eloquent terms, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, put the point that this is a matter of principle which we are now discussing, and it is on that basis that I am afraid we do not see our way to accept the Amendment. And I think the noble Baroness indicated that, given the facts as they are, she could not support this Amendment either. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has explained the effect of his Amendment, which is to allow the Secretary of State to provide by Order for districts with metropolitan district powers to be created within a non-metropolitan county. I agree with him and other noble Lords who have spoken that this has a certain initial attraction on the grounds of flexibility; and it certainly would meet the wishes of a great many former county boroughs, who would be only too anxious to retain the powers that they have at the moment as all-purpose authorities. But we cannot accept it on the grounds of principle, and I will explain that a little more fully. Before doing so, I would say that I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, thought that I was brusque on Second Reading. Perhaps they will recall that we were a litle pushed for time at that moment, with another important debate to follow, and I apologised at the time for having to be rather rushed in my winding-up speech.
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In our White Paper on Local Government Reorganisation we defined the criterion on which we suggested the metropolitan county should be established. This was that it should be divisible into districts, all of which are populous and compact. That, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, will know well, was the reason why in another place we could not accept metropolitan county status for Hampshire. For the rest of England, and for all of Wales, we intend by this Bill to establish counties which will consist of a reasonable balance of urban and rural areas. I suggest to your Lordships that to accept this Amendment would be to fall between two stools. To create metropolitan districts in a non-metropolitan county would undermine the whole principle of the Bill, and would result in a reversion to the division between town and country which has bedevilled our local government in the past. It would completely upset the delicate balance of functions, of which my noble friend Lord Amory spoke eloquently on Second Reading, and of which he has spoken eloquently to-day.
We have high hopes—I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lord Monck—of the new counties which are coming into being under this Bill. They will consist of a mixture of town and country, and they will be able to plan their services to balance the needs of both town and country. It would destroy this concept from the very start if certain districts within the county were to have special powers similar to those of a metropolitan district, while others did not. I am sure that it would be undesirable from the point of view of the organisation of social services; and certainly it would have equally unfortunate consequences for the matching health services which we hope to organise on a similar territorial basis in 1974.
So far as education authorities are concerned, which were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, our fundamental principle has been that these should consist of a minimum population of a quarter of a million wherever possible. Therefore our position has been completely consistent throughout: that most of the metropolitan districts have populations of this order, and so do the counties, but the non-metropolitan districts in most cases do not. I think it is

1129
wrong to suggest that if one were to allow certain cities such as those mentioned—Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth—to have these special powers, we could successfully draw the line when being approached by numerous other cities and large towns. Why should those other cities and large towns not retain their powers? Why should we single out three cities more than others? I am sure that this is an unrealistic suggestion, and that what would happen if we were to accept this Amendment is that a great many other towns and cities would ask for the same privileges. I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friends Lord Amory and Lord Gage on that point.
May I take up one point that my noble friend Lord Gage made on the effect of Clauses 47, 48 and 49? These clauses allow the Local Government Commission to review the situation in the future and they also allow for reviews normally to take place between 10 and 15 years after April 1, 1974. This surely is the way to achieve the flexibility that noble Lords have been asking for. Here is provision whereby new arrangements can be made for non-metropolitan counties to be converted into metropolitan counties, and vice versa. The one thing that is not possible under Clause 47—and I should like to make this absolutely clear to my noble friend—is to do what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, wants to do; in other words, to create metropolitan districts within a non-metropolitan county. The noble Lord referred to Clause 47(1)(d) where he quoted the words,
"…conversion of a metropolitan into a non-metropolitan district",
but this is consequential upon the words,
"the conversion of a metropolitan into a non-metropolitan county"
and vice versa. So this provision gives flexibility but does not give the powers that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is seeking in this Amendment.
May I try to illustrate in a little more detail the case of Hampshire, which has been specifically mentioned? It is here that the difficulties emerge rather more clearly. I assume that those who are seeking metropolitan district status for Southampton and Portsmouth are not proposing that they should retain the present boundaries: that would simply be to re-create them as county boroughs, as
1130
they are at present, and we know the difficulties of that. I imagine that what they want to do is to create two metropolitan districts in South Hampshire, one based on Southampton and the other on Portsmouth. In the first place, this would be strongly resisted by all the other urban authorities in Hampshire, as my noble friend Lord Monck made perfectly plain. Moreover, it would create a very unbalanced county with two very large districts in the South containing the bulk of the population and running their own education and social services, and perhaps four or five non-metropolitan districts, smaller, poorer and dependent for their services on a county, the southern part of which had a majority on the council.
If one thinks, for example, of education, you would have a situation where there would be county councillors elected from the Portsmouth and Southampton areas who would thereby become responsible for education in the North of the county though not in their own districts, where their own district councils would be responsible. This would not be very happily accepted by those who live in the North of the county. I suggest to my noble friend Lord Lucas that this type of organisation would lead to far more abrasions than what we are suggesting. In the words of my noble friend Lord Amory, I think it would result in "an organisational nightmare" if we accepted this Amendment: it would destroy the fundamental basis of the county and district organisation and the division of functions between them, on which the whole of this Bill is based. I would strongly urge your Lordships not to accept this Amendment, if the noble Lord wishes to press it.
LORD JACQUES: All kinds of things have been introduced into this debate which have little to do with the Amendment. At one stage I thought we were being entertained after dinner until I looked at the clock. Even the Minister in his reply has raised questions which have nothing to do with the Amendment. For example, the question of boundaries has not been raised. In this Amendment we have not raised the question of boundaries; and so far as educational administration is concerned, this was a problem which had to be faced in London when there was a reorganisation there. If I may say so, it was more

1131
difficult to get over in that case than it would be in Hampshire; so I do not think there would be any difficulty in getting over the administrative problems. It was also suggested that the Amendment tried to re-create the all-purpose county boroughs. That is not so. Nobody has ever mentioned the all-purpose authority—and certainly the Amendment does not mention it. The second-tier principle has been reluctantly accepted. I believe that the Bill ignores the geographical facts, and what we are trying to do with this Amendment is to look at those geographical facts. I should like to ask the Minister whether the Government recognise that South Hampshire and South Devon, and in particular the Plymouth area, present special problems,
whether they have any other plans for dealing with them or whether the Bill is the end of the matter.
LORD ABERDARE: I quite agree that these are very difficult problems, but we have confidence that the new Hampshire County Council will take account of those difficult problems and will be able to solve them.
LORD JACQUES: In other words the Bill is the last word. In that case, regardless of the result, I shall divide the Committee.
3.57 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
The Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 134.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Henderson, L.

Portsmouth, L. Bp.

Arwyn, L.

Hereford, L. Bp.

Shinwell, L.

Avebury, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Slater, L.

Blyton, L.

Hylton, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Brockway, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Stow Hill, L.

Burntwood, L.

Lindsay of Birker, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Chorley, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Crook, L.

Loudoun, C.

Tanlaw, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

McLeavy, L.

Wade, L.

Foot, L. [Teller.]

Maelor, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Gloucester, L. Bp.

Maybray-King, L.

Hale, L.

Peddie, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Hall, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Davidson, V.

Hanworth, V.

Abinger, L.

de Clifford, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Hayter, L.

Albemarle, E.

Digby, L.

Headfort, M.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

Helsby, L.

Amory, V.

Dundee, E.

Hemingford, L.

Balfour, E.

Ebbisham, L.

Hodson, L.

Belstead, L.

Eccles, V.

Hood, V.

Berkeley, Bs.

Effingham, E.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Bethell, L.

Elles, Bs.

Howe, E.

Blackford, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Hunt, L.

Bourne, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Essex, E.

Ironside, L.

Boyle of Handsworth, L.

Falmouth, V.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Brentford, V.

Faringdon, L.

Kemsley, V.

Bridgeman, V.

Ferrers, E.

Kinnoull, E.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Fortescue, E.

Latymer, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Gage, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Burnham, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Leatherland, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Garner, L.

Lee of Asheridge, Bs.

Colville of Culross, V.

Goschen, V.

Limerick, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Gowrie, E.

Long, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Greenway, L.

Lothian, M.

Cowley, E.

Gridley, L.

Macleod of Borve, Bs.

Craigavon, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L

Cranbrook, E.

Grimthorpe, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Crathorne, L.

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

Mar, E.

Crawshaw, L.

Merrivale, L.

Daventry, V.

Hankey, L.

Middleton, L.

Milverton, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Sudeley, L.

Monck, V.

Reigate, L.

Swansea, L.

Montague of Beaulieu, L.

Rennell, L.

Swaythling, L.

Morrison, L.

Ridley, V.

Thomas, L.

Mottistone, L.

Roberthall, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Rochester, Bp.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Vernon, L.

Moyne, L.

St. Just, L.

Vivian, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Northchurch, Bs.

Sandford, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Sandys, L.

Ward of Whitley, W.

Ogmore, L.

Selborne, E.

Watkins, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Selkirk, E.

Wellington, D.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Wigram, L.

Oxford and Asquith, E.

Strang, L.

Wolverton, L.

Platt, L.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Young, Bs.

Rankeillour, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): Before I call Amendment No. 3 I should point out to the Committee that if this Amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 4.
4.5 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 8, leave out subsections (6) to (8) and insert—
("(6) On and after 1st April 1974 every district shall consist of one or more areas to be known as communities which shall be established in accordance with the following paragraphs:

(a) the area of each borough existing immediately before that date shall on that date become a community of the district in which it is comprised and shall be known by the same name as the borough's;

(b) the area of each urban district then existing which is wholly comprised in a district shall on that date become a community of that district and shall be known by the same name as the urban district's;

(c) the area of each rural parish then existing shall on that date become a community of the district in which it is comprised and shall be known by the same name as the parish's;

(d) in the areas of such boroughs and urban districts which, on and after 1st April 1974, are comprised in more than one county or more than one district there shall be established separate communities for those parts falling into each county or district;

(e) in the areas of those rural parishes which are in existence immediately prior to 1st April 1974 and are divided according to Part IV of Schedule 1 of this Act, there shall be established as communities as specified in the said Part IV.

(7) The Secretary of State may, on an application in writing made to him before the 31st December 1973 by the council of an existing
1134
borough or urban district make an order excepting such borough or urban district from the provisions of subsection (6) of this section.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 3 standing in my name. On Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said that he saw the Bill as setting up a three-tier scheme and, after talking about the existing parishes, he said:
"It is that grass roots community which I think should continue to be the basis of the whole structure of local self-government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31/7/72]
In that connection, he was to some extent re-stating what was said in the Report of the Royal Commission both by the majority and also by Mr. Senior in his memorandum of dissent. When the Local Government Bill first saw the light of day it was obvious that so far as England was concerned the Government accepted the philosophy of three-tiered local government only in a very limited way, for parishes would continue to exist only in those rural parts of the country where parishes were already in existence. For the rest, only the two tiers of county and district would be the institutions of local government.
The exception to what I have just said was that certain boroughs created by an Act of 1958 in rural areas would immediately become parishes on ceasing to exist as rural boroughs. That was what was originally in the Bill. As a result of pressures from all sides in the other place on Standing Committee and, further, on Report, substantial amendments were made by the Government. What the Bill now says is to be the pattern for England is county, districts and parishes, and it is in relation to parishes that the main change has come about.
As a result of the Amendments made on Report in the Commons there may be many more parishes than at first was envisaged by the Government when they prepared their Bill. In subsection (8) of this clause, and the associated Part V of Schedule 1, the English Boundary Commission is instructed to consult the councils that exist today of counties, boroughs and urban districts, and the committees to be set up under Clause 251, with a view to making proposals to the Secretary of State for the constitution of parishes with boundaries conterminous with that of broadly existing urban districts or boroughs when those bodies disappear. On receipt of such proposals the Secretary of State shall give effect to them by order.
As I said just now, there may well be a considerable increase in the number of parishes, for parishes now enter the confines of the town. When Mr. Page was moving the Amendment in the Commons, he said at column 98 of Hansard for April 17:
"There are good reasons why it would not be desirable to retain parish councils within the areas of all existing boroughs and urban districts. Where there is a borough which becomes merged within a new district and its population is large enough to have influence in the new district, to have a substantial number of representatives in the new district council, it would be wrong to preserve any particular powers, even at parish level, for those larger towns. I am thinking of towns with a population of 40,000 or 50,000 or more. Where we have the smaller towns, anything up to 10,000 or 20,000, it is right to keep alive the parish status."
Although the figures of population from 10,000 to 20,000 which Mr. Page mentioned are not contained in the Bill as an instruction to the Commission, they may well be contained in the guidelines which the Secretary of State will have to give to the Boundary Commission. If that figure of up to 20,000 is to govern the considerations of the Commission it could mean that if all the eligible boroughs and urban districts were to be recommended for parishes some 397 parishes would be added to the 10,000 already existing in England. The 397 would be what have come to be called successor councils.
Noble Lords may very well ask what is the difference between that which is now in the Bill before us and the Amendment I am moving. The first is the
1136
change of name from parish to community, and from that would follow community council instead of parish council. This would be a name more in keeping with the successor authorities, particularly for the towns, than one which is still associated with the definition of parish as being
"the district under the charge of a parson or other person having a care of souls therein."
Surely that would be inappropriate to the sort of body which ought to be created. The name that I have suggested is the one which was chosen by the Government themselves for comparable authorities in Wales.
The second difference is that every existing borough or urban district would automatically, on ceasing to exist on April 17, 1974, become a successor community and have a community council regardless of its population. That would be the immediate effect of this Amendment. But there would be a safeguard for a county borough such as Bristol, say, with a population of 425,000, which completely dominates district No. 2 in the new Avon county as proposed in the draft by the Commission, or Bath, with a population of 84,000 which comprises completely district No. 6 of Avon. All the councils of such boroughs, or any other boroughs or urban districts, would have to do in order to opt out of what I am proposing would be to write to the Secretary of State and tell him so before December 31, 1973.
Another effect of the Amendment would be to save an already overburdened Commission the task of consulting councils of existing counties, boroughs and urban districts and the many committees to be set up under Clause 252. There would be no limit imposed as to size. The existing council, which is best able to consider how it will stand in relation to the new district, is surely in the best position to judge whether or not a community council would suit its area. I have looked at this matter very carefully, and I think that our proposals would have the merit of greater flexibility. While one council with a population of well over 20,000 might feel that, geographically and for other reasons, there was no advantage in having a successor community council, another, with a population of well above 20,000, might, because of its relationship to the other boroughs or

1137
urban districts or the many rural parishes in the new district, see a worthwhile advantage in it. This would be left to the council itself to decide. It would consider its existing situation and would relate that to what would emerge after 1974. It would then say either, "We think there should be a community council for this area", or "We think there ought not to be a community council". If it took the latter course all it would have to do would be to write to the Secretary of State before the date I have mentioned.
In connection with the size of districts and so on, it has been reported that the Town Clerk of Abingdon asked the boroughs with 25,000 population or less if they were in favour of some form of local council to succeed them when they merged into the new district. Some 90 per cent. answered that they were in favour of establishing some form of council to succeed them when this Bill becomes an Act and becomes operative. Most of the towns with a population of between 25,000 and 40,000 were not in favour. In the latter connection I stress the word "most", because if there were some they are entitled to consideration. They ought to be able to opt for themselves whether they will have a community council after April 1, 1974.
As regards name, and to some extent size, there were pleas from all sides of Standing Committee D in another place, and subsequently on Report, for some way of permitting boroughs which had old charters, regalia, the title of mayor for the borough's chief citizen, and some forms of pomp and ceremony which they have inherited from the distant past, to retain these privileges. Pomp and ceremony, and names with a long historical background are not ignoble. We certainly respect them in this Committee, as do Members in another place. Mr. Page clearly recognised this desire on the part of those towns which, when they merge with a larger district dominated by a borough, would be able to apply for a charter under the terms of Clause 3. He recognised that some of the privileges which towns have previously bad ought to be passed on to some form of successor council. He told another place on Report:
"We have been unable to table Amendments at this stage on the retention of certain dig-
1138
nities, such as the mayors. I gave a forecast about this in Committee, but I am still in consultation with the local authority associations about the details. I hope we shall be able to put forward a proposal in this respect in another place, but so that right hon. and hon. Members of this House know about our intentions the consultation paper with the local authority associations has been put in the Vote Office. Right hon. and hon. Members will be able to see from it the form in which we are consulting the local authority associations and our intentions in another place about preserving the civic dignities at parish level."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 17/4/72, col. 100.]
I regret to say that I have not seen the document referred to, and I do not know what it contains. But it seems to me that a community council would be a much better vehicle to carry such dignities, to preserve the regalia and property of ancient boroughs, than a parish council. I cannot envisage the mayor of the parish council going along to some civic function and there doing the things that mayors have to do, and ought to do, in their communities.
The final point I wish to urge on the Government is on functions. I am taking it for granted that the existing functions of parishes would be automatically transferred to the community councils, and that they are as set out in Annex 3 of the Royal Commission's Report. But to the existing functions I would seek to add somewhere in the Bill something which would enable the community council to give effect to what Mr. Senior in his memorandum of dissent said so succinctly when on the subject of the grass roots level. That was—and I quote from his paragraph 427:
"My colleagues and I are also agreed that the key function of such a body must be to act as a sounding-board for community opinion—to focus the sense of the local community, whether in protest against, in agitation for, or in consultation about anything that affects its social or environmental wellbeing, and to bring that consensus to bear on the responsible decision-makers, whether they be members of a local authority or of any other agency, public or private."
With that sentiment I am in complete agreement, although the Government would, I am sure, assert that, having opted against unitary authorities, local government will continue to be local under the Bill. But certainly districts are to be very much larger, in many cases covering very wide areas indeed by comparison with the existing situation.

1139
Remoteness is going to be increased. If I look at the draft proposals of the Boundary Commission for some of the new districts, I see it is obvious that some of the districts are going to be geographically large and, wherever they set up the centre of the district, put their municipal buildings and so on, it is bound to be some considerable distance away from much of the district.
The offices, as I say, of the district may be miles away. People ought to have a truly "local" authority to which they will have access and to which they may turn to talk about their grievance, even if the community council has not a functional power to remedy the grievance—which might indeed be about housing, about schools or planning or things of that kind. Such a community council could consider the grievance of these people and perhaps pass it on to the appropriate local authority. Those noble Lords in this House who have served in the other place will know that very often satisfaction was given to people who had a complaint by the simple fact of their having told someone who seemed to be an authority about it. So often this was the case; so often that satisfaction, I am sure, was felt by the people who went away, because. I have had this experience so many times myself. I urge upon the Government the acceptance of this Amendment in principle. If it is accepted, the consequential and other Amendments made necessary could flow from such a decision and be added to the Bill on Report in October. I say on Report in October " but we shall not be reaching the Report stage in October—I beg your Lordships' pardon: we shall complete the Committee stage, Deo volente, some time in September and therefore "Report" was the right word.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument I could adduce is that the Government have accepted the idea of community councils for Wales, and I am sure their decision does not arise from the fact that the Church of Wales is disestablished. While I should wish for Wales very favourable treatment in all matters, I would not seek the favour of the exclusive use of the community councils idea, but would gladly grant it to England. I beg to move.
4.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: This is a somewhat formidable looking Amendment, but if it means what I think it means after the noble Lord's speech, that it would be a good thing to have some equivalent to parish councils in urban areas, then I agree it is a principle which merits consideration. I remember a particular case where, under previous legislation, the county borough wanted to enlarge itself and to take in certain rural parishes, the attraction being that they would thereby have a much smaller rate burden. Nevertheless, the rural parishes were prepared to forgo that because if they went into the county borough they would lose their parish councils which they very much liked. I am quite convinced that there is this strong desire to take some part in the administration of the county, and it is a very sound one provided that it does not lead to too much delay.
I must confess that in my own county, where at the present juncture we are asked to formulate schemes providing these new communities—I suppose they would be recommendations to the Commission—they might wonder whether the prevailing burden to the administration could be managed. The noble Lord has made the definition of a community council fairly simple. I would imagine that where there is a district the size of a county borough which would lose its first-tier status but would be big enough to make a second-tier council on its own, the community council there would be unnecessary because it would be the same thing as the second-tier council. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that it is going to be a very simple matter, and although I think that as a principle it is very sound, whether it can be worked out so simply I am not at all sure.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I should like to support my noble friend in this Amendment. I wonder how much difference there is between us and the Government Benches on this question. When we are making this review, if we make a decision in the Bill that these local councils shall be termed "community councils", as distinct from parish councils, this may help to meet the needs and the opinions of some of the larger urban areas that are being amalgamated into a district, and of some of the boroughs. I do not feel that they would quite

1141
like in their opinion to be denigrated to a parish level, having previously been urban or borough. To change the name from "parish" to "community" would encourage a lot of good will among local people whom we should like to encourage to take an interest in this regard. The Government have definitely accepted that where there are parish councils and urban councils they shall continue as a three-tier system, largely with these areas having the powers as defined by the Parish Councils Act of 1957. This came out very clearly during the Second Reading debate on this Bill.
There is also a little ambiguity, although the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said quite distinctly that parishes going into the metropolitan area would retain the same powers as those that remained outside the metropolitan area. In my opinion that immediately brings another important point to light. While parishes do that, what is the position of urban authorities that do it? Would it not be better, instead of (as some people think; quite wrongly perhaps) downgrading them to parish level, if we could give them a community status, as in Wales, so that they could carry out their functions with the dignity that they thought appropriate to their area? It also raises another important function which was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, at Second Reading. In many of these areas, particularly those in the metropolitan areas, parishes and urban councils going in will have the status as defined by the Bill, with very large areas where there will be wards. What will be the position of those wards? Will they have an equal status with a parish or a community council? I think this is something we might clear up at this stage of the Bill. I do not think there ought to be a great deal of difference between us and the Government on this Amendment.
It is a desire on our side to try to retain the interests of people, to continue to give advice, having regard to the powers that were defined by the Parish Councils Act of 1957, having in mind the opinion of the Maud Commission and the consensus of opinion of those people who have been brought into consultation by the Maud Commission, which evidently indicated that something on these lines was necessary if we wanted
1142
to maintain the interest of people at local level, which is the most important function in local government. Therefore to change the name from "parish" to "community", as my noble friend Lord Champion has rightly pointed out, would enable the Commission thinking of these things to receive a directive, instead of the position being left as it now is in the Bill for areas to make their own application for definition of name. If the Government cannot accept this Amendment I hope they will at least accept it in principle and re-word it to meet the needs that we advocate.
LORD RHODES: The Minister should seriously consider the implications of this Amendment. We are too ready to worship size and to think that if we can get something bigger it is automatically better, but it is not; and anything that this House, in the late stages of this Bill, can do towards preserving and fostering local loyalties to knit people together should be done. Since the War we have seen policies, and I have been an ardent supporter of them, which have led to whole areas being swept away by the bulldozer, originally in the belief that by doing so and by putting up marvellous property so that people might live clinically, as one might say, it would make for a better community. In many cases it has done nothing of the sort. All that it has done is to divide people and to make them less neighbourly. We want to consider very seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has said and what can be done to foster local loyalties and local traditions, so that over the years a bridge may be built between the old and the new. What happens in the case of an authority of fewer than 20,000 people which is suddenly put together with an authority of 130,000 or 140,000 without the same characteristics, and perhaps over a hill? It takes a long time for them to grow together. We should bridge it more easily if we were to preserve some of the loyalties that are there at present. Destroy nothing in the way of loyalties; build them up, and I think that by accepting this Amendment we can build them up.
4.35 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving this Amendment because I think it will enable me

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to establish that, as the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, has said, there is little difference between us. I think there is nothing whatever between us in principle and only a certain amount in detail to do with nomenclature and procedure. We agree, and I think I made this clear enough for it to be unnecessary for me to repeat it now, that parishes are indeed a vitally important element in the whole structure of local government, and I should not wish to contradict or to dispute anything that the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, has just said. For that reason we have provided that every existing parish—and there are 10,000 of them—will continue, whether in a metropolitan county or an ordinary county, after April 1, 1974. Indeed they are the only authorities which will continue unchanged throughout this "general post" on April 1, 1974. Furthermore, we are providing that all small, free-standing towns will be able to apply to have successor parishes to continue all their traditions and ceremonial and still be able to continue to be the owners of parish property.
I note that this Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has moved is in exactly the same form as an Amendment moved in another place at the Committee stage. So far as I can see, it does not take any account of the Amendments moved by Her Majesty's Government at Report stage, which were in response to this Amendment and to several other Amendments of a similar kind. I also note that the noble Lord said that he has not seen the further consultation document which my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and Development promised. I will certainly send him a copy and he will see there more precisely the pattern that we propose for the establishment of successor parishes and also many other matters to deal with parish dignities and ceremonial.
The Amendment also imports into England a number of ideas and names which are applicable to and have already been adopted for Wales: but perhaps it does not give sufficient recognition to the fact that Wales, with two million people, with no metropolitan county and with its district boundaries already provided for and defined in the Bill, is in a different position front that of England with well over 40 million people, six metropolitan
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counties, all the district boundaries still to be defined and a considerable amount of work yet to be done. The point my noble friend Lord Gage made was that whatever we may think about the merits and virtues of what noble Lords are proposing in the Amendment—we agree that there is considerable merit and virtue in it—we do not think it is practicable in England to go as far as that in setting up this structure as fully as it has been set up in Wales.
That is one of the main reasons for the differences between the two countries. The advantage to England is that when we are able to give further thought to the possibility of urban parishes, we will have the great benefit of the Welsh experience on which to draw. I will return to this aspect shortly. In the meantime, our thought is that the argument in favour of establishing special community units in towns in England, whatever its merit (and I have said it is considerable) must wait because we cannot get round to doing that at the moment. For example, in Greater London it would mean establishing no less than 1,000 separate statutory bodies, and we could not cope with doing that as well as with carrying out all the other arrangements involved in local government reform.
I come to the three aspects of the Amendment. First, there is the suggestion that we should change the term "parish", which is hallowed and respected in England, for the term "community council". This might be the right term when we get round to statutory authorities or even non-statutory authorities in the big towns, but I would not wish to commit the Government one way or the other. I fully take the point about a settlement of some size, which has had its own urban district council or which has even been a borough, not wishing to be styled and titled a "parish" together with a lot of other settlements with populations of not more than a few hundred people. It is for that reason that we have opened up again the possibility of allowing these larger towns that are opting for successor authorities to elect perhaps to call themselves towns instead of parishes and have successor town councils whereas smaller units might decide to have successor parish councils. These and a number of other possibilities I shall come to shortly.

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I ask the Committee to consider the question of size. We are not in any doubt that the smaller free standing towns that have had their own urban district councils should be free to apply for successor parish status, but the facts are exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said—namely, that whereas the smaller towns are clear that this is what they would like, when one gets to the size of towns with populations of between 25,000 and 40,000, one finds that they are by no means clear that they would want to apply for successor parish councils. They see their future lying very much more with the district as a whole. However, the various patterns that are possible under the various combinations are set out fully in the Consultative Document on which the Secretary of State has been consulting the local authority associations and noble Lords who care to read the document will see what it contains.
These consultations are complete. They led us to the conclusion that the best way to proceed, and to seek the objective of the Amendment, is to refer this matter to the Boundary Commission as one of the next matters it will tackle, after the district boundaries have been established, to see which of the urban units wish to apply for successor councils—we can call them parish councils for the moment; they may wish to call them town councils—and throw in their lot, as it were, with the boroughs as a whole.
Turning to the concept of urban parishes, our view is that there might be a case for the identifiable communities to which the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, referred to be given a voice and to have a way of expressing their identity. As I say, whatever we might think about it now, there are severe practical difficulties in England such as are not encountered in Wales against bringing this into being immediately. However, we are not closing our minds to the idea. We certainly think that there is room for non-statutory bodies of many kinds straight away, and we are making provision elsewhere in the Bill for the principal councils to be enabled to finance such non-statutory bodies. We do not rule out the possibility of further legislation on this subject at some later stage and we will then be able to draw on the Welsh experience.
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Not only are we providing for the continuation of existing parishes and an addition to their number, but we are also providing that, for example, planning applications relating to a particular parish should in future be notified to them by the planning authorities and we are giving parish councils express power to oppose private Bills relating to them. I hope from what I have said now and from what I said more emphatically on Second Reading that I have convinced your Lordships that we share the views that have been expressed about the importance of parishes and that we are doing very much what is being sought in the Amendment, though in slightly different ways. I confirm that what I have been saying in a tentative way about the use of the term "town" instead of "parish" and about the continuation of local dignities and ceremonials will be the subject of an Amendment which we hope to table before we return to the Committee stage in September.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has been extremely temperate in addressing the Committee, but I am left with the feeling that he is not really seized of the desire expressed by a number of noble Lords that the Government should have a thorough look at this whole matter between now and Report. We have had some extremely powerful speeches on this subject. That made by my noble friend, Lord Rhodes, is likely to be one of the most powerful we shall have in Committee. A similarly powerful speech came from my noble friend Lord Popplewell.
This is a very difficult and complex Bill and when reading it—and indeed, if I may say so with respect, when listening to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford—one has the feeling that while the Government have set about the business of trying to revivify local government they have not given sufficient consideration to the involvement of people in that process. If it fails to secure the goodwill of the people then all the paper plans will come to nought. We have seen in this House on Second Reading, and we can see when we look at the growing list of Amendments, that this business of local loyalties is an extremely powerful matter. The Government ought to use the time available to them to give rather more thought than has been given to date,

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I live in an urban district that was made up of a number of parishes some years ago. If one thing was felt very badly by the inhabitants, which feeling remained with them for a very long period of time, it was the loss of the old parish council. It has taken us, I suppose, the best part of forty years to achieve any sense of belonging to the urban district. We are now about to be amalgamated with the nearby non-county borough, and instead of the town hall being brought closer it will be more remote. Here we have an urban district which has been in existence some forty years and throughout it, so far as those interested in local government are concerned, there is a feeling that they are going to lose, and lose in a very big way. They are going to have no voice, whereas they have had a voice; and they regard the new council as very much the council of the non-county borough to which they ate to be attached.
If this idea of community councils is good enough for Wales, then, despite what has been said, I think it is good enough for England. It is not that anyone begrudges Wales anything. But if they are to have it, there is something good in it and we ought to have it. I cannot see that there is created any great problem that cannot be solved with good will. If the Government are going to succeed in securing co-operation in this drastic scheme of local government reorganisation, there is not too much they should do to secure it. I hope that before we leave this matter the noble Lord will be able to give an indication that the Government have not got a closed mind on improving the Bill in this direction.
4.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: I am slightly perplexed because I find myself in agreement with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has said; with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes said; with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has said, and with everything that my noble friend Lord Sandford has said on this subject. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, and I have always had in common a passionate belief that if you cannot get loyalty in small groups at low levels then you get no loyalty of any kind whatever. So, I go wholly with what has been said on local
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loyalty. I am a little perplexed as to where the difference precisely lies. My noble friend I think said that he could not see that there was any difficulty because, as I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Champion, suggested the name of "community council" for the equivalent of the parish council in towns, and the parishes in the rural areas would presumably have the name of "community council" too. So, while from the point of view of the towns I can see that "community council" may be in many cases a more appropriate title for the local body than a "parish council", of course, if it were applied to the parish councils, too, there would be no real distinction. As I understood my noble friend Lord Sandford to say, the precise form and title or name of the local council as applicable to towns of various sizes is a matter under consideration and a matter for discussion and further study. In the light of those studies some conclusions will be made. Might it not be that, at the end of the day, it would be clear that there was no difference whatever between the aims as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and those so clearly described by my noble friend Lord Sandford?
LORD RHODES: The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, expressed himself perplexed because we all seem to be agreeing with one another. I think that the reason for his being perplexed is that the Minister has not said enough. If the Minister would only say a little more on why, for instance, there are these difficulties about the continuation of an urban district council having as a continuation an urban district community council, we should be happier in our minds. We really are staking our claims this afternoon for local loyalties, and we just want a little more support from the Minister if he will give it to us.
4.55 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I think I can do that very briefly. We expected that the smaller free-standing towns that had had urban district councils of their own would want to have some sort of successor authority. When the Bill was first presented the suggestion was that they should be called "parish councils". In the latest consultation paper to which I referred, we are considering giving them

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the option of using the term "town council" and I think that will appeal to them. But we were correct also in our assumption, our expectation, that although it would appeal to the smaller free-standing towns to have successor authorities, we have proved to be right in our assumption that the larger ones do not want this successor status. As we have a Boundary Commission about to be set up when the Bill is enacted, this is a matter that can be referred to the Commission to say whether these authorities should or should not have successor authorities if they apply for them. This is a matter of really minor detail or difference between us. I would rather not attempt to go further now because the consultations for which this paper was first produced in April, following the discussions on this point at Committee stage in another place, have now just about been completed and we shall be ready to put down an Amendment at this Committee stage when we come to the point in September. That will give us an opportunity to look at the matter again and to put firm Government proposals before the Committee. I think that would be much more satisfactory than going into it further now.
LORD POPPLEWELL: Would that be after a decision had been taken by the Boundary Commission?
LORD SANDFORD: No, not after a decision of the Boundary Commission but after consultations about the guidelines to be followed by the Boundary Commission in determining this question of successor status which itself will be taken only after local consultation with the local authorities concerned.
LORD POPPLEWELL: But will that decision be taken so that ultimately it will be embraced in the Bill before it becomes an Act? That is the point I wanted to clear up.
BARONESS WHITE: May I put a point to the Minister on the matter of nomenclature? One of the objects of the Bill is to eliminate, so far as may be, the differences between town and country. I appreciate that Wales is different from England, in the sense that with us the Church is disestablished; but, nevertheless, even looking at it in the English context, might there not be something to be said at least for allowing them, if
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they wish, to use the term, "community council"? "Town council" might not be entirely appropriate either. We had a great deal of discussion in Wales on this question, which is why I am stressing this point, and we came to the conclusion that on balance "community council" would suit all possible circumstances better than any other particular name. The only other point I should like to make before my noble friend finally replies to the Amendment is that there is a real danger of a lack of continuity. If one loses continuity it is a serious matter, and this seems to us to be something that one has to think about carefully. The Boundary Commission have a great deal to do, and if we leave it to them there will be a lapse of time, it would appear to us from the procedure suggested by the Minister. I wonder whether he could reassure us on that point.
LORD SANDFORD: It is certainly true that under the Bill as originally published there would have been a break in continuity, but because of the representations made about the importance of securing continuity the Bill has been amended to ensure that the 10,000 parishes in England will continue, through the general post of April 1, 1974, unchanged.
LORD CHAMPION: I am very grateful for the powerful support this Amendment has received in this Committee. The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, I think rightly, at the end said what is the difference now between us. The difference of name, which we regard as very important in this connection, as has been mentioned by my noble friend Lady White, still remains. We believe that the procedure we propose is better, in so far as it does not involve the Boundary Commission but permits local councils to opt for themselves. Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said nothing about functions being granted to statutory bodies. I recognise what he said about voluntary bodies being set up and that some sort of power might be given to them; but this, of course, is not in the Bill. At the start of his speech he wrongly accused me by saying that I had not taken into account what went into the Bill on Report in the other place. But I devoted at least one-fifth of my speech to pointing to the difference in the Bill as it first saw the light of day and as it emerged

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from Report in the other place. On those grounds I think he was entirely wrong.
I cannot accept all these differences the noble Lord mentioned. I live in Wales, and have lived there now for 50-odd years; so I know something about Wales, I think. I still know something about the country I was born in and the county, Somerset, and I find it difficult to see all these differences the noble Lord talked about between the two countries. Differences are there; they are slight and not sufficient to justify the difference between England and Wales in this matter we are now discussing.
What worries me at this stage is that we have been told of so much that might appear before us eventually but we do not have it before us at the moment. The suggestion for having the term "town council", for instance, appears to me to be an excellent one, but it does not appear as an Amendment on the Marshalled List, I should have thought there has been ample time since Report stage in the other place to have solved this problem and dealt with it. Will the provision for non-statutory bodies about which the noble Lord spoke appear anywhere in the form of Amendments? This is something to which we shall have to pay considerable attention. My noble friend Lord Rhodes said the reason we are perplexed is that the Minister has not said enough. I must say that my difficulty is the fact that much of what the Minister said is neither in the Bill nor on the Marshalled List. This is my worry at this stage. But the Minister seemed to me to be so forthcoming, and I admit that there is not now a great deal between us. I do not propose to press this Amendment at this stage, but I shall carefully study what appears on the Marshalled List at a later stage, even in Committee, and then further on Report, and then decide our next step. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.5 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 4.
Page 2, line 15, leave out from ("the") to end of line 17 and insert ("boundaries of which are determined by reference to those of
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existing boroughs and urban districts and also, in cases where the areas of such boroughs and urban districts are divided by or under this section between two or more new districts, by reference to the boundaries of the new districts.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, which is still dealing with parishes, and would ask the Committee to be good enough to consider with it Amendments No. 72, 73, 74, 75A and 80 to 87 inclusive. There is not time within the present timetable to allow for the adjustments in boundaries or the division of districts where, for instance, an existing urban district comprises more than one settlement; there is not time to do that before April 1, 1974. The Bill as drafted therefore provides for the successor parishes to be coterminous with the present borough or urban district. This does not mean that it will not be possible for any adjustments to be made, but these will need to be made after April 1, 1974, under the permanent machinery being established under Part IV of the Bill. Meanwhile the essential point, which is to ensure continuity of local goernment identity in the small areas concerned as a whole, has been met.
But there does remain a special case in that a handful of small boroughs and urban districts have already been divided by the provisions in the Bill. For instance, in Yorkshire the urban district of Queens-bury and Shelf asked that the Queensbury part of the urban district should go into one new metropolitan district and the Shelf part into another. I am sure the Committee would agree that it would be unfair if areas of this kind were debarred from consideration for the establishment of successor parishes simply because they had been divided in the Bill. Moreover, the practical reason against ad hoc divisions in these cases at the present time does not apply by definition, because the borough or urban district has for one reason or another already been divided.
Similar considerations could arise on the establishment of the pattern of non-metropolitan districts by Order after Royal Assent. As I have reminded your Lordships, the district boundaries in England are not yet provided for in the Bill. The Amendments to which I am speaking therefore adapt the general provisions for successor parishes so as to cover also this handful of cases in which

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existing small boroughs and urban districts are being divided either in the Bill itself or under the Bill by virtue of an Order establishing non-metropolitan districts in England. As I say, this is a purely English problem—we are in an English section of the Bill—as the provisions for establishing new communities in Wales are of an entirely different kind, and we have got much further with them. I beg to move.
LORD CHAMPION: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for explaining to us what these Amendments actually amount to. I must admit, having given them some consideration, that it appeared to me that they were an improvement on the Amendment that was in fact moved on Report stage in the other place. As such, and because we have got a great deal of business before us, I do not propose to say another word except that I welcome the Amendment.
LORD SANDFORD: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. We need not spend any time on this Amendment because it is purely drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, leave out ("including one") and insert ("and the corporation of a borough included").—(Lord Sandford.)
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Counties and metropolitan districts in England]:
5.10 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 208, column 2, leave out lines 39 to 45
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6. May I at the same time speak to Amendments Nos. 8 and 56. This provides for minor adjustment of the boundary between the new metropolitan districts centred on Bury and Rochdale which were set up by a Back-Bench Amendment at Report stage in the Commons. The present borough of Heywood lies between the county borough of Rochdale and the county borough of Bury. In any split of the district it is clearly appropriate for Heywood as a whole to go with Rochdale.
But the Westernmost fringes of the borough abut on to Bury county borough and clearly have some links with it. In these circumstances, the Government accepted the proposed Amendment which divided off a small part of the Western fringe of Heywood borough containing a population of a few hundred people only. However, this was strongly resisted locally and an officer of the department had a meeting with the local authorities concerned, made an inspection on the spot and, following his report, the Government consider that the case for moving these fringe areas into the Bury district is not sufficient to justify dividing the area of the present borough of Heywood. These three Amendments therefore provide for the whole of Heywood, including the Western fringes to be in the district centred on Rochdale. I beg to move.
5.12 p.m.
LORD HALE LORD HALE moved Amendment No.7:
Page 208, leave out line 52.
The noble Lord said: I feel it is understood that the Amendment, which I now beg to move, is really part and parcel of Amendment No. 10. I apologise to the noble Lord for not having replied to the letter which I received this morning, by the second post, just as I was leaving home, and to which I attempted to reply immediately, but through the courtesy of my noble friend Lord Champion I found that he had already come to exactly the same conclusion and there was no difficulty about it. The situation, as I understand, is that if my Amendment No. 7 is carried it follows that Amendment No. 10 must be accepted, and if it is not carried then Amendment No. 10 need not be moved. I think it convenient to consider the two together, because there is some confusion about twelve (f)s and twelve (g)s, and so on, and therefore I propose to put the point as clearly as I can in terms of the towns concerned.
District (d), to which my Amendment relates, is one of the districts of the metropolitan county of Manchester. It was arranged, it was part of the whole plan laid down, part of the whole discussions that one of these should be centred on Oldham and that one of the others (there are nine divisions) should be centred on the neighbouring town of

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Rochdale. I want to make only one other point clear: I speak for nobody on this matter. I am told by my noble friend that he has received a letter from someone in Middleton saying that I have no right to speak for Middleton. Of course I have no right to speak for Middleton. I have no right to speak for Oldham, but I know little about Middleton, and I do not know a great deal about Lancashire. I have never lived in Lancashire. I was for 25 years a member of the Leicestershire County Council and I resigned from that over 20 years ago. But I was associated with Oldham as a member, and I am now a citizen of Oldham by reason of the fact that a Conservative-dominated council of Oldham made me a Freeman of the Borough. My only predecessor as Member of Parliament for Oldham was Sir Winston Churchill. Oldham has much that can be said for it and I propose to say just a few words about it.
I do this without any brief. Indeed, I rushed to put down Questions the moment I saw this proposal, because I realised what it meant to Oldham and because I wanted to know just what had happened that quite suddenly resulted in a complete alteration of plan after years of discussion. I am not proposing any alteration to the Bill as originally drawn, I am proposing a restoration word for word to the Bill as it was drawn, as it was negotiated, as it passed Second Reading in another place, as it passed through unlimited Committee in another place until before a very small House (noble Lords will find this reported in the first of the two Hansards for July 6: it is also a remarkable fact there should be two on one day, which indicates the lengths to which the discussions did ultimately go) this was considered with 17 other Amendments. Eighteen Amendments, all of them geographical Amendments, were considered concurrently. Quite suddenly the Minister announced that he had altered the whole of his plans and that he was creating a completely new borough: that instead of being two, one centred on Oldham and one centred on Rochdale, there would be three, one centred on Oldham, one centred on Rochdale and one centred on Bury, none of them viable by the Minister's own standards as laid down in the White Paper—and this on the Motion of the
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honourable Member for Bury, who happened to belong to the Conservative Party.
The problem of Oldham is quite simply stated in the figures—and may I say that I refused to see the officials of Oldham on a matter like this because if I did it would be necessary for me to see the officials of Middleton as well. I have tried to keep my independence in the matter. I do not disguise the fact that I am heavily biased in favour of Oldham. Indeed, I hold the view that anyone who knows the town as I do would feel the same. I had hoped to call in my aid the brilliant pen of the biographer of Talleyrand, who was Member for Oldham long before me. Being rather tired from some researches into the French historians' account of Magna Charta, when they recalled that it was repealed by Pope Innocent immediately it was made and that he excommunicated the French who threatened to support the Barons, I could not this morning find my copy of that lovely book to see what Duff Cooper, the noble Viscount. Lord Norwich, said about Oldham and its people, and I must therefore ask noble Lords to re-read it.
The problem is that Oldham is three miles square; its actual area in acres is just under 10 square miles—not ten miles square, ten square miles. It had a population of 10,000 in 1900. I suppose the only really prosperous time that Oldham has ever had was in 1960. It has never been a rich town; it has always been a low wage area, even with highly skilled labour and great firms. I am not making any criticism of this. It is acknowledged now that Manchester is a low wage area and this is one of the matters which is now being discussed. We have great firms in Oldham. We had great industrial relations. We never had strikes we have a religious population divided almost equally between Catholic and Non-Conformists and Church of England. We have never had religious intolerance in Oldham. We have one of the best newspapers centred on Oldham, certainly one of the most independent that I know. We had a population living in decency, and in 1960 160,000 people were concentrated in those ten square miles. What has happened since, as I said in a previous intervention in debate, is that the young men have gone South, and the old people

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have said: "We cannot move; all our ties are here, all our intimate relations are here". It is not easy for anyone, it is not easy for me, to picture what it is like to live in one of these overcrowded conurbations which used to have, when I first went there, back-to-back houses. But even when we managed to erect housing estates—and, first of all, we had to acquire the land, build the roads and open up new areas—it was difficult to persuade people to leave those back streets and their friends and their ties. It might be the local chapel, it might be the local pub, it might be the local allotment.
I have a group of friends, and I know of no town which has quite so much in the way of social service. I will not refer those who think that these areas are backward areas to the ebullient youngsters whom we are producing today, who are making their name in every direction, but Oldham can boast of its children. There is Sir William Walton in music; James Fitton, who I think is almost the senior Royal Academician to-day and an intimate and close friend of mine; and Eva Turner, the best-loved figure in modern opera, perhaps one of the most distinguished stars of her day. So we have a civilisation in Oldham. I apologise for my purely physical defect which results from a motor accident. It is not to be taken too seriously; I just cannot help it. I am almost happy to see that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor occasionally suffers from hay fever—though I hope he is cured very rapidly, and I would not wish him harm—because it makes the defect almost respectable.
The proposal was that Oldham should become the centre of one area, should take in Chadderton, a great urban district which came into my constituency in 1950, and should take in the historic borough of Middleton. Middleton is about 5,000 acres. Those two, and Rochdale, too, are all very ancient townships. Middleton is a historic borough associated very intimately and closely with the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, whose name in the House of Commons—Assheton—is shown in Ashton-under-Lyne. It was from Middleton that Richard Assheton led the bowmen of England to weed awhile the flowers of the forest on Flodden Field and took a
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determined part in that battle. It was an Assheton who was the principal founder of the Oldham Bluecoats School. I think it was an Assheton who was the Black Knight of Ashton-under-Lyne. The word "black" in the title Black Knight incorporates the noble Lord's criticism of the Black Prince, and for the same reason.
I would refer your Lordships to the pages of the debate on Report stage in the House of Commons which deal with this subject. There was an interesting and rather surprising little discussion yesterday, when it was said that it is a rule of this House not to suggest or impute motives. Here I find myself in a difficulty. I do not know precisely what the line is. I had thought that if you said a man was not Labour it was regarded in the Labour Party as a criticism. In fact, if some of us said that a man was not a Socialist that was regarded as a criticism. I should not have thought it was a criticism of the Tory Party to say that a man was a Tory, although I could understand that at this moment he might be a little sensitive if the reference was made too constantly.
But it was actually upon the Amendment of the Tory Member for Bury, with the support of the Tory Member for Middleton, that this surprising proposal was accepted in very surprising circumstances indeed. The discussions had gone on for years. All the assembled urban councils and boroughs concerned—such as Failsworth, Crompton and so on—had drawn up proportionate payments, estimates of rateable value per head, estimates of contributions to form the new organisation. It was all done and the change was not our child. Let us be fair about this. Of course Middleton does not want to go with Oldham. Middleton does not want to go with Rochdale. Middleton has much more connection with Manchester, because in any radial centre all transport goes to the centre. But it had been agreed, it was settled and then something happened; and without being able to impute motives it is almost impossible for me to provide a solution. Under the rules of your Lordships' House I cannot refer to the previous debate on the 18 Amendments which took place on the afternoon of

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Friday, July 6. But, as I understand it, I can quote the Minister's reply.
I know the Minister. I knew him in the House—I have not seen him for years—as a fellow solicitor. I knew him as one of the most industrious Members of the House, as a man of high integrity, of great activity, as a man who is likely to defy Newton's law and rise by his gravity, and who has undoubtedly performed a stupendous labour in fathering this immense scheme and in piloting it through in the face of all sorts and sizes of local criticisms, and all sorts and sizes of complaints from the parish pump. But what he said on that day is really quite surprising. He was accepting a Tory Back Bencher's Amendment on Report stage, to take out of the new conurbation the ancient borough of Middleton of about 5,000 acres, half the population of Oldham, a very large proportion of the proposed conurbation, and of course a very substantial rateable value—the second highest rateable value there. I do not propose to weary your Lordships with figures. Perhaps I have already tired your Lordships in taking so long over a cause which is certainly very near to my heart.
But the Minister said:
"I should like to deal first with the rearrangements of the metropolitan districts within the metropolitan county. We have had the case of the Bury and Rochdale division. Originally, as in the Bill, the Government chose to put Bury and Rochdale together. That was discussed very fully by all the local authorities concerned at a meeting which the then Under-Secretary held last July. We might have thought from to-day's debate that it was entirely a new idea sprung on local authorities only yesterday. In fact, it has been the subject of debate in the area for a very long time. The whole of the meeting last July was taken up with the debate on whether Bury and Rochdale should be separate, or should be combined. …."
and they came to the conclusion that the plan should stand after all these discussions. Then, after an intervention, the Minister said:
"I hesitated about the matter in Committee, because it was a new proposition put to me, and I thought we had got it right in the Bill."
It is very difficult to reconcile the new proposition put to him—and, after all, the reply was so brief as to be almost contemptuous—with something which he
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had just been saying they had been discussing for two years. He went on:
"But I have since studied it carefully with my colleagues in the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Health and Social Security, and we think they will make good separate local government areas with sufficient population in each. They are different communities, and we are giving them what they want."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 6/7/72 Cols. 824–5.]
Then he went on to mention Heywood, which I think is the subject of the next Amendment and which is no concern of this area. It is not easy to explain that, and it is certainly not easy in terms of not being allowed to impute motives. It is not my practice to impute motives, and it never has been; but I think that perhaps it is in order to say that if a casual American visitor had been sitting in the Gallery observing the proceedings in another place he might have misled himself, by the brevity of the utterance and by the, rather casualness of the approach, into thinking that he was witnessing something which looked to his untutored mind very much like political skulduggery; and if he had said this to me later, I would find it very difficult to disabuse him completely of these suspicions.
I am moving this Amendment to call attention to something which breaches the principles of the Bill; which creates authorities not viable by the Minister's standards; which does not even settle the question whether Middleton people should still go to Oldham hospitals—and many Middleton people work in Oldham and many Oldham people work in Middleton—and which relies for its support on two propositions. The first is that we had all-Party support, because we got the support of the former Member for Rochdale. Unfortunately, the former Member for Rochdale was seriously ill at the time, but if I had been the Member for Rochdale of course I would have been advocating Rochdale's case. Every constituency Member knows how much of the "parish pump" there is in his activities, and how much there must be. Indeed, it is the whole point of the democratic system that the Member for Oldham should express the views of his own people. The Member for Rochdale died two or three days later, and there is a by-election pending in Rochdale; and, of course, one can understand that the

1161
question of the enlargement of the Rochdale division and the transfer of Middleton to Rochdale could be a very powerful and very potent argument with the electors.
But I have tried to put the case fairly, and as it is now clear that this Bill has got to go back to another place, because the Minister himself has already carried Amendments and has tabled many more; as the first intimation of this decision appeared in a well-informed note in the Guardian on the Tuesday, that there was then a brief discussion at a meeting hurriedly called on the Wednesday and then the acceptance of a Back-Bencher's Amendment at a moment's notice on the Friday afternoon, I ask your Lordships to say that the proper course is to accept these Amendments and to send the Bill hack to another place as it started. Then, if they want to re-discuss it, let them re-discuss it there. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: The noble Lord, Lord Hale, has read from Hansard of another place the events leading up to the decision to treat Bury and Rochdale as two separate metropolitan districts instead of one, and I do not want to add anything to what my right honourable friend Mr. Page said on that occasion. It is in fact the results of discussions in the previous July which had been undertaken by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary at that time, and the wishes of the authorities as gleaned on that occasion are now reflected in the Bill as amended. So we have to deal with the question, having taken the decision to have three metropolitan districts—Bury, Rochdale and Oldham—which of those it would be the more appropriate for Middleton to join, because it is possible and practical to consider as belonging to any one of those three.
Now the facts are that of the three authorities Oldham is the greater in terms of population, with 224,000—the others are considerably less. The Middleton Borough Council have expressed a clear wish to join Rochdale, which certainly could do with an addition to their population because they would otherwise be as low as 140,000, which is considerably below the ideal figure for a metropolitan district. So we have the fact that the Middleton Borough Council have expressed a clear wish to be in Rochdale;
1162
and Rochdale is an authority which, without the addition of Middleton, would be seriously on the low side—148,000—but which, with the addition of Middleton, would be 202,000, whereas Oldham is already 224,000.
LORD HALE: I hope the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting him. I am certain he does not wish to mislead the Committee, but I honestly feel that he is in danger of doing that. I know how he puts it, but if you look at the proposals as they were you will see, of course, that there was not any Bury district, and you then had the position that district No. (c) was Rochdale, I think, and district No. (c) had a population of 331,000 as against then Oldham's 277,000. Each had a rateable value of just about £9 million, in each a penny rate would produce £86,000 to £88,000, and the balance had been perfectly fairly held. It is only when you create your new borough on the spur of the moment, and say, "We have got to try to make it into two new ones that the trouble arises. Indeed, one of the arguments put forward was," They add up to 400,000, and if we divide them mathematically by two they come to 200,000 each "—both of them non-viable, both below the limit. Surely, the material figures for the noble Lord to put forward are the figures before the Minister had this voile-face.
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think I would agree with the noble Lord for the reasons that I made clear at the beginning and which my right honourable friend made clear in another place. It is not accurate to say that there has been a volte-face. There were discussions a full year before this matter was discussed in another place, over which my honourable friend the Under-Secretary presided, as a result of which the decision was taken to treat this area not as two but as three metropolitan districts. That is the situation we are dealing with, whatever the situation may have been previously. If Bury and Rochdale had been one district there would be no case whatever for moving Middleton to join what would then be certainly a far larger and more resourceful area than Oldham. But the situation we are dealing with now is a situation in which there are three metropolitan districts, of which Oldham is the most populous and in relation to which Rochdale, if it were not joined by

1163
Middleton, would be very weak in resources and population; and it is for that reason that the decision was taken that Middleton should join Rochdale. But that decision, which can be taken on a consideration of population, rateable value, resources and so on, is reinforced by the fact that the Middleton Borough Council themselves want to join Rochdale. In view of those circumstances, I am quite sure that the decision taken in another place is the correct one and that it would be right for the Committee to resist this Amendment if the noble Lord, Lord Hale, feels he must press it.
5.40 p.m.
LORD RHODES: The noble Lord, Lord Hale, need not apologise for his emotion when he is referring to the town that he so well represented for so long. His name stands as high as any in Oldham, and there is no doubt about the fact that the work he did for them will be remembered as long as Oldham is a district. He partially made the case for Saddleworth, which is what I was talking about last week. I do not want to labour that case at all to-day. A referendum is taking place to-morrow and depending upon the result of that I hope to return to the matter at Report stage. The noble Lord, Lord Hale, said that originally the Redcliffe-Maud recommendations put Middleton in and Saddleworth out; now it is Saddleworth in and Middleton out. But there is no question that, despite all the talk there has been about boundaries and the grouping together of areas and townships and so on, in all England there is no district which has been as hammered by misfortune as Oldham. Two large industries declining in the space of 35 years is enough to put any district on its back. When Lord Hale is pleading the cause of Oldham he is pleading the cause of people who have been under considerable strain, of people whose houses need renewing, of people in an area where vast numbers of the population have shifted from one place to another. They need all the sympathy and help they can get from anywhere. I propose leaving the matter there. I will support Lord Hale in the Lobby if he brings the matter to a Division, in the hope that he will support me.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD RHODES: Well, it is natural. Of course it is. We are parish pumping, and proud of it. In the hope that he will support me when the time comes I will give him my vote in a few minutes' time.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I have listened carefully to what has been said. At the present moment, in area Rochdale is clearly smaller than Oldham. To remove Middleton from Rochdale to Oldham would leave Rochdale in far too small a state. Therefore, having looked carefully at the plan and having listened to everything Lord Hale has said, I do not feel that he has a case. At the last moment, when he interrupted my noble friend the Minister, he brought in Bury; but again I feel that if anything were to be done by removing Middleton into the area of Oldham you would probably then have to take elaborate steps to make Bury take over the rest of Rochdale. I do not think that this is feasible. I have looked at the map and considered the position. I have no axe to grind and I feel that Lord Sandford gave an excellent description of the position. I do not think that we should accept this Amendment.
LORD RHODES: May I ask what sort of speech that was? Was this a Back-Bench speech inspired by the Front Bench? May I ask what Lord Balfour knows about the district? Has he ever been there? Has he ever lived there? What is the point of making a speech like that?
LORD HALE: As a matter of courtesy, I must say to the noble Earl who spoke last on the Benches opposite that of course I accept that if you take Middleton out of Rochdale now and do not restore the position to what it was before the Report stage in the other place there will be chaos. The whole point of this Amendment and the next Amendment is to restore the position. It does not go as far as that, because in fact the new borough of Bury is not my pigeon. I know nothing about it. My knowledge of some of these small Lancashire towns consists merely of arriving at a half-filled or quarter-filled Labour hall and hearing the secretary say, "We had six times as many turn up when Bessie was here." Then he would say to me, "You take the 8.10 bus and change at Oswaldthistle and

1165
you get to Manchester Station by about 10". Then after about two hours the train would leave for London. That is all I know about some of these places. But I have suggested that we restore the admirable plan of the Minister for these boroughs, the plan as it was put in the Second Reading debate and throughout the long Committee stage in the House
of Commons. In the circumstances, I hope that my noble friends will support this Amendment in the Lobby.
5.47 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 36; Not-Contents, 119.

CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Hale, L.

Rhodes, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Henderson, L.

Serota, Bs.

Balogh, L.

Hoy, L.

Shackleton, L.

Blyton, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Shinwell, L.

Chorley, L.

Janner, L.

Slater, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Leatherland, E.

Stocks, Bs.

Diamond, L.

Lindsay of Birker, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Milner of Leeds. L.

Watkins, L.

Faringdon, L.

Peddie, L.

Wells-Pestell. L.

Fiske, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Wright of Ashton underLyne, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Popplewell, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Eccles, V.

Lovat, L.

Abinger, L.

Effingham, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Elles, Bs.

Mancroft, L.

Albemarle, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Middleton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Milverton, L.

Amory, V.

Essex, E.

Monck, V.

Avebury, L.

Falmouth, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Balfour, E.

Ferrers, E.

Mottistone, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Belstead, L.

Gage, V.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gainford, L.

Moyne, L.

Bessborough, E.

Garner, L.

Northchurch, Bs.

Bourne, L.

Gloucester, L. Bp.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Boyd of Merton, V

Goschen, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Boyle of Handsworth, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Brentford, V.

Greenway, L.

Reay, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Reigate, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Rennell, L

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

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

Ridley, V.

Burnham, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Camoys, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

St. Just, L.

Carrington, L.

Hayter, L.

Sandford, L.

Chelmer, L.

Hemingford, L.

Sandys, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Henley, L.

Seear, Bs.

Colvillie of Culross, V.

Hereford. L. Bp.

Selborne, E.

Colyton, L.

Hodson, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hood, V.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Stamp, L.

Craigavon, V.

Howe, E.

Sudeley, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Hurcomb, L.

Thomas, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Thorneycroft, L.

Croft, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Tweedsmuir, L.

Daventry, V.

Kemsley, V.

Vivian, L.

Davidson, V.

Killearn, L.

Wade, L.

de Clifford, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Latymer, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Digby, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Ward of Witley, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Limerick, E.

Wigram, L.

Dulverton, L.

Long, V.

Wolverton, L.

Dundee, E.

Loudoun, C.

Young, Bs.

Ebbisham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORD SANDFORD: I must apologise to the Committee. When we were considering Amendment No. 6 I should have suggested that we also consider Amendment No. 8, which is linked with it and concerned with the same thing. So also is Amendment No. 56. I beg to move Amendment No. 8.
Amendment moved—
Page 208, line 52, column 2, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 209 and insert ("the boroughs of Heywood and Middleton ').—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WRIGHT OF ASHTON UNDER LYNE LORD WRIGHT OF ASHTON UNDER LYNE moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 209, line 6, leave out ("and Wardle") and insert ("Wardle and Whitworth").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to the Urban District Council of Whitworth, geographically situated to the North of Rochdale and, geographically again, it is very much like the wedge of a pie chart where the segment shoots right into Rochdale. It is as much a part geographically of Rochdale as Rochdale itself, and it has, of course, a common boundary. There was, and has been, a good deal of confusion about where Whitworth should be placed. Originally it was proposed that Whitworth should be part of the Rochdale and Bury Council. This, of course, has now been changed because they have been split and Rochdale and Bury are separate. At this point, when the decision had been made by the Minister that Whitworth should be part of Rochdale, a petition was organised in the Whitworth area asking that Whitworth should go with Greater Manchester. There were about 2,000 signatures to the petition.
The urban district council issued about 250 copies of a window bill. It was a most misleading bill—this is one of the points that I want to put to the Committee—because Rochdale was never mentioned on the bill at all. The whole point of the window bill was to persuade people that if they voted they had to vote either for Rossendale Valley or Manchester. I cannot think of anything more calculated to deceive people who were trying to make up their minds. Had the council said that it was a matter either of Manchester or Preston, that is, the top tier in either segment, that would have
1168
been one thing; or had they compared Rossendale with Rochdale that would have been another. They would then have been linking like with like. But to say for instance:
"Our complaints will be shelved in a central office a long way away"
implies that if Whitworth went in with Rossendale Valley their complaints would not be shelved in Preston a long way away.
There was a good deal of confusion. I am convinced that this publicity deceived not only the Minister but also the local Member of Parliament who at one time went to persuade the Minister to change his mind and to put Whitworth in the Rossendale Valley. It seems quite clear that the Minister gave a good deal of attention to where Whitworth should go, because in a letter to the clerk of Whitworth Urban District Council he wrote:
"I recollect that Whitworth Urban District Council made representations to us last summer about our proposal that they should form part of the Greater Manchester metropolitan county. We considered these representations very carefully and in fact when I visited the area in the summer I looked at Whitworth, both on the ground and from the air, and met the representatives of the urban district council to hear what they had to say at first hand. I am afraid that our conclusion at the end of these consultations was very clearly that Whitworth belongs with the Rochdale county borough and the metropolitan county rather than with the new Lancashire of the North".
That letter was from Mr. Michael Heseltine when he was Minister in charge of these affairs.
One may think that that is clear enough. The Minister made up his mind. Having popped all over the area, not only on foot but in a helicopter and given the matter very serious consideration, he reached the clear conclusion that Whitworth should be part of Rochdale. I think the Minister was right. There does not appear to me to be any strong reason for changing his mind. But change it he did. He may have done so because he believed that a petition of 2,000 out of an electoral roll of something like 5,000 indicated the wishes of the inhabitants of Whitworth. That would not be an unworthy motive. But a second petition was organised. I have never in my life come across a more confusing situation; no wonder the Minister is confused about it all. The second petition realised 3,000

1169
signatures in favour of going into Rochdale, whereas the previous one had 2,000 signatures in favour of going into Rossendale. So within the space of a week those inhabitants of Whitworth who want to stay with Rochdale have got more than 60 per cent. of the electorate, and that figure is growing day by day. It is rather important to note that this petition was supported by the vicar of Whitworth, the Roman Catholic parish priest and the Methodist ministers, who in many ways represent a fair cross-section of opinion.
I may be asked what my interest in the matter is. It is that I lived in Whitworth for eight years. I knew the area very well, and still do. I know its affinity with Rochdale. And I was asked, as one who knew something about Whitworth, whether I would try to persuade the Minister that he was right first time and that he ought not to have been swindled by a misleading leaflet to change his mind. I can see the Minister's reason for deciding that Whitworth ought to go with Rochdale. Paragraph 8 of the White Paper dealing with local authorities, which I am sure most noble Lords have seen, says:
"Local authority areas should be related to areas within which people have a common interest—through living in a recognisable community, through the links of employment, shopping or social activities, or through history and tradition."
Only Rochdale could satisfy those needs. Rochdale, with Whitworth as part of it, would completely satisfy the requirements of paragraph 8 of the White Paper) whereas, with the wildest stretch of the imagination, Rossendale never could; it is too far away. Indeed few people have heard of it. They know vaguely that it is a place some miles away. When people who live in Whitworth say that they are going to town, they mean that they are going to Rochdale.
Everything about Whitworth is associated with Rochdale. People go the other way only when they are going home, as I used to do when I went to Yearby, in Yorkshire, where I once lived. I hope I do not offend any Whitworth people, but I must say that one is likely to find people going there only when they have nowhere else to go.
I am informed that some 90 per cent. of the people who work other than in Whitworth work in the greater Rochdale
1170
area. That is one of the employment links about which we read in paragraph 8 of the White Paper. Rochdale is a shopping centre for Whitworth. As its population indicates, Whitworth is a small place. If one were to see the long queues for evening buses going to Rochdale, and those in Rochdale for buses going to Whitworth, one would realise the affinity between the two areas.
The cinemas are in Rochdale, and everybody from Whitworth who goes to the cinema goes to Rochdale. People would not dream of going to Rossendale; indeed, I am not sure whether it has a cinema. Certainly there are cinemas in Rochdale. There are also light opera, repertory and, of course, both codes of professional football. Rochdale Hornets is not a bad team, although Rochdale soccer team is not particularly good. People generally go to watch Manchester United, which shows their good sense. Whitworth people patronise events in Rochdale because it is on their doorstep; it is not miles away, as the Rossendale Valley is. People pop along to Rochdale regularly to take advantage of the amenities provided there. Most social services enjoyed by the Whitworth inhabitants are administered from Rochdale: moral welfare, family planning, the Blind Welfare Association and most of a host of others. We need not consider the gas, water and electricity services, all of which come from Rochdale. All three post offices are sub-post offices of the Rochdale area, and of course all the local news is contained in the Rochdale Observer which circulates very freely in Whitworth.
For all these reasons one can understand quite clearly why the Minister decided after his helicopter tour that Whitworth was quite clearly—his words—a natural part of Rochdale. I am not suggesting, in mentioning these things, that in the event of Whitworth's going in with Rossendale no gas, electricity or water should be supplied by Rochdale. The point is that paragraph 8 of the White Paper would be satisfied. How on earth could it be satisfied by going in the other direction? There are other matters worthy of note. One of these is that the interests of Whitworth and Rochdale coincide. I will not weary the House by reading out a whole host of organisations

1171
whose titles include the words, "Rochdale and District", which term embraces Whitworth. For example there are the Rochdale and District Employment Committee, the Rochdale and District Hospital Management Committee, the Rochdale and District Chamber of Trade, the Rochdale and District Chamber of Commerce, all of which embrace Whitworth and the Whitworth associations, whereas none of them is mentioned, thought about or considered in so far as Rossendale is concerned. I have here a list, with which I will not weary your Lordships dealing with Rochdale and district. I notice on it the Rochdale and District Wine-makers' Circle, but I do not suppose that is of any importance. Ninety per cent. of the branches of the trade unions are centred on Rochdale.
Perhaps your Lordships will permit me to give you the views of the Rochdale County Borough on this matter. They say:
"It is also possible that a further Amendment may be moved to bring Whitworth back into the metropolitan district C.C."—
that is. Rochdale.
"The Rochdale Council feel that this is a matter to be decided primarily according to the wishes of the inhabitants of Whitworth, but they would certainly raise no objection to such an Amendment, since in their view there is a greater community of interest between Whitworth and the Rochdale area than between Whitworth and the Rossendale area of Lancashire."
There is no doubt about this in my mind, and I have lived in the area for eight or nine years. I know what happens there, and I know the close affinity with Rochdale.
What the Amendment seeks to do is to endorse the Minister's original decision on this matter. It does not change anything. We are saying: " You did a good job when you reached your original decision; but why on earth you should be persuaded by 2,000 signatures to change your mind and suggest that Whitworth should go into Rossendale defeats the imagination. "The reply of course is:" You may have 2,000, but we have 3,000 ". So if you are trying to assess the wishes of the people of Whitworth there you have more than 60 per cent.—and it may be 70 per cent. now; I do not know how many more signatures they have obtained in the last few days. What we
1172
are saving to the Minister is: "You were right the first time, and we regret that, largely on the basis of misleading publicity, you sought to meet what you thought to be the wishes of the Whitworth residents—and if this be so, of course it is not an unworthy motive. But now that it has become clear that this is not the case, then the Amendment asks that you revert to your original decision and leave Whitworth with Rochdale, of which socially and traditionally it has always been part."
The Amendment is not aimed at the Government, and it is not aimed at the Minister. It is aimed at those who, for whatever motives, tried to persuade the Minister and apparently succeeded, that he was wrong the first time and ought to have second thoughts. The Minister is apparently having second thoughts. Now—how confusing for the poor fellow!- -it has been demonstrated that he is wrong again. What this Amendment seeks is that the Minister's original decision should stand. The inhabitants of Whitworth clearly, through the latest poll, want to stay with Rochdale and there seems to be no reason (it may be that the Minister can find one, but I cannot) why, if the choice is there, it should not be Rochdale rather than the Rossendale Valley. I beg to move.
LORD RHODES: I wish to support this Amendment. I would say to the 129 supporters of the Government who so loyally padded their way through the other Lobby against the last Amendment: "This is a winner! This is an absolute natural'". The reason for it is this. I know the place very well. When I was Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire I used to go out through Whitworth many times. In any case, I once fought an Election in Whitworth, and two notable things happened which have imprinted themselves on my mind for years and years, and probably will always be there. The first was that I arrived at Whitworth one night ostensibly to address a Labour meeting, and nobody knew until afterwards that I had been addressing one organised by the Liberal Party. The other thing—it is obvious how inexperienced I must have been at the time—was that I accosted a Whitworth resident (it could not have been the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Ashton under Lyne, because even with the passage of years he would have been

1173
considerably older) and told him all about what the Labour Party stood for and implored him to vote for me at the Election. After I had been doing this for about seven minutes, he put his head up and loked at me and said: "A'm voting Labour, it doesn't matter what tha' says."
When I said that Whitworth was a "natural to go with Rochdale, I meant it, because it is one of the Rochdale watersheds. The little river which runs through the village goes into the Roch. The road which runs past the end of the valley over into Yorkshire is about the only main road that they have. It is in effect a cul-de-sac. To make a journey into Rossendale means a real effort. In fact, the number of buses going over into the Rossendale Valley are very few and far between. The industries in Whitworth are similar to those in Rochdale: the thinking of the people; the way in which they live; the papers they read; the social conditions they have are all Rochdale-way. And I can tell the Minister something else. I do not think Lancashire wants them—not because they are not nice, not because they are not good citizens, but because it is over the hill, it is another wedge, as the noble Lord explained so eloquently, which goes down to the Valley of Rochdale. If the Minister can stand at that Box and defend Whitworth's going into Lancashire, I shall believe anything of him.
6.19 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to both noble Lords for that spirited argument for moving Whitworth into the Greater Manchester conurbation. My right honourable friend will also be grateful for the noble Lord's compliments about his judgment. But the fact is that we appear to have here something of a marginal case. We have had two lots of petitions, one for moving Whitworth into Greater Manchester and another for moving Whitworth into Lancashire. I think that the case on geography is also finely balanced. This urban district stretches like a spoke out of Greater Manchester. It is not, geographically speaking, an integral part of the conurbation; and it certainly has strong links, as the noble Lord has said, with Greater Manchester. Equally it has affinities, which he apparently has underestimated—if I understand aright the intervention
1174
of the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes—with Rossendale. They are not so strong.
LORD RHODES: No; I was quite explicit about that. I said that it was difficult to get into Rossendale and that the natural desire at weekends is for people to go down into Rochdale. The noble Lord is quite wrong.
LORD SANDFORD: I was referring to the cinema, on which point the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, had to correct the noble Lord, Lord Wright, as to the attractions of Rossendale towards Whitworth.
LORD RHODES: Nonsense. Oh, no!
BARONESS BACON: I wonder whether we are not getting confused between Rochdale and Rossendale. There are two places.
LORD SANDFORD: If they were one and the same we should have no trouble at all. The position is fairly finely balanced, but the decisive factor, from the point of view of my right honourable friend—and it still pertains—is that the Urban District Council of Whitworth want to be regarded as belonging to Lancashire, and this, to our mind, in a fairly evenly balanced case, is decisive. But that is not to say that this issue, which as I say is fairly finely balanced, cannot and ought not to be looked at again by the Boundary Commission after April 1, 1974, to see whether in fact we have got it right and to test opinion on the spot, which is clearly divided.
We have these two Petitions but, as will become quite clear as we go through this Bill, I have to judge these Petitions with very great care and take every view that is expressed, whether by means of referendum or Petition, with a very large grain of salt. I said that the issue is quite evenly balanced and my right honourable friend, having at first taken one point of view, has now taken another. The decisive fact of the matter is that the formal and official view of the Urban District Council is in line with the Bill as it stands. I hope, bearing that in mind, that the Committee will agree, if the noble Lord. Lord Wright, feels disposed to press this Amendment, that the right thing to do, in view of the state of the Bill in its passage through Parliament and the fact that there are only 18 months to wait before the Boundary Commission

1175
can take a careful look at this issue and assess opinion locally, is not to accept the Amendment. The whole matter can be looked at in quite a short time by the Boundary Commission which has been specifically set up to consider problems such as this.
LORD RHODES: I do not think we ought to leave the matter like this. It seems to me that the Minister has looked at a map without any contour lines on it. Oh, yes! This is a Whitehall "look at a map": this, I can see, is a classic case. If the Ordnance Survey would supply the Ministry with a map with contours on it, it would be seen at once that the steep sides of this valley and the steep valley leading down to the valley which joins Rochdale is the natural place for Whitworth to be: that is, in the Rochdale district. I think that the noble Lord. Lord Wright, while perhaps not pressing this Amendment to a Division now, would expect something a little more forthcoming before the Bill passes through your Lordships' House.
LORD WRIGHT OF ASHTON UNDER LYNE: Yes, I was just about to say something like that when the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes said it for me. There seems to be nothing to be lost, so far as I am concerned by pressing this Amendment, and I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, does not appear to have made a very strong case. He seems to be as ambivalent as the Minister in dealing with the situation. I agree that it is rather marginal, and bearing in mind the sort of leaflets that were distributed, which gave such a misleading idea of what was happening, to have got 2,000 signatures out of a total electorate of 5,000 does not seem very good. But when it later became clear what was meant and that the question was Rochdale or Rossendale "and not " Manchester or Rossendale" then the change occurred. That is when the people of Whitworth
then gave 3,000 signatures on the basis of staying with Rochdale.
I mentioned earlier that the probability is that that number will be greatly exceeded. We had a situation where 60 per cent. of the electoral role preferred to remain with Rochdale. That is not too finely balanced. Whether I am permitted to disclose this or not I do not know—if I am not, somebody will tell me—but on the Whitworth Council there were four votes to five in favour of going into Rossendale. I agree it was purely on a political basis—the five Conservatives wanted to go into Rossendale and the four Socialists wanted to go into Rochdale—so you can draw your own conclusions from that and I will not make any political imputations whatever. But I think that for 60 per cent. of the people to want to go into Rochdale is substantial. I repeat that the proportion is probably greater than that now. It seems to me that all the affinities Whitworth has are with Rochdale—for instance, if you get into trouble with the police you will be tried in Rochdale and the magistrates sit in Rochdale. There is nothing you can think of, so far as Whitworth is concerned, that has not got an affinity with Rochdale. Whilst the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has pointed out that the Boundary Commission could look at this question in 1974, it seems to me that I should be letting down the 60 per cent. of Whitworth people if I did not say that I am afraid, we shall have to divide on this. I only hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will say to the Committee that this is a matter which is so finely balanced that he would advise the Committee to make up their own minds as to what they ought to do.
6.28 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 45; Not-Contents, 97.

CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Fiske, L.

Jacques, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Gardiner, L.

Janner, L.

Balogh, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Leatherland, L.

Blyton, L.

Gloucester, L.Bp.

Lindsay of Birker, L.

Chorley, L.

Hale, L.

Maelor, L.

Croft, L.

Henderson, L.

Moyne, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Hereford, L. Bp.

Peddie, L.

Diamond, L.

Hoy, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Hylton, L.

Popplewell, L.

Raglan, L.

Slater, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Rhodes, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Wade, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Watkins, L.

Seear, Bs.

Strabolgi, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L. [Teller.]

Serota, Bs.

Tanlaw, L.

Shackleton, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Shinwell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Drumalbyn. L.

Lothian, M.

Ailwyn, L.

Dulverton, L.

Loudoun, C.

Albemarle, E.

Dundee, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Eccles, V.

Luke, L.

Amory, V.

Elles, Bs.

Mancroft, L.

Balfour, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Mersey, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Milverton, L.

Belstead, L.

Falmouth, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L [Teller.]

Bessborough, E.

Fortescue, E.

Bourne, L.

Gage, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Gainford, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Brentford. V.

Garner, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Goschen, V.

Redesdale, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gowrie, E.

Ridley, V.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Greenway, L.

St. Just, L.

Camoys, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sandford, L.

Carrington, L.

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

Sandys, L.

Chelmer, L.

Selkirk, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Selsdon, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Headfort, M.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Colwyn, L.

Henley, L.

Stamp, L.

Colyton, L.

Hodson, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Swansea, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Howe, E.

Thomas, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Trefgarne, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Tweedsmuir, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Killearn, L.

Vivian, L.

Daventry, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Davidson, V.

Latymer, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

de Clifford, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Wigram, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Limerick, E.

Wolverton, L.

Digby, L.

Long, V.

Young, Bs.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

6.36 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE LORD PEDDIE moved Amendment No. 10A:
Page 209, line 39, leave out ("and Wilmslow").
The noble Lord said: I have pleasure in moving the Amendment that stands in my name on the Marshalled List. I do not intend to take up much of the Committee's time. The arguments here are pretty clear, and I am quite sure that this is not going to be something which will arouse any geographical confusion. Wilmslow is a place which is well known to many persons. It is an urban district council in Cheshire with a population of about 20,000. It is integrated with a smaller community, which is adjacent to it, called Alderley Edge. Under the existing proposals Wilmslow will go into the Greater Manchester County Council, and
Alderley Edge will remain in Cheshire, I will try to point out how farcical that decision is. I will indicate that a reversal of that decision, leaving Wilmslow in Cheshire, will involve no administrative difficulties; indeed, it will strengthen the administrative organisation in that area I know that in such an exercise as this, covering such a wide field and involving so many areas, communities and councils, opposition is bound to arise through fear, pride, or prejudice, on the part of some areas or councils that do not like change. In this case I believe that a genuine mistake has been made by those responsible and when it is recognised by intelligent persons the decision already made will be changed and Wilmslow will remain in Cheshire.
There was a referendum taken on this matter in the Wilmslow area. Rather more than 95 per cent. of the people desired to remain in Cheshire. I know that many noble Lords opposite subscribe

1179
to the belief that there should be a greater degree of public participation in these matters. I do not advance the results of this referendum as my sole argument in favour of the Amendment. This is just one argument and I consider it to be a small one; there are so many other sound arguments.
Noble Lords will wonder how it is that Wilmslow has not kicked up a fuss to the same extent as some other councils. The explanation is unusual. Wilmslow enjoys the distinction and suffers the disability of having as its Member of Parliament a man who is a distinguished Member of the Cabinet. Obviously, this places the loyal supporters of that Member in some difficulty in challenging a decision made by the Government. I agree that they have left it a little late. However, I am convinced that there has been misunderstanding on the part of someone which has caused this decision that Wilmslow should go into the Greater Manchester area. I have already said that to leave it in Cheshire would create no difficulty and would not reduce the viability of the district of which Stockport is the centre. There are practically no links at all between Wilmslow and Stockport; yet Stockport would be the administrative head of the area in which Wilmslow would be placed.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, quoted the White Paper in support of his arguments against a previous Amendment; therefore I too shall use the White Paper. I shall not deal with it at length but will merely refer to paragraph 8 which has already been mentioned. It states:
"Local authority areas should be related to areas within which people have a common interest—through living in a recognisable community, through the links of employment, shopping or social activities, or through history and tradition."
In all those criteria, with perhaps one slight exception, there is provided no justification at all for Wilmslow to go into the Greater Manchester area. I said that there was perhaps one exception; it is the question of employment. A number of people from Wilmslow are employed in the Greater Manchester area, but 61 per cent. of the employed persons living in the Wilmslow area do not work in the Manchester area. Therefore one could argue strongly that even employment does
1180
not provide to any extent a justification as one of the criteria which determine the action of the Government in these matters.
In regard to common interest, which is very important, it is interesting to note that of the 86 social organisations in the Wilmslow area not a single one, so far as I am aware, has a direct relationship with Manchester. The overwhelming majority have a joint membership and a joint association with the people of Alderley Edge, an adjoining community. In those circumstances, how on earth can such an action as indicated in the Bill be justified? To create a boundary between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow is a mistake. There is no doubt that they are closely integrated communities.
My last point is a strong one. I have indicated that if the decision is taken by the Government that Wilmslow should remain in Cheshire it will not affect the viability of the Manchester area into which it is supposed to go. But if it remains the decision that Wilmslow is to be forced into the Manchester area it should be realised that over the past decade a substantial sum of money has been spent on building up divisional headquarters to provide local services for areas in Cheshire South of Wilmslow. The services covered are health, welfare, planning, ambulance, fire and law courts. If this decision is enforced it will mean that most of that expenditure will be negatived or rendered almost valueless. Only a matter of six to 12 months ago £500,000 was spent on one building. If Wilmslow is not kept within Cheshire it will be necessary to put up administrative buildings to serve that area. If that is not a waste I do not know what waste is. Therefore I would merely ask at this stage that there be further consideration.
As was mentioned by my noble friend in another case the Minister has done his helicopter judgment. Probably from a helicopter the situation looks a little different than through the eyes of the people who live there. I know the district because I have lived there for a matter of eight years. I do not need to go over it in a helicopter. Therefore I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government to think again about this. It will not trouble Manchester or Her Majesty's Government if the decision that has been taken

1181
is reversed. The general administration of the area would be strengthened, great economies would be achieved and many people would be satisfied if this Amendment were accepted.
6.50 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: As a start I should like to make it clear that my right honourable friends have come to their conclusions on this Bill after a much more thorough process than flying over areas in a helicopter, though in some cases this has been an additional part of the studies and consultations undertaken. In contrast to the previous debate, here we come to a matter where the issues are clear cut and the decisions are quite certain. The Wilmslow Urban District Council have consistently opposed their inclusion in the Stockport-based metropolitan district, though I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, that their inclusion or exclusion does not seriously affect the viability either of Stockport or of Greater Manchester; that is not an issue. The urban district council want Wilmslow to be in Cheshire and Cheshire County Council want Wilmslow to be there too, and several other Cheshire authorities support them in that. But it is a fact, as the noble Lord. Lord Peddie, said, that there has been remarkably little fuss or commotion from the inhabitants of Wilmslow itself.
The Government's view is that Wilmslow should be in Greater Manchester because on any objective criterion, whether you look at it from a map or a helicopter or study any of the relevant facts or figures, it is plainly part of the Manchester conurbation, both physically and in function. Physically it is almost connected, though there is a narrow green belt of about a quarter of a mile wide between Wilmslow and the main built-up area. Much of the criticism of the way in which we have drawn the metropolitan counties is to the effect that we have drawn the boundary too tight. Here, if we were to respond to that criticism, we would include not only Wilmslow but go further out into Cheshire still. We have thought it right to draw the boundary tight but no tighter than we have here at the moment, for to reduce it still further would be contrary to the principles we have adopted in these cases.
1182
I would make the point that Wilmslow is essentially a commuter suburb of Manchester, and this is partly illustrated by a number of factors which I should like to rehearse and to catalogue. The latest migration figures for a five-year period show that no fewer than 58 per cent. of the people moving into Wilmslow come from Manchester. The C.B.C. of Manchester have just built a housing estate for 4,000 people at Handforth in the North of Wilmslow. The train services number 70 trains daily from Wilmslow into Manchester. There are no direct train services from Wilmslow either to Macclesfield or to Chester. There are 71 buses daily from Wilmslow into Manchester, and 29 daily into Stockport. Sixty-nine per cent. of Wilmslow households read the Manchester Evening News. Water is supplied by Stockport. On shopping, not only do many Wilmslow residents go into Manchester but Wilmslow itself functions as an out-of-town shopping centre for the conurbation. It is in the employment exchange area of Manchester. Manchester is only 12 mile away; Chester is 32. Wilmslow is within the Selnec P.T.A. All those reasons add up to the fact that Wilmslow is an integral part of the conurbation.
It is quite true that there is some agricultural land in the urban district, and farmers perhaps look to Cheshire for their social and economic purposes. But this is a minute proportion of the total employed population—170 out of 11,000. It is for these reasons, which are not matters of judgment but matters of fact, that the Government strongly take the view that Wilmslow is an integral part of the metropolitan area, physically and by function, and it would be quite wrong to draw the boundary other than outside the urban district council. For those reasons, I must advise the Committee to resist this Amendment if the noble Lord feels disposed to press it.
LORD PEDDIE: I am certainly disappointed with that answer but it is also one that I expected. I do not intend to force a Division at this point because I have sufficient confidence in the noble Lord opposite to feel that he will give a little more consideration to this matter than he has done in merely reading a brief on the subject. All the arguments

1183
he has advanced I have already foreseen. For instance, as to that concerning the reading of the Manchester Evening News. I would suggest that Blackpool also ought to be included, because I should think that the most popular newspaper read in Blackpool is the Manchester Evening News. I should think, for instance, that there are many flights from Ringway, which is close by, to Schipol airport. Is the noble Lord, on the basis of the number of flights from Ringway to Schipol airport, going to suggest that there should be administrative links between Manchester and Amsterdam? He says that Cheshire wants Wilmslow in. Of course they do. So also did every other authority when this matter came under consideration ten years ago. Every single one indicated that it was wise for Wilmslow to be in the Cheshire area.
However, the general argument that is advanced, apart from the Manchester Evening News and so on, I do not accept. Two-thirds of the area of Wilmslow is in the North Cheshire Green Belt—I repeat, two-thirds of all the area. I have already dealt with the question of people's employment. Sixty-one per cent. of the working people in Wilmslow do not find employment in Manchester. But it is perfectly obvious that the Minister came along with the firm determination to turn this proposal down, and I know he has had very little time to consider it as it was put down only yesterday. I will not force a Division on this occasion, but I can only hope that more thought will be given to the arguments I have advanced to-day, and I will take the opportunity of presenting the case in stronger form on a future occasion. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD ABERDARE: It seems hardly worth while to start on another Amendment, so perhaps I might move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.

ROYAL ASSENT
6.57 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE):
My Lords, I have to acquaint the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measures:

Appropriation Act,

National Insurance Act,

National Health Service (Scotland) Act,

Administration of Justice (Scotland) Act,

Gas Act,

Land Charges Act,

Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act,

Industry Act,

Harbours Development (Scotland) Act,

National Debt Act,

Poisons Act,

Bath Side Bay Development Act,

British Transport Docks Act,

Devon River Authority (General Powers) Act,

Essex River Authority Act,

Greater London Council (General Powers) Act,

Liverpool Corporation Act,

London Transport Act,

Milford Docks Act,

Selnec (Manchester Central Area Railway, &c.) Act,

Thames Barrier and Flood Prevention Act,

Thames Conservancy Act,

Hampshire County Council Act,

Deaconesses and Lay Ministry Measure,

Clergy Pensions (Amendment) Measure.

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1920
6.59 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I beg to move that an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty in the terms set out in the Order Paper. In moving this Motion, I should like to inform the House, if it is agreeable, that I propose to move this Motion formally and then to make my substantive remarks on the second Motion. I beg to move.
Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, thanking Her for Her Most Gracious Message communicating to this House Her Majesty's Declaration that a state of emergency exists.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1920
7.0 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE rose to move, That the Emergency (No. 2) Regulations 1972, laid before the House on Thursday last, shall continue in force subject to the provisions of Section 2(4) of the Emergency Powers Act 1920. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. In opening this debate I should like to concentrate on the measures which the Government may have to take to deal with the emergency confronting us at the present time.
I do not think your Lordships will wish me to traverse the history of the dispute which led to this national dock strike with which we are now faced. But I am quite certain that you will share my hope that the very great efforts which are being deployed to reach a negotiated settlement under the aegis of the Aldington-Jones Committee and on the basis of the recommendations contained in their report will be successful. The Committee have not spared themselves. They have had numerous meetings and, as your Lordships know, they met late last night and again to-day. It is too early to say whether their efforts will lead to an early settlement, but of two things I am confident. The first is that your Lordships will all share my admiration for the strenuous efforts which this power-
1186
ful Committee have been making. I am sure, too, that it will be the general view of your Lordships that we should say nothing in this debate that would in any way render the task of the Committee more difficult.
I now propose to outline briefly to the House the purpose of the Emergency Regulations which came into force last Friday. The Proclamation of a State of Emergency was made on Thursday, August 3, and on the same day the Emergency (No. 2) Regulations 1972 were made and laid before Parliament. They came into operation the following day. To declare a State of Emergency and to take the emergency powers which go with it are grave actions, and Parliament should always question such actions seriously.
My Lords, this is the fourth occasion in two years on which a Proclamation has been necessary, though I would remind your Lordships that, happily, on two out of the three previous occasions virtually no use was in fact made of the powers. The electricity consumption orders during the coal strike were the only example of the extensive use of powers under Emergency Regulations. Again I should like to stress that it is our hope that on this occasion, too, it will not be necessary to make extensive use of the very wide-ranging powers contained in the Regulations. Indeed, as I shall mention later, the only power under the Emergency Regulations which the Government have as yet exercised is that to establish the Port Emergency Committees. Nevertheless, I am sure there will be general recognition that the Government have a duty to protect the essentials of life of the whole community. Likewise, it has always been recognised that a national dock strike can quickly present a threat to essential supplies and that in these circumstances it is right for the Government of the day to arm themselves with emergency powers as a contingency measure.
Having said that, and before turning to the Proclamation and the Regulations themselves, I should like, very briefly, to outline to the House the position as T understand it to be at present—not the position regarding the dispute but the position regarding the threat to essential supplies. In the first place, I must make it clear that there is no immediate shortage of food for human consumption.

1187
While there may be certain pockets of local shortage, it is generally true to say that only a few imported items, such as fruits, are in short supply in the shops. Nevertheless, it is clear that were the strike to continue for any considerable length of time without remedial action we should begin to experience increasing shortages over a much wider range of foods.
The chief immediate area of concern is the increasing shortage of animal feedingstuffs. My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has the position here under particularly careful review. He is indeed at this very moment discussing these matters with representatives of the trade interests concerned, and a variety of ways are being urgently sought to prevent what would be the totally unnecessary, and indeed sad, slaughter of poultry and pigs on our farms. It is of course our hope that the strike will end shortly, and in that event things in this area will quickly come back to normal. But we must provide for the worst on a contingency basis, and in this specific and important area of animal feedingstuffs time is beginning to run short. Then I should point out, without going into details, that there are special difficulties which some of our remoter communities are experiencing. I have in mind particularly some of the smaller islands off the West Coast of Scotland, and Orkney and the Shetlands. Here again I can assure your Lordships that the position in these islands is under close review and is receiving attention.
My Lords, that is the background to the Proclamation and the making of the Regulations. Subject to Parliamentary approval, these Regulations will continue in operation for as long as the State of Emergency continues, which is for a period of one calendar month from the date of the Proclamation. If the emergency extended beyond that period a further Proclamation could he made. In that event, fresh Regulations would be required and would within seven days require the approval of Parliament; and both Houses would have to be recalled for that purpose. Your Lordships will perhaps remember that we are proposing to come back, rather abnormally, this year on Monday, September 11. That is our present programme. Should the
1188
unfortunate necessity arise of having to continue the State of Emergency and to make fresh regulations, it would. I fear, be necessary for this House to be recalled during the week preceding the date now fixed.
These Regulations are, with one exception of substance to which I will refer in a moment, substantially the same as those used in previous emergencies. Again I would emphasise that in seeking these powers we wish to ensure that they are available immediately when the need for their use arises. This means that there will be no use of these powers beyond what is necessary to ensure the essentials of life to the community. Similarly, the Government intend to end the State of Emergency and the Regulations as soon as it is feasible to do so. As I have mentioned, little use has so far been made of the Regulations. Port Emergency Committees in the major ports have been set up under paragraph 4 of Regulation 3. Initially the Committees will report about the state of the ports, and later, under the direction of the Secretary of State, they could take necessary action to control traffic in those ports.
Given the similarity which these Regulations bear to those to which your Lordships have become only too accustomed. I shall restrict my remarks to drawing attention to the only change of substance. Regulation 25 is in fact new and is designed to facilitate rapid recourse to alternative sources of drugs and medicines where the normal channels are impeded. It is not expected that this power will need to be used in the present emergency, although it was thought right, based on experience in the previous emergency, to add it to the standard body of regulations. The powers to waive provision of the Medicines Act 1968 are held by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services in respect of most drugs and medicines, other than those used primarily for the treatment of animal diseases. In the latter case the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has the power to waive the application of the relevant parts of the Act.
Regulations 32 to 40 repeat the provisions of earlier Regulations, mainly with regard to offences and penalties, and I would remind your Lordships that in accordance with the proviso to Regulation 38(1) nothing in the Regulations makes

1189
it an offence to take part in peaceful picketing—I stress the word "peaceful".
There have been suggestions that the Government should take immediate steps to introduce price control of food under Regulation 23. These suggestions will be examined, but I am far from persuaded that it would be right to do so now. Should it be so decided at some future date, there would of course be considerable problems of an administrative nature connected with any possible scheme. I believe that at present trade is doing its best to hold down prices, but when imported foodstuffs, for example bananas, are in very short supply or are not available they inevitably acquire a scarcity value which no system of distribution or price control could possibly obviate, though I doubt whether a temporary shortage of bananas would serious endanger the life of the community.
I hope the fact that I have introduced these Regulations to your Lordships in a comparatively brief speech will not in any way be taken that either I or the Government view this situation other than gravely. I have kept my remarks brief because I am anxious not to say anything at this delicate stage which might in any way prejudice the chances of that early settlement which we all desire to see.
I will, in conclusion, dwell on three points. I wish, first, to refer to the difficulty which has arisen and the concern that has been expressed over the payment of supplementary benefit to the families of dockers who volunteered during the strike—I am glad that they have done so—to move essential supplies and who have apparently chosen to donate any wages they receive to some charitable purpose. I am glad to be able to inform your Lordships that following a meeting between the trade union and employers' side and the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission this afternoon, the following statement was agreed:
"It was agreed at a meeting on 9th August between the representative of the dockers and a representative of the port employers and the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission that in the event of any voluntary task being undertaken by the dock workers during a strike, no payment of wages shall be made to any person involved in the task performed, but the employer would be able at his discretion to make a lump sum payment to charity in consideration of the work done. In such
1190
circumstances Supplementary Benefit would be payable in accordance with the normal provisions."
Secondly, there is the position over the possible use of troops. I can assure your Lordships that troops would be used only in the last resort, when all other efforts to move supplies which are essential—I stress the word "essential"—to the life of the community by other means have failed.
Thirdly, I should like to emphasise that these Regulations are in no way directed against the dockers or their unions. They are not a means of bringing Government pressure on the parties in dispute. In seeking these powers the Government are acting, as any Government must act in the discharge of their duty to the nation, to secure the maintenance of the essentials to life. Whatever we may feel about the origins of this dispute and whatever our judgments may be on the various aspects of our industrial relations, I am confident that this action—the taking of these necessary powers—commands the support not only of your Lordships but of the nation generally. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Emergency (No. 2) Regulations 1972, laid before the House on Thursday last, shall continue in force subject to the provisions of Section 2(4) of the Emergency Powers Act 1920.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
7.14 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, for the clear and adequate way in which he has explained the Motion. I wish to make it clear at the start that we on these Benches do not propose to divide the House or oppose the Motion. We recognise that a situation of this kind exists and that the Government must have the necessary powers to protect the life of the nation.
I was glad to hear the noble Earl say that the Government would use these powers to the minimum extent necessary—I am not quoting his words, but that was the purport of what he said—and I want to underline how important that is. He went on to say that these powers were not intended in any way to bring pressure to bear on the unions—that is, that they were not intended to be used for the purpose of strike breaking—and I am sure that that is the intention of the

1191
Government. Nevertheless, this Government, like every other Government faced with this situation, are in the dilemma that the withdrawal of pressure on the consumer technically withdraws some of the pressure on the employer. Inevitably, therefore, the carrying out of their proper function of protecting the life of the nation entails their giving a certain amount of assistance to the employer as against the employee. It is a dilemma but it is somewhat inevitable. All that one can say is that one is grateful for the clear undertaking to use the powers to the minimum extent possible.
I share the hone that the noble Earl expressed that the emergency and the strike will come to an end as soon as possible. I congratulate the Committee to which he referred. He called it the Aldington-Jones Committee but I prefer to call it the Jones-Aldington Committee.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, it was merely a question of alphabetical order.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I think the Jones-Aldington sequence has gained a certain amount of currency in the Press and elsewhere. Be that as it may, we are talking about the same Committee in the same way and that is the important thing. We are both very conscious of the great efforts that have been made by this Committee and the way in which it was got together. The same applies to the thinking behind inviting people like Jack Jones and the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, along with the other members of the Committee, to carry out this function. We congratulate the Committee on the work it has done. We hope, without saying anything which might make life more difficult for them, that both employers and employees will realise the great responsibility which both sides have in making some contribution, and if necessary some sacrifice, in the interests of the nation, and we are all aware that there are arguments to be made and points to be considered on both sides.
I immediately respond to the appeal of the noble Earl not to say anything further about the circumstances of the strike which might only exacerbate the situation. I do not propose to detain your Lordships for long. It would however be appropriate for me to comment
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on some of the background circumstances to which one must have regard because this is, as the noble Earl said, the fourth occasion—it seems extraordinary, but it is the fourth occasion—in two short years when we are having Emergency Regulations put before us.
I need say little about the powers themselves because, with one exception, we know them well; we almost know them by heart. One does not want to drift into a situation in which there will be a fifth and sixth occasion, bearing in mind that future occasions could be more severe than the present one or the three previous ones. I am bound therefore, in support of what the noble Earl said, to say something by way of an appeal for new thinking. I urge him to urge all his colleagues to appreciate the wisdom of saying nothing that exacerbates feelings at this time. If the noble Earl were to ask me to give examples, I could give two. For instance, on the radio at one o'clock to-day his right honourable friend the Leader of the other place spoke of some action on the part of the dockers. I do not know what the action was, whether his right honourable friend's remarks were right or whether he sincerely felt what he said. Nevertheless he said that certain action of the dockers was "quite disgraceful". I therefore request the noble Earl to give my compliments to his right honourable friend and to ask him to bear in mind on future occasions—because we hope that this strike will be over shortly—to reserve comments like that until after the strike is over and not make them at what the noble Earl himself described as this delicate stage of negotiations. That is one example that occurs to me to justify my making this request to the noble Earl.
The second one which occurs to me is a matter to which he has just referred and to which I was going to refer in a very similar way, namely, the problem of "Have you got wages when you have foregone them?" Have you got resources when you have foregone them?". The noble Earl has been good enough to say that he was glad, and we are glad, that this work was voluntarily undertaken, and obviously in the circumstances those undertaking the work could not accept payment because they were acting individually and all the others on strike were

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not going to get payment. Equally obviously the employer should not get the benefit of that voluntary act on the part of his employees. So, in those circumstances, there is the device which is exactly the same as the device which the Government enacted in the Industrial Relations Act for those not wanting to join a union but who should not have the benefit of the results of union negotiation without making any payment—the device of making a payment to charity. And may I say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for honouring us with his presence on this occasion also.
Now, my Lords, my experience is in the tax field, and all your Lordships who are interested in that field know very well that a man asked to provide a certain service can say, " Yes, I am willing to provide the service but I do not want payment for it. You can give it to XYZ charity." We all know that that can be done in one of two ways. In one way the man providing the service pays tax on what is deemed to be his income. In the other way the man providing the service pays no tax because he is deemed not to have had any income. But exactly the same thing happens: he provides the service and the payment is made to the charity. Why am I saying this? I am saying it to show what a marginal situation this is. I am delighted that negotiations have now taken place so that what was done in, if I may say so, a somewhat "ham-handed" fashion from this point of view, not realising its consequences, is now being done in a much more sensible way.
The point I am making is that I do not think it was in the best interests of settling this dispute that immediately this difficulty arose—a very real difficulty, especially if your Lordships would be good enough to look at it in the light of those dockers who had volunteered their services—what happened? The Under-Secretary of the Department concerned spoke on the wireless justifying fully the action of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, which was unnecessary, and, worse, making it appear that the Government and the Supplementary Benefits Commission were in some way or other connected and that this was part of Government policy. I do not say that he said so, but I say that he made it
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appear so to any docker listening in to that explanation or looking at it on television. That was unfortunate, and I am very glad indeed that the situation has developed in the way in which the noble Earl has explained.
I finish with an appeal to the Government to take stock of the situation. I have already referred to the fact, as the noble Earl himself did, that this is the fourth occasion in two years that we have had an Emergency Proclamation arising out of industrial relations difficulties. The "days lost through strikes" figures recently published, coupled with that, show that we are in the worst industrial relations situation since the war. To be as non-controversial as I can be, this Government is presiding over a situation on industrial relations which is worse than that which faced even any previous Conservative Government since the war. Surely, therefore, I am entitled to ask the Government to take stock of the situation and to have regard to some of the circumstances which might have formed part of the background.
We all know on what a marginal vote this decision to strike was taken. We all know the numbers who abstained. We can all interpret that in our own way. It would not be the first time that I have divided the House as a matter of protest on the way the Government is behaving rather than on the content of the particular proposal which is being discussed, and that is a well understood procedure. It is the only way in which those who feel that they are not being fairly treated can register their sense of injustice. One can therefore interpret the decision that was taken by the dockers' representatives at that meeting. I do not suppose any one of us here doubts but that the recent gaoling of five dockers was not completely absent from the minds of every one of those representatives; or the £55,000 fine; or other hostile acts—-as the unions see them—stemming from the Industrial Relations Act. There can be no doubt about that.
Equally, there is no doubt about the present situation under that Act. At the last count there were 10 million members affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. Of those, 9½ million out of the total of 10 million at the last count have come off the register. They have

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taken steps to opt out of the Industrial Relations Act and to bear the penalties. When one is thinking about how people react to a fine of £55,000, I would ask your Lordships to think of the real fine of between £3 million and £4 million a year which' the Government are imposing at this minute on all those unions. As the noble Earl sits there he and his Government—I still feel bitter about this and regard it as a complete abuse of power—are fining all the unions, including that union led by Mr. Jack Jones, who is at the moment the much applauded and responsible individual who, together with Lord Aldington, is million because they prefer not to sign a piece of paper which says "Register unless" or "Register or else".
That is the present situation, and I appeal to the Government, therefore, to realise that there are many members of trade unions—and he should not have called them "trade unions" in his speech; he was guilty of an inaccuracy, as they are not trade unions, according to the Government. There are many members of organisations of workers. Mr. Jack Jones, upon whom we are all relying so much, is not a "trade union leader"; he is an employee of an "organisation of registered workers", not entitled to call themselves a trade union under this Act. That is the present situation, and so I am appealing to the Government to take stock of the situation and to be willing to go and sit round a table with the unions, with the idea of both sides making some contribution in respect of the Industrial Relations Act. It is obviously asking for too much to ask the Government to repeal the Act yet. It is not asking for too much to ask the Government to take stock of the present situation, and on the occasion of this, the fourth imposition of Emergency Regulations, to see whether certain aspects of the Industrial Relations Act have not contributed to the present situation and will not be likely to contribute to even worsening situations in future. And I have indicated one that stands very high in my order of priorities.
7.30 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, it is my intention to speak only briefly. This
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is not an occasion for Party controversy. In the circumstances, no alternative was left to the Government than to ask for emergency powers. It has been done before; regretfully, it may happen again. What I am concerned with is the nature of this dispute; what was the cause of it. It may be argued that it is something to do with industrial relations and the Industrial Relations Tribunal, or something of the sort. Quite frankly, I do not think anything of the kind. I have myself had considerable experience with dock labour in the past; I was associated with them because of my connection with the seamen and I understand the nature of their difficulties. I can recall the casual labour of the past, the deplorably low rates of pay, the long hours of work and the regular unemployment. I thought we had departed permanently from that deplorable situation.
What is the dispute about? It is essentially a demarcation dispute. In the past, when we had demarcation disputes as between one section of workers and another as to who should do this or that, the matter was dealt with by the demarcation committee or the economic committee of the Trades Union Congress General Council. I can recall many years ago when I was chairman of the Glasgow Trades Council, which at the time was the most influential trade union body in the whole of Scotland. We had frequent demarcation disputes among the railway unions and various other unions, and we had a demarcation committee which determined who was in the right and which side was in the wrong. That is what the trouble is about.
But there is another reason for this dispute. Some time ago I ventured to put a Question in your Lordships' House. I did not get, and did not expect, a full and satisfactory answer. It was on the question of redundancy and what is to be done about it. This is part of the trouble. There is a great deal of unemployment in the transport industry. The dock labourers are insecure; that we know. If they see their jobs being taken away from them because of containerisation, naturally they resent it. We have to face that fact. I happen to know something about containerization, because it is closely associated with the shipping industry. Containerisation has come to stay; there is no mistake about that. We

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have got to understand it and adapt ourselves to this new situation. And if the Government have made a mistake, it is not the first time that a mistake has occurred; nor is this Government the first Government to have made a mistake. These matters have been discussed in the past—for example, the question of redundancy. What has been done about it? It just exists. There is, of course, unemployment benefit or supplementary allowances and the like. That is not enough. We must face the fact that whether it is because of automation or rationalisation, mechanisation or whathave-you, redundancy exists.
If I may supplement what my noble friend Lord Diamond has said in his very thoughtful speech, the Government have to consider the situation and find some way out of the difficulty, otherwise, we are going to have a frequency of disputes which this nation can no longer afford. There is another thing. I wonder—I may be quite wrong in what I am about to say—whether the Aldington/ Jones Report was not prematurely announced. It was suggested that the Report would prevent a national dock strike. That was stated in your Lordships' House; I cannot be exact about the terms. It was stated in the other place, in the Press, in almost every newspaper; the Aldington/Jones Report would make it unnecessary to have a dockers' strike.
We have a dockers' strike, and leaving aside all other reasons and arguments associated with the situation, we have a strike now because some dock employers refuse to agree, as I understand it, that only registered dockers should be associated with containerisation. They may have very good reasons for this. It may mean extra costs. It may mean the employment of dock labour which is more expensive and transport labour of what might be described as inferior quality. I do not use the word "inferior" in a derogatory sense; probably it is because of differentials in wages rates. Is it impossible for the Government to find some way out of that difficulty?
Here I want to ask a question. Would it not have been wiser on the part of the Government to intervene? From the very beginning of this dispute there has been no evidence of Government inter-
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vention except the present emergency powers. What has been going on behind the scenes? Has the Minister for Trade and Employment, or any other Minister associated with problems of this character, sought to intervene? There is no evidence of this. I should have thought that intervention should have taken place at a very early date. We have experience of this. I can recall the deplorable seamen's strike that took place during the period of office of the Wilson Government, when Mr. Gunter was Minister of Labour. It lasted several weeks. On that occasion I appealed to Mr. Gunter at the outset to intervene, and I was told that traditionally the Minister of Labour never intervened but always waited until approached. It was only when the Shipping Federation, on the one hand, led by Mr. Ford Geddes, and the National Union of Seamen, led by Mr. Hogarth, approached some Members of Parliament, including myself, that we were able to press for an inquiry. The inquiry did not take place until five or six weeks after the dispute had originated. That is all wrong.
I think there is general agreement that the Government had to act as they have done and take emergency powers. The Government must act; but a Government must also govern, and must be seen to be governing. They cannot afford to ignore what is brewing in an industry. They know what is going on they have their ears to the ground, and information is available to them. They ought to intervene at the earliest possible moment to prevent a dispute, even if it is regarded as premature action, because once a dispute begins it is a much more difficult thing to stop it.
I have one further question. Can the noble Earl the Leader of the House say whether the Government are seized of what is happening now in the discussions of the Aldington-Jones Committee in their association with the employers? What is going on? What is the actual obstacle? I have ventured to express an opinion about it, but I may be wrong and in that event I hope to be corrected. What is the real trouble? Is it a matter of finance? Can the Government act? Is it something other than that where the Government have the facility and will to take some action? We ought to know, because the sooner this dispute is brought to an end, the better.

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Nobody is more pleased than I am to hear that there are ample food supplies, but there is much more than that at stake. There is the effect on our economy, and Heaven knows our economy will not stand much of this sort of thing. I therefore hope that the Government may find an opportunity to do something perhaps through the medium of the Trades Union Congress General Council. I do not notice that Mr. Vic Feather is doing anything about this. Recently it was decided following meetings between representatives of the C.B.I. and the T.U.C., to form a body which is intended to seek conciliatory action, to promote conciliation, arbitration or something of that sort. There ought to be action of some kind. I repeat that the sooner this dispute is brought to an end, the better. There ought, I agree, to be no acrimony if it can possibly be avoided. We cannot afford disputes of this character much longer. Although I understand why the dispute has taken place, and the background to it, we have to face the fact that if we go on having disputes of this character then the future of this country—well, no one can say what is going to happen.
7.42 p.m.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Earl, the Leader of the House, for outlining these Regulations and emergency powers. I agree entirely with the statement that nothing should be said that might prejudice the chances of a settlement. I am glad to read the reports in the evening newspapers, and on the Table, to the effect that progress is being made by the Jones-Aldington Committee. I hope this is so. I gather that the outlook is more hopeful. On the strength of these reports, I think questions about the situation that has arisen should be related to a time-scale of a week or less, and I very much hope I am proven to be right in that respect.
Nevertheless, my Lords, there are certain commodities, as the noble Earl has pointed out, and certain areas of the country where there is some degree of urgency. Perhaps in replying the noble Earl will tell us a little more as to how serious is the shortage of animal feeding-stuffs. I have read an account of the statement made by Mr. Prior, the Minister
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of Agriculture, and I gather there is some system of rationing in operation. Presumably this is a voluntary form of rationing by agreement with the wholesalers and the farmers. I should like to know how it is working. Again, there is the problem, to which the noble Earl has referred, of getting essential supplies through to the Orkneys, the Shetlands and the other islands.
Reference has already been made to the difficulties with which the dockers are faced, in particular the Glasgow dockers. Certainly I heard that they were willing to assist to get supplies through to the Orkneys and Shetlands. I welcome the statement made to-day by the noble Earl. At the same time I am aware that the Government are not directly responsible for what the Supplementary Benefits Commission decides and I will not attempt to embark on the extremely complex tax position which has been outlined to noble Lords. I think there are still one or two practical points that the noble Earl could deal with in his reply. I understand that petrol is being taken to the Orkneys and Shetlands and the other islands by plane; it is the only way at present. That is rather a dangerous operation. Could noble Lords have some information about it? A somewhat similar point: are supplies getting through to the offshore oil rigs? There again the situation, I am told, could become serious. It would be helpful if we could learn the latest position.
My Lords, are perishable goods—an inevitable casualty of a conflict of this nature—still piling up at ports? As to price control, I am inclined to agree with the noble Earl that there are many difficulties about its introduction, and I doubt whether, in the circumstances that exist at present, it could be effective without some form of rationing. These are some of the immediate problems, and I sincerely hope it will be a matter only of days and not of weeks before the dispute is settled.
I have a few comments to offer on the wider aspect, but I do not approach it in quite the same way as my noble friend Lord Diamond does, although our aims are the same; namely, that there should be better relations in industry. I hope that when this settlement is reached—I say "when", not "if"—it will provide an opportunity to create a new

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climate, a climate in which there will be a chance to consider calmly what has gone wrong in the last two years—for undoubtedly something has gone wrong in the last two years. I suggest that one of the unfortunate characteristics of the last 18 months is that we have had many bold statements from the Government about the need for maintaining the rule of law in industry, but all too often, it seems to me, the Government's actions have had the effect of undermining the position of the moderates and of playing into the hand of extremists. I readily acknowledge that that was not the intention or the desire of the Government; but that is how things have tended to work out.
There is another trend that I regret; and here I must disagree with my noble friend Lord Diamond, because I do not think this should be regarded as unmentionable: I regret the growth of violence in the course of picketing. While I appreciate the strength of feeling of those engaged in a dispute, especially when it coincides with fear of permanent loss of employment in the future, one must deplore the violent action that has occasionally taken place. It is in my view entirely out of keeping with the best traditions of the trade union movement. I should like to see all political Parties and the leaders of the trade unions, if I may call them such, united, and openly united, on this point, that physical violence, whether against the police or against other workers, is quite contrary to our democratic traditions. If I were to stop there I should be intellectually dishonest, because I recognise that the unity on this point of peaceful picketing which is so important cannot be achieved in the atmosphere of confrontation and distrust which has been prevalent, certainly in the last 18 months, and for which the Government must bear some considerable measure of responsibility. I do not expect the noble Earl to get up and say that he agrees with me, but I hope that he accepts the sincerity of my views on that point. In conclusion, I agree that these emergency powers are necessary, and I only hope that they will be short-lived.
7.50 p.m.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, while I share the sentiment that nothing should be said here which could exacerbate the situation, it seems to me that too much
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can be swept under the carpet if certain facts are not related. It seems to me that we are debating a matter which can be characterised only by use of the most evil cliché the English language: that about chickens coming home to roost. We have warned the Government with a monotony which was too boring for words—at any rate, hearing myself speak—but in vain, that confrontation and abrasiveness would not produce the results which we all desired and that something else had to be done; that the general pressures on the economy, as was stated in the Conservative manifesto, would not produce the harmony and equilibrium which we all desired.
Unlike some of my noble, right honourable and honourable friends, I do not believe that the fount of all evil is the Industrial Relations Act. We had very great problems before that. It is the profound change which has overtaken the social and economic system which has produced these difficulties, and the refusal—and, by no means, by this Government alone, though this Government were preeminent in refusing—to deal with these problems in a reasonable fashion. It has been said here, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that this is a form of demarcation dispute. I beg to disagree. It is a demarcation dispute, but it is a demarcation dispute with a difference. It is the concentration of power in both trade unions and the Employers' Federation, together with the fuller employment which we have enjoyed since the war, which have produced this terrible problem, and I do not believe that any of the Governments since the war have been either capable of analysing the fresh problems or of devising methods to deal with them. It is because we have tried to combat the problem of inflation and the problem of the relationship between employer and employee by completely anachronistic methods that we have landed in the situation which we are in.
No doubt the problem of the docks and containerisation is an important and very difficult one. People are afraid for their livelihood and they are pressing for security which they cannot get. But they are pressing for security because, after all, unemployment has increased in this country from roughly 150,000 to 180,000 to over a million, and after a drop it is again rising towards a million. That the

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problem can be solved in the framework of an expanding economy has been shown in Rotterdam. Rotterdam has also had this containerisation problem but the dockers of Rotterdam, and of Antwerp, are not a different kind of people. They are very similar to our people and on occasion have been far more violent than our people.
Therefore, I must press on my noble friend Lord Diamond that the Government should reconsider their basic policies and their basic attitudes to life. It is no good hoping that the confrontation of the market forces, which are now monopoly forces, will produce any sort of desired result. I welcome the pacific tone of the noble Earl the Leader of the House. It was in line with the civilised approach which he always adopts when he is not prevented from doing so. But I must say that I only wish his colleagues would follow him, and that he would lead not only this House, with the distinction he does, but also the Government into new and better ways.
7.55 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies may I ask him one or two short questions? I understand that it is touch and go whether serious action will have to be taken by his right honourable friend in another place about animal feedstuffs. Can the noble Earl say why it is that these are in rather short supply? I think I read that there are 2½ weeks' supply. Is it not possible for this industry to carry bigger stocks? After all, this is the fourth emergency we have had, but we are talking about having to ration animal feedstuffs in 2½ weeks' time. Can the noble Earl say exactly what is the present position?
Also, did the noble Earl say that an agreement has been arrived at to pay the dockers a special sum for handling certain cargoes and that that will not count as wages but will be paid to some charity? Also, will supplementary benefit still be paid to dependants of the dockers? I think the public has responded to the Government's appeal not to try to stock up from the shops, because there appears to be no evidence of any run on tinned foodstuffs and so on. But may I ask the noble Earl whether there is
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any indication that the large suppliers and wholesalers of food are carrying out voluntary rationing at the present time, and whether that is likely to affect the shops in the foreseeable future if no settlement is arrived at? It seems to me that the stocks which we carry of both animal and human supplies are not enough, and I hope that the Government will give careful consideration in the future to seeing whether, for security reasons alone, these stocks can be increased.
7.58 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should like to thank noble Lords for the very studiously moderate way in which they have received these Regulations. I should like to say straight away that I find myself very much in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said about some of the underlying problems here. At this moment, when I think there are impatient noble Lords from Rochdale and Rossendale waiting to enter in the wings, I wish to reply fairly briefly. But I must say that I was at one with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who knows this industry and the shipping industry exceedingly well, that we are faced—and have been faced these past years—with a revolution in the techniques of cargo handling. We have not been alone in this. This is a matter which has affected all the great maritime countries, and of course it poses very great social and industrial problems for those countries.
Perhaps I may give a personal reflection here, that in this area of acclimatising ourselves to an inevitable change of this sort I do not think that we as a country have perhaps always been as flexible and responsive as we might have been. But in this particular area we can take some comfort from the fact that, as a result of these and other changes, we have seen a very dramatic run-down in the dock labour force in recent years. It fell from 60,000 in 1967—only five years ago—to just over 40,000 to-day. When we take account of the fact that not one of those men left the dock industry except of his own volition, and also take note of the fact that this reduction was carried out amicably and peacefully, we should take some comfort in hoping that the further and inevitable contraction of the industry which lies at one

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of the roots of the present difficulties can be achieved humanely and satisfactorily, given a minimum of good will and understanding all round; and I hope very much that the work which the Jones-Aldington Committee have been putting in here will be, both in the short term and again in the longer term, of very real value.
My Lords, that said, I should like very briefly to deal with some of the specific points which have been put to me. The noble Lord, Lord Wade, and the noble Lord, Lord Granville of Eye, both asked me about the position regarding animal feedingstuffs. My understanding is that it is true that the position here is causing serious concern. Modern methods of livestock production call for very high protein concentrates and result in a considerable dependence upon imported constituents; and the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Granville, was not lost upon me in this respect. I think this is something to which attention should perhaps be paid. The position here has of course been aggravated by a delay of about three weeks in the harvest of barley crops, although some barley is now becoming available. It is difficult to be precise about the present position, as this is a fragmented industry. It is not easy to get the precise information; and, of course, the situation can change almost from day to day. For example, if we were to get a run of even two or three days of good weather this could have a material impact upon the harvest, and therefore upon this general situation.
But, my Lords, with fresh supplies largely cut off, local difficulties were bound to arise even while there was no absolute shortage nationally. But compounders, merchants and farmers are cooperating, and co-operating very well, in efforts to share out available supplies; and I can confirm that the situation is not yet critical. For example, there are no confirmed reports of premature slaughterings of pigs or poultry as a result of lack of feedingstuffs. Nevertheless, my Lords, I would not wish to disguise the potential seriousness of the situation here and the fact that time is running out. That is why we are watching the situation from day to day. Indeed, that is why my right honourable friend, as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, is in fact at the present time meeting with representatives
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of the trade. If it does become necessary to use the emergency powers to ensure a continued flow of supplies, we shall not hesitate to do so, but it is my ardent hope that this will not prove necessary and that other ways can be found to get round the difficulties. So much for the animal feedingstuffs position.
Before I turn to the question of offshore oil rigs, I have just been handed a last-minute item, and I think it may be helpful to your Lordships' House if I read it; I have not yet read this myself, so it is as new to me as it is to noble Lords. I understand that, following his meeting this evening with representatives of the National Farmers' Union and the feed trade, my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture is issuing this statement:
"There has been a slight improvement in some parts of the country due to home-produced grain coming forward, but there are difficulties with high energy cereals which are needed for intensive husbandry units. Because of co-operation in the trade and by farmers, available rations are being eked out and used to the best possible advantage. This means that we have managed to buy a few more days' relief, at least for the majority of farmers, and for the next few days I do not believe that it will be necessary for the Government to invoke its emergency powers to move animal feedingstuffs. But we are living from day to day, and that is how I must assess the position in reporting to my colleagues in the Cabinet ".
I am afraid I cannot do better than my right honourable friend here.
May I now turn to two other specific questions which were put to me? The first was on the supply of petrol to some of the Scottish islands. I think there was a supply to some of the smaller islands, Barra and Coll, yesterday, and I have no doubt that this was handled carefully. But I should like to take note of the question of the noble Lord, Lord Wade; I would not wish to give him an inaccurate reply. On the question of supplies to the offshore oil rigs, it is my understanding that the oil companies, with whom we are of course in close contact, have reported that they are satisfied with the supply position. Essentials, like foodstuffs and the rest, can of course be supplied by helicopter, and this is the normal form of supply. But I would hope very much, my Lords, that the arrangements which have now been worked out on the question of supplementary benefit,

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which has been one of the causes of difficulties at Aberdeen, the main supply port for the Northern oil rigs, may lead to the resumption of the supply to the oil rigs t and indeed the same would certainly apply to Orkney and Shetland.
I think those were the specific questions which I was asked by the noble Lord. Lord Granville, and the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. On the question of supplementary benefit, to which the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, referred, I do not think that I would wish to be drawn into what any colleague of mine may or may not have said. I should like to say that, in an area of a good deal of technical, fiscal difficulty, all the mysteries of which I must confess I have not myself penetrated, my understanding of the agreement which has been reached broadly confirms the understanding of the position by the noble Lord, Lord Granville.
Apart from a certain difference of philosophy about the Industrial Relations Act, I think SI should like to take issue with only one thing (and I shall do that in studiously moderate terms) which fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and that was his reference to a statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on "The World At One", I think it was. I did not hear the programme, but my understanding of it—and I speak subject to correction, not having heard the programme—is that my right honourable friend categorised as "disgraceful" (I think that was the term) the reports, it true, of some of the weapons which the police had removed from a number of potential pickets on Humberside to-day. I should only like to say that my right honourable friend, who is I think a moderate man, a man whom no one could accuse of habitually using immoderate language, was speaking in his capacity as Home Secretary and in the light of his responsibilities for the maintenance of law and order in this country. There are reports, which I have not seen confirmed (and I speak subject to that) but which I understand to be reliable, that some dockers set out to-day on Humberside allegedly to exercise their right peacefully to picket a place of employment—and no one queries that—armed with a bewildering range of weapons, some of which are described as "bill hooks" in
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to-night's evening papers. Other reports refer to dockers' hooks, hammers and, indeed, to tomahawks. All I can say is that if those reports are confirmed to be true, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that this type of conduct is quite contrary to all that we understand by the best traditions of the trade union movement. I should not wish to go further than that.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, may I simply correct one small point in what the noble Earl said? He said that he would like to take issue with me. There is no issue between us on what he said. There is no issue between us on our views of whether picketing should be peaceful or not. The only question is one of what is good sense and of deciding when to make a comment which may be perfectly justifiable—whether one makes it at a point in time when, according to the noble Earl, things are delicate or whether one waits a little.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, these are always matters of judgment. There are times when I think it best that one should call a spade a spade or a billhook a billhook. I accept that this is a difficult matter of judgment, but the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, will accept that the Home Secretary has a very special responsibility here, in view of his responsibilities towards the police and the maintenance of law and order.
I hope that I have answered the specific questions put to me. I think that at this late stage, when the local government reformers are beating at the doors of your Lordships' House, I shall not conclude my few remarks by a general discussion on the Industrial Relations Act or upon the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Balogh. I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, for directing towards me the only compliment that I have heard him bestow upon Her Majesty's Government, of which I took due note and am grateful. I conclude by reaffirming the gravity of the present position and by reaffirming Her Majesty's Government's decision to act with two due senses of responsibility. The first is a due sense of responsibility in order to ensure that none of the powers now being made available by Parliament to Her Majesty's Government is used save in the last resort and save when absolutely

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necessary. The second responsibility that we propose to discharge is our ultimate one towards the community as a whole. That responsibility we shall not shirk.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL
8.14 p.m.
House again in Committee.
LORD VERNON LORD VERNON moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 209, leave out lines 40 and 41.
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to remove the rural parish of Poynton-with-Worth from the proposed District 12(j) of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester and restore it to Cheshire, where it has always belonged. Before coming to my reasons for moving this Amendment I should like to say two things. The first is that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, in whose name this Amendment also stands, has asked me to say that he strongly supports it and he would have spoken to it had he not been prevented from being present here this afternoon. Secondly, I should like to declare that I have no personal interest in Poynton or Cheshire. I neither live there nor own property there. But it is only fair to add that for about a hundred years, until shortly after the last war, my family did own most of the parish of Poynton. Therefore, although I know Poynton less well than does my noble friend Lord Harvey of Prestbury in whose name this Amendment also stands and who represented Poynton in Parliament for so many years, I am familiar with Poynton's background, I maintain contact with it and know something of the feeling there to-day.
Poynton in the last century and in the early part of this century was a very different place from what it is to-day. It was a small mining village, and like all mining villages it had its ups and downs. My family shared in its ups and downs; and I like to think (indeed I know) that they had a very happy relationship with the people of Poynton. Be that as it may, during the last century a remarkable community spirit grew up in Poynton, that has lasted to this day. Poynton
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is now no longer a mining village; it is more affluent and has grown in size and numbers to some 10,500 inhabitants. It is still a village although a large village, and it has retained its village atmosphere.
It is not and never has been a part of Manchester. Indeed it is separated from Stockport and Greater Manchester by a substantial tract of agricultural land which is included in the North Cheshire Green Belt. A lot of argument has centred round the Green Belt, especially during the discussions in another place. It is has been suggested that the Green Belt is so small that it is hardly worth considering; but, in fact, it is roughly a mile wide except at one point where (owing in my opinion to a very bad planning decision in the past) it has been reduced to 800 yards. But in any case, the smaller the size of the Green Belt the more important it is that it should be safeguarded. The Minister, Mr. Graham Page, stated specifically that if Poynton goes into Greater Manchester the Green Belt will be preserved. I accept the Minister's good intentions on this matter but I think that one would be absurdly naive to imagine that if Poynton goes in with Manchester (knowing the pressures to which big cities like this are subject at the present time) the chance of retaining the Green Belt is as good as if Poynton remained in Cheshire.
Again, it has been suggested that all Poynton's links in the fields of employment, culture, education and so on lie with Manchester and Stockport and not with Cheshire. I dispute this and the people of Poynton also dispute it. Of course many Poyntonians work in Manchester and Stockport and have links with those places, just as people who live in Surrey have links with London. But the important factor is where people have their roots, their interests, their recreation and their sporting activities. And they have those roots in Poynton and Cheshire. Even where employment is concerned, official statistics show that only 27 per cent. of the people who travel on public transport go to Manchester to work which leaves a substantial number who work outside.
More important than any of these arguments is the reduction in Poynton's representation at district and county level. It is not a matter of speculation, it is a

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fact. We have heard a lot from the Government, in the White Paper and in Ministerial speeches, about how vital it is to have local participation in government and how efficiency must, to some extent, be sacrificed to this end so that people can feel that they really matter and are not just small cogs in one enormous wheel over which they can exercise no control. Yet, in the case of Poynton, the Bill will have precisely the opposite effect. From having eight councillors on the Macclesfield Rural District Council and 10 per cent. of the district population it will be reduced to three councillors and 3·3 per cent. of the population in Stockport. In effect, therefore, Poynton will become a very small fish in a very large pond. It will be swamped and lose its identity. And in the process the extremely healthy relationship which has been built up between the parish council, the Macclesfield Rural District Council and the county council will be destroyed at a stroke.
I have attempted to put forward some of the compelling reasons for retaining Poynton in Cheshire, but in the final analysis it does not matter what I think; it does not matter what individual noble Lords think; it does not matter, in my submission, what the Government think. What matters is what the people of Poynton think, and they have expressed themselves in unmistakable terms. On March 25 of this year a petition was delivered to the Prime Minister. It showed that out of a total electorate of 7,881 people 6,658 requested that the Local Government Bill be amended so that Poynton could remain in Cheshire. Only 310 people refused to sign the petition. The balance of 570 were people who could not be contacted. This means that 95·5 per cent. of the electorate were canvassed and 83·6 per cent. supported the petition.
In the discussion on a previous Amendment we heard about different petitions and how one petition asked one thing and a later petition asked another. In this case there is absolutely no doubt about the petition. I have checked the position carefully, and I am satisfied that the signatures were obtained fairly and scrupulously. The people contacted were told of the possibilities resulting from Poynton going into Greater Manchester; they were also told the facts and they
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were asked to judge for themselves. They have made their decision and, as I say, 83·6 per cent. signed. This petition was not instigated by Poynton Parish Council; it represented a completely spontaneous reaction by the inhabitants of the parish who felt strongly about their future. If democracy is to be meaningful the Government surely cannot ignore the freely expressed wish of the people in a case like this.
Of course there may be cases where local views have to be over-ridden in the national interest, but I submit that this is not one of those cases. It has been said that if Poynton is taken out of Greater Manchester why should not some of the other rural parishes also be taken out? My answer to that is that every case must be judged on its merits; that Poynton has an excellent case and the people have made their views felt very strongly. I think that the position was extremely well put on another Amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, who said that there was a need to foster local loyalties and traditions; to knit people together. If this Bill goes through it will destroy local loyalties. So far the Government have shown a strange inflexibility on this issue. I hope that at this late hour, in view of the widespread objections to the Bill from the people of Poynton. the Government will have second thoughts and will accept this Amendment.
8.26 p.m.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: I am glad to support the Amendment so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Vernon. The noble Lord said that his family had lived at Poynton a hundred years ago. When I went to Poynton as the Member of Parliament some 28 years ago there were no coalmines, fortunately for me. But Lord Vernon's family have always taken a great interest in the district and I can well understand why he feels so strongly about it. I can understand some noble Lords saying that people from the North Country have been very long-winded about their particular areas, but we are speaking about areas which we know extremely well. We have just been told that 95 per cent. of the people in the area of Poynton do not want to do certain things. Who are we in Whitehall to say to 95 per cent. of the electorate, "You have got to do this,

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you have got to do that"? Surely we ought to take note of their wishes.
I recognise that this Bill is a major piece of legislation and that the Minister has to be tough. This is the first big change in local government for about sixty years and he cannot continually give way, otherwise the floodgates would be opened. But I think that he must be more flexible than he has been recently when judging situations on their merits. A similar Amendment was introduced in another place by my successor, Mr. Nicholas Winterton. He said that the clear wish of 83·6 per cent. of the electorate of Poynton was to remain in Cheshire. I regret that a new Member in another place, Mr. I. W. Owen, the Member of Parliament for Stockport, North, presented a very inaccurate picture of the situation at Poynton, where he lives. I do not know whether he has an axe to grind—he probably has—but it was very unfortunate that he should have said what he did. Since the possibility of a Bill of this kind was first rumoured some years ago, when the Labour Party were in control, I have been inundated with letters, petitions and requests for interviews, and I have a file two feet thick on this problem of Poynton. One noble Lord referred to a helicopter in which Mr. Michael Hesletine flew over the area when he was in the Ministry. Really, it is not enough to fly over an area at perhaps 100 knots and say, "There is not much of a Green Belt separating Poynton from Hazel-grove". One has to live there and know what is going on in order to assess the situation. As my noble friend said, there is a large Green Belt separating Poynton from the areas to the North, Hazelgrove and the others.
Another fear about going into Manchester is of the increased rates. Owing to the rating equalisation clause it has been said that 27 per cent. of the working population go to Manchester. Where do the other 73 per cent. go? During the Second Reading debate last week I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, who took me up on this very issue. I now have the figures, and I can tell noble Lords that 23 per cent. go to Manchester. Rail fares are very expensive and people do not particularly want to go there. The others go to Macclesfield, Woodford, and
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the surrounding districts, to new industries which are fortunately springing up.
I hope that my noble friend will consider this Amendment sympathetically. I saw the Secretary of State some two months ago, together with Mr. Graham Page who is the new Member of Parliament for the area. We were very well received and talked for about an hour. I came away with the feeling that the meeting was very courteous and that we had been listened to, but that they had no intention of giving way even before we put our arguments forward. I hope that the Secretary of State will make a few exceptions in this Bill. It will give a very bad impression in the county if he is absolutely rigid and says, "We will go through the motions of debating the matter in the House of Lords, but that is that." As my noble friend said, Poynton is a free-standing village, separated from the Greater Manchester conurbation by tracts of agricultural land in the Green Belt area of Cheshire at the foot of the Pennines. It is a very beautiful village. Are the Green Belt proposals to be abandoned completely? If so we should like to be told.
Despite Poynton's growth in the last 27 years—its population is now nearly 27,000—it retains a very fine village atmosphere, and has all of the welfare amenities voluntary workers for this and that—amateur theatricals, youth clubs and So on—which go to make up village life. Is all this to be thrown away? As has been said tonight, like many other areas Poynton's representation will be reduced to three on the metropolitan district council which will be based on Stockport. The inclusion of Poynton in this metropolitan county will destroy the valuable county district and parish relationship, built up over so many years. It should be appreciated that the constitution of Greater Manchester County in Schedule 1 includes only nine rural parishes, including Poynton, in what is an urban mass of nearly 3 million people. Manchester's population is 2,870,000, and the new Cheshire is to have 800,000. Therefore, percentage-wise, Poynton's population represents 1·40 and 3·38 respectively. Owing to industrial expansion in Macclesfield Poynton has very close bonds with Macclesfield. Let no mistake be made about that. We had an industrial site

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immediately after the war—about 1948—and we got some very fine modern industries which compare with any in the country. The people of Poynton travel south, against the traffic jams, to work in Macclesfield.
Let us look at Manchester. It was the last of the great cities to tackle its housing problem seriously. They have nothing to be proud of. Only now are they pulling down the slum areas. Leeds, Burnley and other towns were far ahead. If they now want to take in places like Poynton, why did they send out thousands of residents (using that horrible word, "overspill") to Macclesfield and elsewhere during the last 10 or 12 years? Many people did not want to leave Manchester. Perhaps the authorities thought they would get more rates from industry than they would from residents. They unloaded these people into Cheshire, and now they want to take some of them back. They have always been trying to grab good agricultural land from various places, but they have not always got away with it. One noble Lord said that the present Member of Parliament for Knutsford, Mr. John Davies, could not make the case because he is a senior Cabinet Minister. If Sir Walter Bromley. Davenport were still the Member for Knutsford the roof would have gone off another place. He certainly would not have stood for Wilmslow going into Greater Manchester. It is distressing to see a village like Poynton being steamrollered into Greater Manchester against the wishes of its residents. I ask the Minister with all the power at my command to look at this matter very sympathetically and to talk about it at a later stage. That would be worth while and I hope the Minister will be flexible.
LORD LEATHERLAND: What very strange things happen in your Lordships' House! Here am I, waiting patiently for Amendment No. 39 to come up, an Amendment which is going to cut off a slice of Essex and put it into Suffolk. Yet I find myself rising to support the noble Lord, Lord Vernon, and the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury. The noble Lord, Lord Vernon, said that his family had been in the Poynton area for 100 years, and the noble Lord, Lord Harvey, said that he first became Member of Parliament for Macclesfield 28 years
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ago. I rise because over 50 years ago I was a bright young reporter on the Macclesfield Courier, with which both noble Lords will be familiar, so I know something about this district. As a matter of fact I got married there just over 50 years ago, and I lived there for four or five years. I had to drive myself away from that delightful district to come to London. Otherwise, I should still have been living a happier life than that which has been vouchsafed to me since coming South.
I used to attend the monthly meetings of the Macclesfield Rural District Council, which has been mentioned, and I am aware of the very important part which was played by the representatives who came from Poynton. They were highly respected. As the noble Lord, Lord Harvey, has said, I know that the people of Poynton tend to gravitate to Macclesfield for their social life. They used to attend the Macclesfield market. Some of them actually had stores in it, selling Cheshire cheese of a consistency which is far superior to any of the Cheshire cheese one buys to-day. Poynton looked towards Macclesfield in the South, as it does to-day. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a metropolitan village. So I sincerely—not merely sentimentally, but of my own knowledge—support the noble Lords in the Amendment they have put forward. Incidentally could the noble Lord, Lord Sandford (I know that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, also wants to know), tell me whether Amendment No. 39 will be reached to-night? If he could, it would help us with our domestic arrangements.
8.38 p.m.
LORD WOOLLEY: I rise to support this Amendment. I do not have the historical and traditional connections which the noble Lord, Lord Vernon, has, or the political connections which the noble Lord, Lord Harvey, has, or the remarkable and unexpected connection of the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland. But support is very welcome from all quarters, expected or unexpected. What the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, has said has been very impressive because he speaks from experience and from a very independent position. I am relatively independent in that I do not come from the Poynton area. I live in the same county and of course I know Poynton,

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but I am in the South of the county. I farm down there. Poynton is quite a big village with a considerable urban population. Colleagues of mine farm in that area—the North. It is a farming as well as an industrial area.
I fully support what has been said by noble Lords who have moved and supported this Amendment. Poynton is a remarkable instance of the blend of the old and the new. It is an old village in which the tradition of the name of Vernon, though the Vernons have departed and play no active part, as the noble Lord said, still permeates the place. The noble Lord's modesty would preclude his saying that. The respect for and the effect of the Vernons in that village has to be seen to be believed. It is a very fine and heartening thing to find that, because it is one of the intangibles, one of the asthetic, spiritual things of life, of which we are inclined to lose sight. We are grovelling about with figures and lines and we are overlooking the spirit of people that makes them great. I would only say that the spirit in Poynton is a remarkable one.
This is not a question of special pleading. I have no axe to grind. Indeed, the only person I can find who has spoken against Poynton remaining in Cheshire and against the purpose and intent of this Amendment is the Member for North Stockport, Mr. Idris Owen. I do not know the gentleman, but he put up a whole array of figures about the conection of Poynton with Stockport and how its very life would appear to depend on Stockport. All those things are remarkably impressive if one takes them at face or book value. I have no doubt that Mr. Idris Owen knows more about Poynton than I do. He knows the precise distance of the Green Belt at its narrowest point—he may have measured it; I have not—because he is a well-known local builder, and he will have a much more intimate knowledge of the Green Belt and of the various other factors in the Poynton area than I would pretend to have in factual content. All I would say about the Green Belt is that it is a real buffer against the continual urban sprawl which will otherwise completely engulf the area. If one looks at the map—and I see the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has a map at his left hand, and no doubt he is looking at it—
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Poynton is an island in this Green Belt, though the barrier at one point, I grant, is narrow.
But that is not, I think, the real importance of the argument. The real importance to me is that this is a quite remarkable community with very strong loyalties, a progressive and fine parish council, and people who are quite clear in their desire. Their desire is that they should remain in the rural district of Macclesfield and within the county of Cheshire. This is in no spirit of hostility to Greater Manchester or to Stockport, within whose district they would fall, They have nothing against them. Many of them go to work over the boundary. That is not unusual. It is becoming more and more common in local districts that people do go over the boundary. But this is a village that has grown on the basis and foundation of the old village rural life. The new people who have come in have blended with it and absorbed the traditions, and they are a community.
I went there and spent most of last Sunday going round the village to refresh my memory and to get information. Nobody except the action committee has approached me to take action. The county council have not; the rural district council have not; and the parish council have not. The county council, the rural district council and the parish council of Macclesfield are, as the Minister knows, all strong supporters of Poynton's remaining in Cheshire. I went there and people took me round. At one point there were a number of motor cars, and I said: "There are a lot of cars here. Why are they here?" They said: "Oh, that is the Baptist chapel". I said: "That is very encouraging, to see so many cars outside the Baptist chapel." Then they went on to tell me of what I thought was a most interesting incident. A short time ago the chapel was in difficulties. It needed renovation, and it needed painting, and people of all denominations, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Methodists, joined with the Baptists to renovate that chapel. That is the spirit that permeates Poynton. It is a community. You do not go and roll over these things lightly with any bureaucratic juggernaut. That is not a good thing to do.

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I appeal to the Minister to listen to these pleas. As I have said, I have heard no one except this one gentleman, Mr. Idris Owen, speak against this plea. Why is that? If this transfer is made, I can only say that it will be a glaring and unfortunate example that "Whitehall knows best". I am sure that Whitehall knows a lot and I hope it knows enough to recognise a good case when one is put before it. I sympathise with the Minister, because this is a difficult matter. Of course he can say: "If we concede here, then we have to concede there." On that basis every defendant in a court of law must be found guilty, because all the others who are condemned would feel badly about it if some were let off. So we have to use some common sense. If we are to have a complete fiat on this matter, why waste time bringing it to this House? Why do we go through the process?
I ask that this case be listened to. I am sure that if this is done, not only will it be justice but it will be justice tempered with mercy and common sense; and it will be the best decision to ensure that a realy good community, which has been built upon the basis of its structure, its environment and its interests in the past, will go forward in the future: and it will be a better community within our country than if it is forcibly transferred into an unsuitable and unnatural environment, however good that environment may be. I do not belittle Greater Manchester, but this is a different thing, and you do not try to mix things that have no basic mutuality. Therefore I support the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Vernon, and supported by the noble Lords, Lord Harvey of Prestbury and Lord Leatherland, and I am sure the people of Poynton will be delighted to see the noble Lord back again to write another article for them.
8.47 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: We have listened to four very persuasive arguments, and the Government are very ready, and have been all along, to be persuaded by persuasive arguments. Even to-night we have, by the various Amendments, in the case of the Middleton Borough Council done what the Middleton Borough Council asked us to do; we have done by the Government Amendment, No. 8, what the
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Heywood Borough Council asked us to do; and by resisting Amendment No. 9 we have done what the Whitworth Urban District Council wanted us to do—all different from what we had originally intended. So I hope there will be no feeling left that this Government have been inflexible and unresponsive to local opinions. But in this massive business of reforming the whole of local government for England and Wales there are occasions when the principles have to prevail over local opinion. This is one of them.
The facts are these. Poynton began as a mining village, and it was a rural parish, but the fact of the matter is that it is now a substantial commuter suburb of Greater Manchester with a population of 10,000. I fully understand that the people who live there wish to continue to call Poynton a village and themselves a parish. That is perfectly understandable and respectable. But we have to bear in mind the actual facts. It is true that a number of people have gone to live there wishing to find a rural environment; and it is true that some people living in Poynton are still employed in agriculture. But for every person employed in agriculture in Poynton there are 60 people employed in other industrial and commercial activities in urban centres. For every person who goes to Macclesfield to work, there are 10 people who go to Manchester, to say nothing of all those who go to Stockport. So I do not think there is any getting away from the fact that Poynton is now, whatever it has been in the past—
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: Would my noble friend give way? I know that he does not mean to misrepresent the figures, but 23 per cent. go to Manchester and the remainder go to work elsewhere. Three miles away there is Woodford (with Ambrose Shardlow) and people work in a conurbation South and South-West of Poynton.
LORD SANDFORD: What I was attempting to do for the benefit of the Committee, was to draw a distinction between the ties Poynton has with Macclesfield, represented by 2 per cent. of the employed population of Poynton working there, and something like 23 per cent., as the noble Lord said, who go to

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Manchester. One in ten is the comparison of those links. Certainly other people work in Stockport and elsewhere.
LORD SOMERS: May I interrupt the noble Lord? He said earlier that Poynton had developed into a commuter suburb of Greater Manchester. I suppose the same could be said about Guildford being a very convenient commuter centre for Greater London. Is he going to make Guildford part of Greater London?
LORD SANDFORD: No, I do not think that Guildford, by any stretch of imagination, can be considered as an appendage to Greater London. When we were re-drawing the boundaries of Greater London and reorganising the local government of Greater London there was never any question of embracing Guildford. The fact of the matter is that Poynton is an integral part of the Greater Manchester conurbation, both by function and by physical conjunction.
As noble Lords have said, there is a Green Belt separating Poynton and Greater Manchester—a matter of perhaps half a mile or one mile, but no more than that. The links between the two possibilities that are being proposed by the Government and by this Amendment are indicated by the fact that Poynton is separated from the centre of Manchester by eight miles, from Macclesfield by seven miles; from the centre of Stockport by seven miles and from Chester (the county capital) by 43 miles. So I do not think there is any doubt that these links are closer and stronger with Greater Manchester and Stockport than they are with Macclesfield, Chester and Cheshire. But we heard a powerful plea from several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, to the effect that the community and identity of Poynton should be preserved. There is no reason why it should not be. This is a small rural parish and it will remain so. It is one of the provisions of the Bill that all parishes like this will preserve their parish identity unbroken and with complete continuity.
Furthermore, as to the fear that the buffer of Green Belt separating Poynton from Greater Manchester by this half-mile or mile or so will be lost if Poynton goes into Greater Manchester, that does not follow at all. Green Belt policies are not prescribed and maintained by
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local authorities: they are set by the Secretary of State. So far from any weakening of Green Belt policies, if there is any change in our policies it will be to strengthen them. So the parish remains with its identity unbroken, and there is no reason to suppose that changes in local government boundaries will do anything to weaken the Green Belt policies which serve to preserve Poynton as a single, identifiable community on its own. That is not to say that Poynton can be regarded as anything but an integral part of Greater Manchester and an attractive commuter suburb of that city. For those reasons, I cannot recommend the Committee to do anything but to resist this Amendment.
LORD RHODES: May I ask the mover whether he proposes to take this Amendment to a Division?
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: Certainly.
LORD RHODES: Because I find this interesting. I had great difficulty in preventing tears from welling up when the noble Lord was speaking and also when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Woolley. But my noble friend Lord Wright of Ashton under Lyne made an equally strong case for Whitworth. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury, how he voted on Amendment No. 9. Did he vote against us on Amendment No. 9, or is he such a prisoner of the machine that he supports an equally heart-rending argument on that side of the Committee yet preserves his standing with the Tory Party by voting with them against us, and then expecting us to come in with him? Even now it is not too late. I will do a deal with him: I will vote for him if he will vote for me on the Report stage.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: I must say that I know a little bit about the area I am talking of, but the area that the noble Lord's noble friend was talking about I do not know. With great respect, I found it rather difficult to follow all the details, and in this case I am following the advice of my noble friend on the Front Bench.
LORD RHODES: What the noble Lord is saying seems to be that persuasion does not count in this House any more, so why waste our time?
LORD WOOLLEY: Of course I am always persuaded by the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, but I found a difficulty in that there was some confusion about these two referenda held in the area referred to, and as a person who did not know the local details I was rather bothered—there was the question of the 2,000 and 3,000 vote. These are real difficulties. We are not expecting noble Lords to be persuaded against their better judgment, because we know they will not be; but there is a difference, because in this case I do not think there is any doubt at all. I have said, and I repeat, that the only voice I have heard raised in favour of Poynton's going into Greater Manchester has been the voice of the honourable Member for Stockport, North, who is very interested in this. Apart from that, the county council, the rural council, the parish council and the people of Poynton, one might say almost to a man or a woman, are against this. Are we going to ignore all these things; and, if so, why?
LORD VERNON: I think the attitude of the Government in this case is quite astonishing.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD VERNON: There has been support for this Amendment from noble Lords in all parts of the Committee, including the noble Lords, Lord Leather-land, Lord Woolley and Lord Harvey of Prestbury and myself; and the Lord Bishop of Chester, had he been here, would also have agreed. Yet the Government have shown complete intransigence. One begins to wonder whether it is really worth going through these clauses and Amendments, one by one, if the Government are not going to give an inch anywhere. I do not believe that the arguments advanced have been properly answered by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. I am not going to take the arguments any further because they have been adequately covered. I am merely going to ask the House to support me in the Division Lobby.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I rise like a trout to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Vernon, because I found the Government's arguments absolutely conclusive. The arguments we have had are those with which those of us who have sat on Private Bill Committees in the past on boundary extensions and the like are very familiar. We have heard these arguments in such Committees scores and scores of times. There was the small parish—as it was in the old days—on the outskirts of a county borough which had been almost completely eaten up. Sometimes there was a little space of Green Belt left between it and the county borough, but by and large the parish was virtually an integral part of the county borough. We had the pleas from the other side: "Here are we, a poor little parish; we have always been a poor little parish. Now we are being swamped by commuters from the borough; why the hell should we go into it?" That argument is as old as time. When I used to sit on those Committees I found the arguments put forward in reply, which were comparable to those put forward by the noble Lord on the Front Bench this evening, quite conclusive. I find them conclusive to-day, and I shall vote against the Amendment.
BARONESS STOCKS: It is with great regret that I find myself in agreement with the Government. This Bill will cause more unhappiness and frustration among wide circles than any Bill within my memory; but it is quite obvious that Poynton is a commuter suburb of Greater Manchester. In the past Manchester made itself greater by a succession of Private Acts. To my mind, that is the way a big urban district should make itself greater. But in this case the Government are going to do it for them. With sorrow and regret, I am going to vote for the Government.
9.1 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 52.

CONTENTS

Alport, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Croft, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Burnham, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Blyton, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Falmouth, V.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Coleraine, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Hale, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Somers, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L. [Teller.]

Moyne, L.

Stamp, L.

Newall, L.

Strang, L.

Helsby, L.

Northchurch, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hemingford, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Vernon, L. [Teller.]

Hereford, L. Bp.

Reigate, L.

Vivian, L.

Hylton, L.

Sandys, L.

Wade, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Seear, Bs.

Watkins, L.

Leatherland, L.

Shinwell, L.

Woolley, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Slater, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Ferrers, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Gage, V.

Rennell, L.

Amory, V.

Gainford, L.

Ridley, V.

Balfour, E.

Gowrie, E.

Sandford, L.

Belstead, L.

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

Selborne, E.

Berkeley, Bs.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Bessborough, E.

James of Rusholme, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Sudeley, L.

Chelmer, L.

Latymer, L.

Thomas, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Limerick, E.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Lothian, M.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Craigavon, V.

Luke, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Cranbrook, E.

Mancroft, L.

Wellington, D.

Davidson, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wigram, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mountevans, L.

Wolverton, L.

Diamond, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Wright of Aston under Lyne, L.

Digby, L.

Dulverton, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Young, Bs.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

9.9 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 210, line 30. column 2, leave out ("Windle, Eccleston, Rainhill and ") and insert ("Eccleston, Rainhill and Windle, and the parish of").
The noble Lord said: This is purely a drafting Amendment but I hasten to make it clear that it is required because of the flexibility of the Government in yielding to an Opposition Amendment in another place. What is required now is only a drafting Amendment consequential upon that. I beg to move.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: I hope we shall not pass this important Amendment without a little more explanation from the Minister. He has said that it illustrates the flexibility of the Government in yielding to pressure. As he said, the proposal is to substitute for Windle, Eccleston and Rainhill the words "Eccleston, Rainhill and Windle". I want to ask the Minister whether it is being done because of representations from the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Rural District Councils Asso
1226
ciation or the Urban District Councils Association. We ought to be told before we accept this earth-shaking Amendment. After all, we might have substituted "Eccleston, Windle and Rainhill " or "Windle, Rainhill and Eccleston". The fact that we are asked to substitute "Eccleston, Rainhill and Windle" rather than "Windle, Eccleston and Rainhill" demands an explanation. I do not propose to divide the Committee.
LORD SEGAL: If I may also add a plea, can the Minister justify relegating Windle to the bottom of the list? If he intends to do it simply in sequence of alphabetical order his argument remains completely unconvincing.
LORD SANDFORD: There are important pitfalls to be avoided here. It is in order to avoid them that we have adopted the drafting conventions used elsewhere in the Schedule.
9.12 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 12A:
Page 211, line 14, leave out ("the parish of Finningley")
The noble Lord said: One thing that has impressed me to-day is that by the end of the Committee stage the geographical

1227
knowledge of all of us will be greatly enhanced. Coming to Finningley, may I first of all say to the Minister that the purpose of putting down this Amendment is not to decide whether this parish should go into the metropolitan county round Doncaster in South Yorkshire or whether it should remain in the County of Nottinghamshire. My reason for putting down the Amendment will become clear as I go along. Finningley is a very small parish. To-day your Lordships have been talking about Plymouth, Southampton, Rochdale and other places that are household words. We all know where they are and we know something about them, but Finningley is very small. Compared with the other places I have mentioned it is hardly a pebble on the beach. Its total population is only 771. But why should not the few be mentioned in your Lordships' House? Why should not the interests of the smaller communities have a voice in this Assembly?
I made mention a moment or two ago of geography, and I must state the geographical position of this very small parish. It is at the extreme northern tip of the County of Nottinghamshire. During the Committee stage in another place Finningley was referred to as sticking out like a sore thumb into South Yorkshire. However small it might be, it certainly is known in Nottinghamshire, and it may be known to some of your Lordships because there is a famous R.A.F. station within the parish boundary of Finningley. My information is that the services and the amenities there have given satisfaction to the inhabitants of this small parish. Also, I am told that there is general satisfaction because they have been, and are still being, well looked after by the rural district council of East Retford and by the County Council of Nottinghamshire. Again, so far as I know, no objection by the inhabitants has been made to the transfer by the council council. It is purely a local objection among the majority of the inhabitants of the parish.
Furthermore, my information is that when it came to the knowledge of the people there that they were to be transferred into the metropolitan district council around Doncaster they held meetings, and had a petition. I understand that there were two meetings attended by 100
1228
people—and to get 100 people at a public meeting in these days is almost a miracle. But at both meetings no fewer than 100 people were present. They voted unanimously, I am told, to stay in the county of Nottinghamshire. The petition, which was organised by local inhabitants, was signed by 87 per cent, of the adult population, who felt that they should be allowed to stay in the County of Nottinghamshire.
It is a good thing in our Parliament that the views and the wishes of the people, even in small communities such as Finningley, should be ventilated, and I have this primarily in mind as my purpose in moving this Amendment. Looking at the map and the geographical situation of Finningley, and its close proximity to Doncaster, which will be a metropolitan district of South Yorkshire, and bearing in mind the fact that there had been no objections to the transfer (may I say this quite frankly) by the Notts County Council so far as I know, and also bearing in mind administrative convenience, my immediate reaction was that the proposed transfer was all right. However, representations were made to me by the clerk of the parish council asking if I would bring to the notice of your Lordships the wishes of the inhabitants of his parish. The main objection, on the evidence submitted to me by the clerk of the parish council—and I should like the Minister to note this particularly because this is the kernel of the speech I am making—is the manner in which the transfer has been done.
May I read an extract from the letter which was sent to me by the clerk not more than a few days ago? It states:
"The parish of Finningley is to be transferred from the county of Nottinghamshire to the South Yorkshire metropolitan district of Doncaster, much against the wishes of the local inhabitants. The chief objection is against the manner in which this has been brought about without the local parishioners knowing that the transfer was to take place until an article appeared in The Times informing the general public that the Minister had agreed to the transfer at their own request."—
that is to say the request of the parishioners—
"The people of Finningley have never expressed any desire to leave Nottinghamshire on the contrary they have repeatedly stated that they were a rural community and were quite satisfied to remain as they are."
The main reason why I have tabled this Amendment is to clear up this matter because the local parishioners are accusing the Government of showing a lack of consultation. They feel that they ought to have been consulted; that they ought to have had the opportunity to express themselves as to whether they wanted to stay where they are now or to go into the new metropolitan creation. That is my main purpose—and I say this quite sincerely to the Minister—for tabling this Amendment but I have done so also for this reason: that whatever happens, whether or not there is a change, I should not like to feel that the future was in jeopardy. Although a small community, they have their local pride and they do not like to feel that they are being left out in the cold.
I should welcome some observations from the Minister, particularly upon the point of non-consultation and the people's ignorance of what was happening until the article appeared in The Times. I beg to move.
9.23 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for speaking in the way he did on this Amendment and for making it clear that it is the manner in which the change has been proposed which disturbs the local people of Finningley more than perhaps the change itself. It illustrates the difficulty of making changes that have not been subjected to the fullest possible consultation, but Members in another place were persuaded by the arguments put forward in Committee that the change was desirable. Also anybody looking at the position on the map, with Finningley and Blaxton as two villages—one in Nottinghamshire and one in Yorkshire, both close to each other and both serving the same R.A.F. operational airfield—must see that on the face of it the case for putting both villages together and putting them into the metropolitan district of Doncaster in the metropolitan county of South Yorkshire is indeed a compelling one.
Were it not for this feeling of grievance about the way in which the proposed change had been brought about I think the local people of Finningley would almost certainly be persuaded to accept the change themselves. The position is that all the secondary and adult educa
1230
tion services available to the village are provided from Doncaster. Doncaster is undoubtedly the place where most people go to shop and from where they get all their services.
However, if they take a different view the matter will fall to be reviewed by the Boundary Commission. All concerned will then have an opportunity to make their views felt and if the Boundary Commission were persuaded that the balance of argument lay in favour of Finningley remaining in Nottinghamshire or Finning-ley and Blaxton remaining together but being moved from Yorkshire into Nottinghamshire, then those changes could be made. There is no question of the decision which has been taken, and which I must advise the Committee to maintain, prejudicing the position of the parish or in any way controlling or dictating the conclusion to which the Boundary Commission might come after hearing all the facts of the case. I hope that with that assurance and explanation of the considerable advantages which are plain for all to see in making this change, the noble Lord will not feel it essential to press the Amendment.
LORD TAYLOR or MANSFIELD: If my information is correct, may I ask the noble Lord to explain why there was a lack of consultation. of public relations so to speak, about the wishes of the people of Finningley?
LORD SANDFORD: As I explained on Second Reading, the Government started with the benefit of the very full consultations and studies undertaken by the Royal Commission, supplemented by very careful consultations in all those areas where there appeared to be problems, in which consultations all parties concerned were given an opportunity to make their views felt. However, in this imperfect world the problems of these two villages round this particular airfield did not emerge. When they did emerge, in Committee in another place, Members of the Committee were persuaded by the arguments and by all the factors relating to the problem, of which I have mentioned a few, that the change should be made, and it was made.
But when changes are made during the passage of a Bill of this kind through Parliament it is inevitable that some of

1231
the people concerned will hear of them through the Press and the OFFICIAL REPORT of our proceedings before they have had a chance to express their views. This is one of the reasons why I am reluctant to make changes, in spite of the persuasive arguments that are being adduced by noble Lords, and why from time to time, as now, I am suggesting to the Committee that in all the circumstances the best course is to wait until the Boundary Commission can look at the matter and hear all the views of those concerned.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
9.29 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 211, line 17, column 2, after ("ward") insert ("so much of the East Ward as lies east and north of Ordnance Survey parcels 4800, 4749, 5136 and 8630").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment makes a very minor adjustment in the boundary between South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire at Bawtry on the Old Great North Road. Bawtry in Yorkshire has already extended a little over the county boundary into the neighbouring parish of Harworth, and the Bill already provides for one ward and part of another ward of the parish of Harworth to be moved across the county boundary to join with Bawtry. It has since been found that part of the Bawtry built-up area lies not in these wards but in the East ward. This Amendment therefore seeks to move the relevant part of the East ward into Bawtry as well in order to complete the job which the Bill is setting out to do in this case. The change is acceptable to the local authorities concerned on both sides of the boundary. I beg to move.
9.30 p.m.
LORD BLYTON LORD BLYTON moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 212, leave out lines 8 to 10.
The noble Lord said: In the interests of time perhaps my two Amendments could he taken together. There is one argument on the two issues as both places are in the County of Durham. I beg to move.
LORD ABERDARE: I am very grateful to the noble Lord. This would be very convenient. I am wondering if the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, would like to discuss his Amendment, which is a manuscript Amendment, at the same time as it covers the same area.
LORD BLYTON: The first Amendment is to retain the parishes of Birtley and Lamesley in the County of Durham and not include them in the Tyne and Wear metropolitan authority. There is great depth of feeling in these two parishes of Birtley and Lamesley about this; their desire is to retain their long-established and historic identity with the County of Durham. The Minister will be aware that the Durham County Council, the Chester-le-Street Rural Council, the Chester Urban Council and the parish councils of Birtley and Lamesley have made strong representations to him. They have made them with realism facing what is in the best interests of sensible planning and realistic local government.
Petitions have been presented to the Minister in which 80 per cent. of the people of Birtley and Lamesley, signed the petition in which they expressed their desire to stay in County Durham. I do not understand why the Minister has just ignored those strong feelings, because he has always indicated that the Government would be guided in their principles by the reaction of the people affected by such proposals. Yet, here is an area where 80 per cent. of the people have expressed their feelings and until to-night I did not know of any other area where 80 per cent. of the people have indicated their desire to remain in a certain local government area and their request has not been accepted.
It is quite apparent that there have been no representations from these two parishes asking for them to be put into the metropolitan area based in Gateshead. The Government proposals mean that the Boundary Commission, acting on the recommendation of the Durham County Council, has been compelled to create a district which makes nonsense of the guidelines laid down in paragraph 2 of the Department's circular. The circular states:
"Except in sparsely populated areas, the aim should be to define districts with current populations generally within the range of 75,000 to 100,000."

1233
The Chester-le-Street District Council, far from being sparsely populated, will have a population under this Bill of fewer than 50,000. They are being compelled to go even against the guidelines that have been made by the Minister. In other areas the Minister has accepted people's opposition where only 20 to 40 per cent. of the population have signed petitions, and I listened to the Minister say to-night that they had listened to the people's view. In this case the view has been entirely ignored.
The Boundary Commission is proposing seven new districts to be established in the new Durham County area. They propose that the Chester-le-Street Rural Council and the Chester Urban Council should amalgamate to form one of these districts. To that there is no objection. Even that leaves this district with fewer than 50,000 people, and leaving this district well under strength as laid down in the guidelines of the Government itself. Looking at the other six districts in Durham County that the Commission proposes, we find the Chester-le-Street new area is 31,000 fewer in population than the smallest of these six new districts. It means that the rateable value of the new area of Chester-le-Street is also almost inadequate.
The case that Birtley and Lamesley should be retained in the County of Durham is strengthened very much by the draft proposals submitted to the Minister by the Local Government Boundary Commission. The fact of the situation is this, that if Birtley and Lamesley with their population of 17,000 are excluded, the rateable value of Chester-le-Street district will be reduced by nearly 50 per cent. and the population by a quarter. In my view, if the Government insist that the parishes of Birtley and Lamesley are retained in the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county based on Gateshead, they will be turning against the principles embodied in their Bill and turning them upside down.
We have been told that the object of this reform is to give better local government at local level, yet this aim is denied to these people if they are taken out of the County of Durham. I know this area, as my life has been spent in Durham, and I do not know on what premise the Minister has done this. Birtley now is fully developed and is of no
1234
value to Gateshead. Again, the addition of Birtley and Lamesley to Gateshead will only increase its population, and increase the rateable value of the new Gateshead district by only a very small amount, whereas if these two parishes were retained in County Durham and formed part of the new Chester-le-Street county district, they would be of tremendous value in providing a sensible, realistic and viable unit of local government.
I should like to impress upon the Minister that he should recognise the strength of the feeling that exists in these two parishes against their being absorbed in this metropolitan area based on Gateshead, and to realise that the proposals are not good in terms of realistic Government planning. Every organisation, all political parties, the Churches, are unanimous in their desire to stay in County Durham, and are dismayed that their long history and tradition as citizens of the County of Durham is to be broken by this proposal, which neither makes sense nor logic of realistic local government.
I will now deal with my second Amendment. Why was Hetton put in the Sunderland area? What a ridiculous boundary it will be so far as Hetton is concerned if this district is left in the metropolitan area of Sunderland! Once the Government decided, quite correctly in my view, that Seaham urban district should not be in the metropolitan area of Sunderland, it is quite evident from the map that Hetton should have been treated in the same way as Seaham and put into the County of Durham. Anyone who knows of the pattern of the development in Hetton, which is typical of the Durham coalfield, knows that they have nothing at all in common with Sunderland. The history, the tradition, the social structure and the planning problems of this area are such that they should he left in the Durham area. Hetton Urban District Council have consistently maintained in the strongest possible way the view that in the interests of the welfare of the people of Hetton they should remain where they are now, in the County of Durham. If ever there was untidiness of the boundary which will operate when this Bill is enacted it is in the Sunderland metropolitan area, with Hetton jutting like a sore finger into the new Durham county area as it is to be in future.

1235
I welcome the decision to put Seaham back into County Durham, but whatever argument was used by the Minister for that there are much stronger arguments in the case of Hetton. It is predominantly a mining village. Many of its people work at Peterlee, and the majority work in Hetton itself; and they have had nothing at all in common with Sunderland. I am confident that when the Minister looks at his map again, and when the people of Durham realise that Seaham is coming to Durham but not Hetton, and that Birtley and Lamesley are going to the metropolitan area of Gateshead they will feel that it is such a mess that the whole arrangement will need revision. I am certain also that this will have to be done in the not very distant future and I therefore ask the Minister to give these two Amendments careful consideration tonight because no one is happy in these parishes as a result of the arrangement in the Bill. I beg to move.
9.42 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: It should be explained that in addition to what my noble friend, Lord Blyton, has said, the concept which inspired the Boundary Commission to suggest the change was that these two parishes, Birtley and Lamesley, should be transferred to the new metropolitan county of the Tyne and the Wear. That is the idea. There ought to be some explanation for this, but so far as we can gather no explanation has been forthcoming. There was a debate in another place, in the course of which the honourable Member for Chester-le-Street and the two honourable Members for Gateshead participated. I have read the Report of the debate and I am bound to say, irrespective of the views of Durham County Council, the contention of my honourable friend and colleague representing Chester-le-Street was conclusive in this respect: that nothing was to be gained by either of those parishes from the transfer.
His views were controverted in part by the two honourable Members for Gateshead. Their contention was that Gateshead wanted these parishes—for what reason was not very clear. But Gateshead wanted a colony, grabbed them, and had them transferred. They had never thought about it before—this is the remarkable thing about it—but when
1236
the Boundary Commission suggested the change, Gateshead seized upon it at once as very desirable. So far as I am able to ascertain, no other valid argument had been adduced in support of the transfer. As my noble friend, Lord Blyton has pointed out, these are two historic parishes: both Birtley and Lamesley have historic associations. They do not want to be uprooted; they are content where they are. I hope the Minister will take note of this point: that it will not make the slightest difference, except geographically, and then in a very minor fashion, if the two parishes remain where they are. What inspired the Boundary Commission to suggest the change it is difficult to say. That is the position so far as the two parishes of Birtley and Lamesley are concerned. Unless the Minister can adduce any valid arguments in support of this transfer, then I think the matter deserves further consideration.
I come to the second Amendment which affects the urban district of Hetton. I have been furnished with a map by the Durham County Council. Perhaps I may digress for a moment to explain why I speak on their behalf, alongside my noble friend Lord Blyton. I have a long association with the County of Durham, even longer than that of my noble friend Lord Blyton. I first went to Durham in the year 1892.
LORD BLYTON: I was not born then.
LORD SHINWELL: I went to South Shields from London, and went to school in South Shields; I was then just about eight years of age. I was there for some time. I then went to Scotland, where I acquired a somewhat fine Scottish accent, which has no doubt been observed. Then, at a later stage, I returned to South Shields and lived there for some time. So I have an acquaintance with the County of Durham, apart from the fact that I have spoken in every village and township in Durham. I almost forgot that I represented a Durham constituency for 35 years, apart from other constituencies elsewhere. So I know something about the place; and I know Birtley and Lamesley, having spoken in both places. We do not get very big meetings there. but the meetings are all right and they helped my colleague who is now in the other place to retain his seat. So I do

1237
not understand why they should be disturbed. Indeed, the fact of the matter is that there is no reason why Durham County should have been disturbed at all. They would have preferred to remain as they are. I do not mind the Boundary Commission coming along and making a good job of changes, but they left it all very untidy, and I want to refer to the untidiness.
My noble friend referred to Hetton as being like a sore thumb. It is quite a useful analogy. If noble Lords will look at the map they will see that Hetton is just jutting out. If the Boundary Commission are to make a good job of it, they should tidy it up. The line should not jut out there but should carry on with a reasonable and rational boundary. My noble friend pointed out what happened in the case of Seaham. I used, at one time, to represent Seaham, not in your Lordships' House of course but in the other place. It was suggested at one time that Seaham should be incorporated in the metropolitan county of Sunderland. Perhaps the Commission changed their minds, as Seaham remains in Durham County. But Seaham is nearer Sunderland than Hetton, yet it has now been decided that Hetton should be included in Sunderland while Seaham escapes. This is absurd. The Commission cannot carry on in this irrational fashion.
I come to what is more in my line in connection with Easington Rural District Council. I also represented Easington for seven years. When Seaham Harbour was hived off, it remained as Easington. What is proposed in connection with Easington Rural District Council is that two tiny villages, Burdon and Warden Law, should be transferred to another area—extracted like a bad tooth from Easing-ton Rural District Council. What is the purpose of it? I used to go to these places very often. I had to go to a remote part of the Easington Rural District Council area, the administrative area, the electoral area, very often to address meetings. I never could get an indoor meeting: I had to speak through a loudspeaker on a street corner, and talk to the people there in that way. Nobody ever came to listen to me. Whether I ever got any votes from the place I am unable to say; but it was part and parcel of the Easington rural area, and everybody was quite happy. When all the
1238
people are quite happy, why should somebody come along and disturb them? That is what I want to know. As to the Boundary Commission, they are no doubt very decent people, I should not be at all surprised—quite decent people—but what have they been up to?
LORD ABERDARE: I should just like to put the noble Lord right on this matter. It has nothing to do with the Boundary Commission. He can blame the Government for this, but not the Boundary Commission. The Boundary Commission are concerned with district boundaries.
LORD SHINWELL: I am only too delighted to blame the Government—that is right up my street. Now that I know,
am ready to transfer my resentment from the Boundary Commission to the Government. But that makes it even worse. You can expect anything from a Boundary Commission—after all, what do they know?—but a Government, an intelligent Government! It really is too bad.
I am not sure what my noble friend wants to do about this Amendment, whether he wants to divide on it. I should be quite content if the Government said in reply to what my noble friend has said and to what I have ventured to say that they would give the matter consideration. They may have some difficulty about Hetton. I am prepared to let that go, because there may be some difficulty about that. There could be certain adjustments, but that could be arranged later on. I would not bother so much about that, and I am rather inclined to think that my noble friend would agree with me about it. He had better say, "Yes" or "No". I think he would agree. Of course, he must not commit himself too far. He lives in Durham, and I do not; that is the difference. But it seems to me that, as regards Birtley and Lamesley, the Government might care to reconsider the matter. As regards Burdon and Warden Law, it does not matter very much. Leave them where they are; they are quite content. Why should they be disturbed? They are quite happy: do not make them miserable. Therefore I support my noble friend in these Amendments.
LORD SLATER: I rise to give support to the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Blyton of South Shields and supported by my noble friend Lord Shin-well of Easington. It so happens that I was on the county authority six years prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, so I am in a different category from the two noble Lords who have already spoken and presented their arguments to your Lordships in regard to what has happened under the local government proposals. I know Birtley well and I know Lamesley well, as a member of the local authority at that time prior to becoming a Member of Parliament. There is one point of which I took particular notice. During the course of the speech which was delivered by my noble friend Lord Shinwell he talked about representing that particular area of Easington as a Member of Parliament in the other place, but he did not tell your Lordships that my constituency was next door to his and that the boundary ran down the main street, so that he had one side of the street in his constituency and I had the other half of the street in mine. That is the way the thing runs.
I am interested in the important matter of these Commissions that are set up by the Government, especially in regard to local government. I am not talking about Parliamentary Commissions—the time will come when one will be in a position to say something in regard to Parliamentary Commissions—but about local government Boundary Commissions. Do I take it that the Boundary Commissions, as set up by the Government, just work away, as it were, from an ordnance map? We have heard comments made by the Minister that observations have been taken from the air by helicopter, by plane and so on, but I should like to know how much attention has been paid locally by the Boundary Commission, over the period of years that they have been examining this situation concerning changes in local government boundaries within this country, and the number of visits that they have made to the respective areas before submitting recommendations to the Government for consideration. I wonder how many, if any, visits they have made into the County of Durham. I believe if they had paid these visits and had had consultations with the local
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authority they would not have given consideration to Birtley or Hetton going somewhere else. There has been a long struggle over the years and the purpose has always been not for Lamesley and Birtley to go into Gateshead but for Gateshead to go into the Newcastle area across the Tyne. This is where the battle has been going on all the time. Now the Government come along and propose a new situation for Birtley which is a self-contained area which has any amount of heavy industry, is well supported by outside interests and is in close proximity to Chester-le-Street. It is a place where people can easily satisfy their shopping needs, for it has good road transport, without their having to depend on going into Gateshead and Newcastle.
Therefore I hope that the Minister will note the arguments presented by my noble friends. My noble friend Lord Taylor said we had heard about Southampton and other towns and areas. I want to say that one of the best cases that I have heard presented in this Chamber in regard to local government was presented when the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury, and the mover of that Amendment on that occasion argued against their own Party in Government because of the procedure that they were seeking to follow in these changes. I hope the Government will heed the appeal by my noble friend Lord Shinwell over the changes that they seek to introduce in regard to Durham.
9.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: I support Lord Blyton on Amendment 14. I do not have his detailed knowledge of these parishes but on these occasions I feel that it is incumbent upon all Geordies to support each other. A strong argument for these two parishes has been presented and I know that in these two parishes, Lamesley and Birtley, there are strong feelings expressed that they should remain in County Durham. This Committee should take notice of these feelings. If the noble Lord chooses to divide the Committee on this Amendment I will support him.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I feel somewhat embarrassed on this occasion because my noble friends, Lord Blyton, Lord Shinwell and Lord Slater, and my noble but friendly enemy, Lord Ridley,

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have all spoken in favour of separating Lamesley and Birtley from the metropolitan county. I suffer from the disadvantage that I have been resident on Tyne-side for only 25 years whereas they have been resident for very much longer. Consequently, they know this district very much better than I. But I am not convinced by their arguments. If one drove out—when I first went to Newcastle in 1947 I used to bicycle out—along the road from Gateshead and Low Fell to Birtley one did not notice that there was any difference as one went from Low Fell into Birtley. The first time I went to Birtley was to visit the laboratories of the Birtley colliery. So far as I could see, these were virtually part of Gateshead. They were actually on the edge of Gateshead. When one goes down the hill from the main road towards the Team Valley one ends up in the Team Valley Estate.
LORD SLATER: Is my noble friend aware, when he talks about Low Fell as being more or less attached to Gateshead, that he has to pass through Ravensworth before he gets to Low Fell?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I am describing what happened to me as I went along. As one goes down the hill one gets to the Team Valley Estate, which is part of Gateshead. It is part of this whole metropolitan area. One looks at Birtley and sees it as an industrial area which is virtually indistinguishable from the Team Valley Estate, and surely in the North-East we want an extension of the Estate. The whole future of the North-East depends upon the Team Valley Estate developing still further; already there are 80,000 workers there, many of whom live in Birtley and Gateshead. The whole mass is one conurbation. To pretend that it is not, that Birtley is something segregated from this conurbation, is, I suggest, to do a great disservice to the whole development of that part of the country.
I have been a resident there for 25 years and I am very much concerned with the development. The services in Birtley are dependent on Gateshead. You cannot say that you could run an effective transport service except through Gateshead. In my opinion there is no
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question that the whole of that part depends on it. Lamesley is a relatively small and scattered part—
LORD BLYTON: Is my noble friend aware that the transport for Birtley people depends on the Northern and the Sunderland district and not on Gateshead?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: Sunderland is part of the metropolitan district. The whole of this district ought, in my opinion, to be considered as one. The only question I would ask is whether it is wise to leave out Chester-le-Street. Maybe it is, but I think that Chester-le-Street ought to come in. If one comes to such questions as the provision of technical education, which is an extremely important matter in this area, what technical education is going to be afforded through Chester-le-Street? Gateshead can afford far better technical education. It has a first-class technical college; it can afford far better library facilities, museum facilities and all the facilities that are required for the development of this area.
I suggest that we are really being anachronistic if we say that 1,000 years or more ago we had the Venerable Bede in Jarrow and that everything is centred round something which disappeared a long time ago. To-day we are thinking of the future and I suggest that we ought to think of making this metropolitan area really effective. While I am prepared to agree with my noble friend Lord Blyton—partly, I admit, through ignorance—that Hetton might not be included, nevertheless I am quite sure from my own knowledge that both Birtley and Lamesley ought to be included in this metropolitan area.
10.6 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: The debate on these Amendments has illustrated the great difficulties we are in with regard to these matters of geography, particularly when it comes to the creation of a new county such as Tyne and Wear. In another place there was exhaustive debate on the southern boundary of the metropolitan county, which is what we are basically discussing. In fact the Government made one concession to the Opposition in taking Seaham and two neighbouring parishes out of the metro

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politan county and putting them in Durham. As noble Lords who have spoken are well aware, this was for an extremely special reason connected with the pollution of beaches at Seaham caused by coal-mining operations in Durham. We saw great advantage in Seaham's remaining as a port for the dumping of waste coal materials.
The result has been that by giving one concession and taking Seaham back into Durham we have encouraged a horde of demands. The noble Lord, Lord Blyton, would take Hetton, Lamesley and part of the parish of Birtley. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, wants to take Houghtonle-Spring back into Durham. We should have no Tyne and Wear left if we listened to all of these pleas. As we go along, noble Lords will realise that it is extremely difficult to deal with these matters of parish boundaries.
I want to make one or two detailed remarks about the Amendments, but before doing so I would say that where there are parish difficulties, as in the case of other Amendments, these are matters for the Boundary Commission to have a proper look at in due course. The debate has also illustrated the differences of opinion which exist. One does not really know on what side one's friends are in these debates. I felt very much that I had more of an ally in the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, than in my noble friend Lord Ridley.
I agree that Hetton itself would prefer to be included in Durham, but its work ties are with the metropolitan county. According to the 1966 Census there were 7,250 residents in employment, of whom roughly half worked within Hetton. Of the remainder, at least 2,150 were employed within the area of the proposed metropolitan county and over 2,000 in the Sunderland district. Far fewer were employed in the proposed county of Durham. We really feel that Hetton is much more closely linked with District E (Tyne and Wear) than with Durham. I am thinking of ties of employment, shopping, newspaper circulation, and general community interests. Ties are likely to be strengthened rather than weakened as coalmining becomes less important and new industrial estates are developed. In
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fact the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, seems to be prepared to go along with the idea of leaving Hetton.
Then there is the question of the parish of Lamesley and part of the parish of Birtley. There are two reasons, at least one of which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, why Lamesley is rightly placed with Tyne and Wear. In the first place, the residential area of Eighton Banks, in the North-East of the parish, is a suburb of Gateshead. Secondly, part of the Team Valley Industrial Estate, mentioned by the noble Lord, extends across the Gateshead boundary into the northern part of Lamesley. So far as Birtley is concerned, this is physically linked with Washington. I agree that the A.1(M) divides the two, but it is a substantially built-up residential and industrial parish, and part of Washington. For those reasons, I would suggest that these particular parishes are better left with Tyne and Wear for the present moment. My right honourable friend in another place undertook to refer these matters to the Boundary Commission, who will make a special study of them after 1974.
LORD SLATER: May I ask the noble Lord how he arrives at the conclusion that Birtley is linked with Washington? Has he been in the area? It might be as well if he visited the area and saw for himself where Birtley is and where Washington is.
LORD ABERDARE: I regret to say that I have not been in the area. I am afraid that there are too many areas involved in this Bill to visit them all. But I am told that it is separated only by the A.1(M).
LORD BLYTON: There are four miles between them.
LORD ABERDARE: If the noble Lord would like to have some words with me afterwards about that, I will certainly take it up. So far as Houghton-le-Spring is concerned, the information I have is that Houghton-le-Spring wants to stay in Tyne and Wear and is opposed to any other major alteration in the boundary. So far as I know, there has been no local campaign to take them out of Tyne and Wear, and I suggest that their

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ties are towards Sunderland rather than with County Durham. If the noble Lord wishes to press this Amendment, I hope that the Committee will not accept it.
LORD BLYTON: At this stage I
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accept that this matter will be reviewed in 1974. The matter has been debated, and I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.13 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON LORD HENDERSON moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 212, leave out lines 41 and 42 and insert—
("District (d) the county borough of Warley
District (e) the county borough of West Bromwich ").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to the Government's proposal to combine Warley and West Bromwich in a single district authority within the new area of West Midlands. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, must be aware that the proposal is disliked throughout this part of the Black Country. It is disapproved of by the two councils concerned. It is looked upon with disfavour by the two communities involved. So far as I can gather, there is no welcome for it in any local quarter.
I do not think that such an unfavourable popular reaction should cause surprise. As recently as 1966 there was a major local government reorganisation in the Black Country. A number of local authorities were amalgamated into five county boroughs. As part of this reorganisation the county borough of West Bromwich was extended to take in adjoining areas. Warley was created as a new county borough, comprising substantially the former county borough of Smethwick and the boroughs of Oldbury and Rowley Regis. It is obvious that Warley Council has been faced with a major task in welding together the constituent parts of the new county borough and in organising the effective administration of the many services that had to be dealt with. The council are now able to state that they have performed this task with a great deal of success and that they have undertaken considerable expansion of the services. They have a fine record.
Having loyally adapted themselves to the pattern of reorganisation imposed upon them in 1966, having made real progress in getting over the obvious teething troubles, having made good progress in their efforts to develop a new community loyalty and a new identity, as well as having built up a fine record in respect of the many social services for which they have become responsible, they are now to be compelled to start all over
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again the exacting process of amalgamation and reorganisation. The council hold the view that their record of practical achievements amply demonstrates that Warley, as at present constituted, is a viable unit of administration. Having become a viable unit for all the functions of local government, it will also be viable under the new system to administer a more limited range of functions. They are convinced that if they are allowed to continue to direct their energies and efforts to the further development and improvement of their own borough as they have been doing in the last five years, a great deal more progress can be achieved.
What is asked for in my Amendment is that Warley and West Bromwich should each remain as a separate independent metropolitan district in the new West Midlands County. That is what both of them desire. If my Amendment was accepted, the effect would be that instead of the seven districts as now proposed there would be eight districts in the new county. I am sure the Minister will be reminding me that as the basic population figure for district units has been fixed at 250,000, and Warley's population is just around 170,000, and that of West Bromwich about 220,000. neither county borough matches up to the basic minimum, whereas they will be fully adequate when combined. That is true. But unless I have misread Appendix 6 of Circular 8/71, there are three proposed district authorities whose populations are below 200,000.
I have also seen it stated that in the Greater London authority area, of 30 London boroughs 20 have populations of fewer than 250,000; seven have populations of fewer than 200,000; two have populations of fewer than 170,000, and one fewer than 150,000. I admit that this position is not due to any provisions of the present Bill, but if the relevant figures that I have quoted are correct it surely means that the Government are not rigidly enforcing the basic population rule but are permitting some exceptions under the present Bill. What I am seeking to persuade the Government to do is to agree to include Warley and West Bromwich in the limited number of exceptions.
I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the pressing and persuasive

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representations that have been made in support of this proposal, representations by personal interview, by correspondence, and by speeches in another place. So far all these efforts have failed to achieve the desired end. A similar Amendment to mine was rejected in another place by the Secretary of State for the Environment. This decision has caused widespread local disappointment, but it has also led to further representations being made in the hope of persuading the Secretary of State to have a further look at the matter and allow a favourable response to be given here. I add my support to what must be regarded as a final appeal, and I hope that the Minister who is to reply is not going to disappoint Warley and West Bromwich again, or disappoint me for the first time. I beg to move.
10.24 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am sure that the whole Committee will have been impressed by that eloquent plea from the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, on behalf of the area which his brother used to represent with such distinction. I do not think that there is any doubt at all we would all pay a tribute to what these two county boroughs of Warley and West Bromwich have achieved since the reorganisation that took place in 1966. Their regret and disappointment at the upheaval that they now face is only too understandable. But I do not think it is necessary to regard the task and challenge that faces them now as being aptly described as having to start all over again.
What they are being asked to do by the Bill as it stands is to carry one stage further the work to which they set their hands a short period of six years ago, in 1966, when it fell to them to embrace, to amalgamate and to give coherence to a multiplicity of separate authorities. They are now being asked to join hands and to do the same for one single area at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation. This does not in the least diminish our acknowledgment and our appreciation of what they have achieved.
However, their populations of 163,000 in the case of Warley and 167,000 in the case of West Bromwich are considerably below the standard of 250,000 which is
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regarded as the normal minimum for metropolitan districts carrying out the functions assigned to those districts.
It is perfectly true that exception is being made for other authorities—we have been discussing two of them earlier this evening—whose populations are below that figure, namely, the district of Bury with 175,000 and the district of Rochdale with 200,000. Whereas Bury and Rochdale and other similar districts, like, say, South Shields with 177,000, have been accepted as exceptions below the standard of 250,000, there were justifications in those cases because they are distinct areas, standing apart and identifiable on the map as distinct entities. In the case of Warley and West Bromwich we are dealing with two contiguous county boroughs whose built-up areas are now entirely coalescing, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree. To look at the two on the map one would not realise that there are two identifiable and separate units. The other awkward fact which prevents us from doing what Warley and West Bromwich would like and what many of us would want to do, were it not for these facts, is that whereas the population of the county borough of Bury, which already stands at 175,000 is increasing rapidly the populations of Warley and West Bromwich are declining; in the case of Warley it is declining quite rapidly.
So for these three reasons, first, that they are too low in population to shoulder the functions and responsibilities assigned to metropolitan districts; secondly, that they cannot readily be regarded as exceptions in the same way as Bury, South Shields, Rochdale and others because they are contiguous and it is convenient for them to be brought together, and for the further reason that their populations are declining whereas that of the other districts where exception is being made is rising, I cannot recommend the Committee to accept this Amendment, however eloquently it was moved and however sincerely expressed were the feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. I regret this very much indeed because the record of the two county boroughs has been so distinguished, but I am confident that they will be able to carry forward the work which they have been doing over the last six years.
LORD HENDERSON: I am very grateful to the Minister for his friendly references to the two county boroughs. Of course I am disappointed at his decision. Before I make a further point I am rather in doubt about the figures which the Ministed has given. I am quoting the circular which I mentioned. It gives the population for Warley and West Bromwich together as 392,000. If we take 170,000 from that for Warley that leaves roughly 220,000 for West Bromwich, which is the figure I gave. However, that is a point of correction if I am right in what I am saying. I am grateful to the Minister for his kindly references to the work that is being done by these two borough councils. I am not going to withdraw the Amendment and I am not going to divide on it: I will have it negatived.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
10.30 p.m.
BARONESS BACON BARONESS BACON moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 213, line 26, at end insert ("and Rothwell").
The noble Baroness said: I understand that the Minister has suggested that we take my two Amendments and the Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Popplewell together. Is that not so? I understood that that was his request. However, let me say that the Amendment about Sherburn and my Amendments about Rothwell have one thing in common, in that we are both seeking to put something into the Leeds district (b) of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan county. I do not propose to speak about Sherburn, except to say that I fully agree with the Amendment which my noble friend Lord Popplewell will move.
The effect of my Amendments is that the urban district of Rothwell will be retransferred from the Wakefield district to the Leeds district in the West Yorks metropolitan county. I have lived all my life in what will be the Wakefield district, and I represented for 25 years the City of Leeds, the Leeds district, so I can, as it were, be on the boundary and look at the problem from both sides. In the original Bill which went before another place Rothwell was included in the Leeds district, and it was not until the Report stage on July 6 that the Government, in
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another place, accepted an Amendment taking Rothwell out of the Leeds district, where it rightly belongs, and put it into the Wakefield district.
We are all grateful to the Minister for providing the excellent maps which we have before us. I should like to say, though, that while this is an absolutely correct map of Leeds, it is perhaps a little misleading, in that if one looked at this map of Leeds one might think that the centre of Leeds was in the centre of the county borough, but in fact the city centre of Leeds comes nearly up to the southern boundary where Rothwell takes one big mouthful of Leeds right into the industrial part of the city. It is possible to travel now under the present boundaries from the city centre West, North and East for several miles and still be within the city boundaries, but if one travels South to the boundary which meets Roth-well it is only about 1 or 1½ miles; so Leeds, even now, is very much truncated on the southern side. After reorganisation the Leeds district will take in many more areas to the West, to the North, and to the East. Otley, for example, which is 11 miles from the city centre, will be taken into the Leeds district; and although they very much wanted to be in North Yorkshire the Government have turned a deaf ear to this proposal. But, as I say, the southern boundary of Leeds meets Rothwell only a mile or 1½, miles from the city centre.
It meets Rothwell at a very industrial, built-up area of Leeds. I represented this area of Leeds, which is called Hunslet, and the part of Rothwell which meets Hunslet is called Stourton, which will be well known to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton. He will know, as others will know, that where Leeds meets Rothwell at Stourton, Stourton is really a part of Leeds. It is the industrial area of Leeds. When I have gone canvassing in that area it has been difficult to see which streets were mine and which were those of Stourton, which is in the Rothwell district.
We have heard a lot about green belts to-night, and the lush green areas of England; but believe me! this is no green belt area. It is difficult even to see a blade of grass; it is the industrial area of Leeds. Indeed there is one factory

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there where the city boundary goes right through the factory. Waddingtons, well known as printers and manufacturers of playing cards and games, have a factory where the works is in Leeds (all in one area) and the administrative block and the office are in Rothwell. Recently, the managing director of Waddingtons, Mr. Victor Watson, was speaking at a function and mentioned the difficulties which this created for his factory. He went on to say,
"Everyone in Waddingtons knows the troubles that this has caused, the most celebrated being the case before the War of the man who died in our works. The corpse was removed to the office and the police were sent for (from Rothwell). The very first question from the local copper ' elicited the fact that the death had taken place in the works, whereupon the constabulary notebook was decisively closed and the instruction given to return the deceased to the works and send for the Leeds police."
This still obtains today, that the boundary runs right through this factory.
The small town of Rothwell is the centre of Rothwell urban district, but even that is only four miles from Leeds city centre. If one takes the whole area of the Rothwell Urban District Council, not just the area bordering on Leeds, there are overwhelming reasons why Rothwell should be in Leeds and not in Wakefield. I will give just a few. Ninety per cent. of the people of Rothwell work in Leeds. The transport services from Rothwell to Leeds are very much better and greater than from Rothwell to Wakefield, both the bus services and the train service. The Yorkshire Imperial Chemicals, which is just over the Rothwell border, employs 4,000 people: the works are in the Roth-well area, but Leeds runs nine special buses a day for the workpeople. The Skelton Grange power station is in Leeds but its main entrance is in Rothwell. Rothwell's water is supplied by the Leeds Corporation water undertaking. Leeds is the main shopping centre for Rothwell. There are courts at Leeds and Wakefield, but the West Riding magistrates, covering the Rothwell area, meet in Leeds and not in Wakefield. Historically, Rothwell and Hunslet (which is in Leeds) are one. The old Hunslet workhouse is now St. George's hospital, Rothwell. Rothwell has a Leeds postal district; it is served by the Leeds telephone exchange, and if we turn to ecclesiastical matters all the Church of England parishes in the Roth-
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well Urban District are part of the Diocese of Ripon, in which also is Leeds, and not of Wakefield. The Methodist circuit covering most of the Rothwell Urban District is called the Leeds (Rothwell) Circuit. I could go on but I think I have said enough—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
BARONESS BACON:—to show that Rothwell really belongs to Leeds, and much more so than other places like Morley and Pudsey and Otley and Boston Spa, and all the others round the West and North and East of Leeds to which the Government have turned a deaf ear. Why, then, did they accept this Amendment and not Amendments from other places?
Reference has been made to local opinion, and I want to be quite frank about this. In Rothwell an active pressure group and some councillors, I admit Labour councillors among them, were agitating to go into Wakefield, principally on the ground that they would be a much smaller fish in the big pond of Leeds than would be the case if they went into Wakefield. For example, if they went into Leeds they would have only three councillors, but if they went into Wakefield they would have six. There was a poll of a kind, but it was on duplicated paper and took the form of a leaflet extolling the reasons why the people should vote to go into Wakefield rather than Leeds. I am informed that not every house received voting papers and that some papers were not collected. Although it was an unofficial poll, we were informed that a large majority of people were in favour of going into Wakefield. However, it is true to say that misleading statements were made at a public meeting about what would happen to the education services.
I am not blaming the people of Roth-well for agitating to be transferred from Leeds to Wakefield. Nor am I blaming my Member of Parliament, Mr. Albert Roberts, for tabling an Amendment at the request of the local people. But within no time at all after that Amendment had been tabled Sir Donald Kaberry, the Member of Parliament for North-West Leeds, added his name to it, thereby ensuring that the Amendment could not be withdrawn, and before one

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could say "Jack Robinson" the Government had accepted it. Why did that happen? Why did the Government turn a deaf ear on Otley, which is 11 miles from Leeds, but fall over themselves to move Rothwell, which is practically in Leeds, out of Leeds and into Wakefield? I must leave noble Lords to draw their own conclusion as to the reason.
Could it be that the areas to the North, West and East were not so solidly Labour, to put it mildly, as Rothwell Urban District Council? It was all too much for the Member of Parliament for Ripon, Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott, who in another place, where this matter was discussed at half past four in the morning, could hardly contain himself; he shouted "Rubbish!" to his own Government colleagues and voted against taking Rothwell out of Leeds and putting it into Wakefield. I appeal to all noble Lords, and not only my noble friends, who wish to judge this matter on its merits to support me to-night in what I believe is an overwhelmingly just case.
10.44 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I gather that as we are discussing Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 together it will be convenient, should a Vote be required, for separate Divisions to take place. In supporting the case presented by my noble friend Baroness Bacon I can claim to have some knowledge of the area about which she has been speaking, though I will not delay your Lordships at this late hour by repeating the arguments she adduced. Rothwell was originally encased, so to speak, in a number of the areas which are shown to be bordering on Metropolitan District (b). It is this transfer of Rothwell into Metropolitan District (e) that just creates this very untidy boundary. If one looks at it in a particular direction on the map, one sees where the boundary is and where the rest is. You cannot tell when you enter Roth-well. It is contiguous with Leeds in every possible direction. Therefore some very sharp practices, if I may say so, which do not appeal to us in this House have been employed in taking Rothwell out of Leeds for a specific purpose.
I do not want to say any more about that. I want now to come on to my own little pet pigeon. In moving my
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Amendment to insert Sherburn-in-Elmet, South Milford and Huddleston with Newthorpe into this area, I do so with an unrivalled knowledge of the area. I have lived in that area all my life. I know it, and I knew it in its difficult years. I knew Sherburn when its poverty was real: and what difficulties we had! I played some part during the war years in planning for the future. Those plans have materialised and there is now a very thriving privately-owned industrial estate. That estate has now something like 12 or 15 companies, and all are doing very well. Furthermore, into that area three large undertakings—Avery's, the weighing machine people, Avon cosmetics and Gypsums—have established very sizeable factories where approximately a thousand people are employed. Additionally there are those employed in the smaller factories.
That at once indicates that Sherburn is an industrial village. It is a village of 2,400 inhabitants. It has evolved into that industrial village because of the bad economic conditions in the past. The present proposal is that this industrial village of Sherburn should be linked up anew. If your Lordships will look at the maps which you have, you will see that the village of Sherburn is linked up in this great massive North Yorkshire rural area. The present proposal for a district link-up would be into an area comprising 90 odd villages, and Sherburn is the only industrial village of the lot.
Selby is, as most of your Lordships will know, a country market town, but it has some industries too. That is included in the 90. The whole of the rest is purely truly rural. Tadcaster, a brewery town, you might say could come within an inch and if so I will accept it; there is only the brewery at Tadcaster and no other industry. This is something which is not quite in accord with this village and with the factories we have there. Working night and day, with heavy lorries coming through the whole time, it does not link up at all with the rural areas.
Further, in relation to these proposed linked up 90, on Sunday last I took the car and had a run round the area, to see just exactly what the local government set-up would be. I travelled for miles and miles and could not find any villages of any comparable size in this Southern

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part at all. That is not quite the link-up that is necessary. It is proposed in the Bill that common interest must be taken into consideration. We are an industrial village. The border of the new Leeds (b) area comes up to the Sherburn border itself. In one small part is Arthington; Huddleston comes across, and South Milford and the three Western boundaries link up to the area with which they have always been associated down through the ages; industrial Micklefield, Swillingdon and Prescot area is going into Leeds and that was previously associated with the old Tadcaster Rural District Council; Sherburn is now going into Leeds but Sherburn is going to be an off-shoot itself.
In addition to this developing industrial background there is a commuter area. Comparatively large-scale private housing and council housing development has taken place, and there is the direct bus service and also train service with the Leeds (b) area, as distinct from no through service at all with the rest of the area in North Yorkshire to which we are being linked. In the planning in the war years the general idea was to develop South Milford and Sherburn as a housing site and to link the two villages up. Private housebuilding and council building is now making the gap between the two about half a mile or three-quarters of a mile. South Milford has not such an industrial background as Sherburn, but it has about 900 inhabitants and is developing considerably on a commuter basis where it has its direct service to Leeds. Therefore, there does appear to be a community of interests, and it would be a shame to destroy it by linking these areas up with a truly rural atmosphere to which they are not aligned in any shape or form. I say that feelingly because for some 15 years or so I played a rather large part in the development of this particular area.
This village, too, has developed a civic consciousness, with its well equipped recreation ground with football, bowls, tennis, each of them having their own pavilion, with wonderful sports arrangements for children with playground equipment. They have developed a first class village centre. It would do your Lordships really good to go and see it, because of its furnishings and because of what they have made of the centre. It is a purely social centre, being utilized
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for play for children in the morning and all kinds of things during the day; and in addition they have now taken over nine acres or so of land to develop as a park. This is not a rural background; this is an industrial background. In addition, educational development is taking place there. The recruitment area of the comprehensive school is 95 per cent. from the West Yorkshire area as distinct from the North area. The water supplies and all amenities are more with the metropolitan Leeds (b) area than anywhere else. Therefore, I sincerely hope the Government will have a further look at this matter with a view to putting this village into its rightful heritage, as it were.
I make no apology for having a word with the Minister. He told me he had received a telegram from some of the areas to the effect that they did not want to come into the metropolitan area, they wanted to come into district (b). I do not know from whom that telegram could have come, unless from South Milford Parish Council. The Sherburn Parish Council, when a review of local government was taking place—I am referring to four or five years ago—has discussed whether it should be rural. This is even before the schemes had materialised. But the Sherburn Parish Council has been firm the whole of the time as to where they would like to be. Only last weekend the chairman and members of the parish council interviewed me and we discussed this matter very firmly and clearly, so there cannot have been any telegram from Sherburn Parish Council. It might be that Milford has a different approach; if so, well, instead of being Milford, Newthorpe and Huddleston and Sherburn-in-Elmet, let us drop Milford but let Huddleston and Sherburn come into their rightful heritage. I shall move my Amendment on those lines.
10.58 p.m.
LORD BOYLE OF HANDSWORTH: My lords, I wonder whether your Lordships will forgive me if, as an adopted citizen of Leeds, I briefly give my support to what I think was the very strong case put by my noble friend Lady Bacon in her speech in moving this Amendment. I should not speak to-night but for the fact that I have come to know reasonably well the area about which the noble Baroness spoke. She is right when she says that Hunslet and Rothwell

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(I am sure many of your Lordships will have wondered why they have never heard of Rothwell before) form one of those contiguous areas where it is simply impossible to know where one ends and one begins. I have driven through both areas a number of times, because one does not live a completely Vatican city life as a vice-chancellor, and I cannot but agree with the noble Baroness that it will seem a curious outcome of this great exercise if Otley moves into the district of Leeds whereas Rothwell remains outside.
As I have said, I should not have spoken if I had not come to know this area reasonably well. And I suggest that it is not unreasonable that we should send back one Amendment, particularly on a decision that was taken on Report stag in another place at 4.30 in the morning. I quite understand the reluctance your Lordships may well feel at this time of the Session to prolong argument about details of legislation, but it would seem to me in this one case that there is very strong ground indeed for feeling that the earlier thoughts of another place were right and that the proposal in the Bill as it comes before your Lordships is wrong and, therefore, that the noble Baroness's Amendment should be supported.
BARONESS WHITE: I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Boyle added his considerable weight to the arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Bacon. As I have said earlier to your Lordships, in general, so far as our Front Bench representation is concerned, we are maintaining a reasonable neutrality on these territorial matters. But we feel that the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Bacon is an exceptional case, and the arguments in its favour so absolutely overwhelming, that anyone who has even a much less intimate knowledge of the area than my noble friend or the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, must agree that Rothwell is really a part of Leeds and it is absurd to consider it otherwise. I know that certain local considerations arose which perhaps this Committee may not wish to go into, and which led to certain movements towards Wakefield. But looking at the matter objectively, and from the point of view of good local administration—and that, after all, is our
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job; this is the aspect from which we must consider this Bill—I do not think that any person could seriously doubt that Rothwell ought to be in Leeds.
I hope very much that on this matter the Government will go back to what was their own view. The change was made in the other place at the last moment, in rather peculiar circumstances, and I am quite sure that if the Government are conscientious about this matter they will agree that their own first thoughts were right and will reverse the change made at a very late stage, and will recognise that their duty, as it is our duty, is to secure the best possible administration in this area. Looked at from that point of view, I do not think there can be any doubt whatever.
On the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Popplewell, I am not in the same position to judge. I do not pretend to know the area with a great degree of intimacy, and he himself has admitted that perhaps South Milford is not of the same mind. So perhaps that is a matter which might be reconsidered later. But on the main contention of my noble friend Lady Bacon, I vet much hope—and I make the most serious plea—that the Government will agree that their own first thoughts were the right ones.
11.2 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am glad to consider and deal at the same time with both Amendments which affect the boundary of the City of Leeds, though they raise rather different issues. Our error—if we have made one—in the case of Rothwell is in being too flexible and too responsive to local opinion. Although there is no doubt at all that Rothwell has close links with Leeds—and nobody is better qualified to expound on those than the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, and the noble Lord who spoke in support of the Amendment—the council of Rothwell, supported by several authorities in the Wakefield district, want to be in Wakefield. There is also no doubt that they have links in that direction, strong as their links with Leeds may be. Certainly, when one compares the population of Wakefield with the population of Leeds, the district of Wakefield could well do with the accession of the 28,000 people who live in Rothwell, whereas the addition or sub-

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traction of that number in the case of Leeds, with its 708,000 people, would make very little difference. Those two arguments, the fact that the people of Rothwell—both through the expressed view of the urban district council itself and that of a considerable majority of people who voted in favour of the transfer to the Wakefield district—plus the benefit to a local authority which will not be any too large for the functions which it has to discharge, have led the Government to take and maintain the view that on balance, it will be better for Rothwell to be in the new district of Wakefield.
To turn to the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, once again he has put forward persuasive arguments for these three parishes to be moved out of the rural district of Tadcaster into the metropolitan district of Leeds. But up to this moment no desire has been expressed by any of these parishes to move in that direction, and we have had no representations from them. The only comments expressed up to now on the White Paper's proposals have been that Sherburn expressed a preference to go to the Wakefield District (e), while the Tadcaster rural district felt that the parishes should be in North Yorkshire. Since the noble Lord tabled his Amendment I have received telegrams from the South Milford parish council, totally opposing the Amendment; from the Huddleston with Newthorpe parish council, strongly opposing being connected with Metropolitan District 6(b); and from the Tadcaster Rural District Council, opposing the Amendment. It is perfectly true that I have not received a telegram from Sherburn, and the Committee must form a view as to what weight it gives to the previously expressed opinion of Sherburn that they wish to be in the Wakefield district and the view now expressed by the noble Lord that they wish to be with Leeds. But on this particular issue I would say that these parishes can certainly be reviewed by the Boundary Commission when it is in a position to do so after April 1. 1974, to see how their views can be reconciled and effect given to them. The awkward fact is that the two parishes which are opposed to this move lie between the parish of Sherburn and the City of Leeds, so it is difficult to see how it is possible—
LORD POPPLEWELL: Huddleston with Newthorpe appears as a wedge. Sherburn also touches the Parlington area of Leeds. I accept at once that in the discussions which have taken place as to whether it should be the Wakefield catchment area or the Leeds district they have indicated that they would like to be linked up with the metropolitan area.
LORD SANDFORD: But I think the noble Lord would agree that to accept the proposition that Sherburn should be connected with Leeds, and that Huddleston with Newthorpe and South Milford should not, would lead to the oddest possible boundary shape that we have anywhere on any map so far.
For those reasons, I advise the Committee to reject the Amendments: first, because the urban district council and people of Rothwell have expressed a clear wish to join the Wakefield district, and the Wakefield district could well do with that increase in their population; and, second, because we have by no means a clear indication that all concerned are in favour of the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. In any event, there will be an opportunity for the Boundary Commission to look into the matter and make a change if there is a clear balance of opinion in favour of it.
BARONESS BACON: I must say that I find the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, very disappointing and unconvincing.
BARONESS WHITE: And inadequate.
BARONESS BACON: And inadequate. It gives two reasons alone why this Amendment cannot be accepted. One is because he says, the people and the council of Rothwell have expressed a wish. I have already said something about that; but we have been sitting here all day to-day listening to Amendments and speeches by noble Lords from areas where they have expressed a wish to go into one area rather than into another, and in every case the Government have resisted those wishes of the people in the areas concerned. Morley, which is a borough in the Leeds area, expressed a wish—but the Government did not accede to that Otley expressed a wish, but the Government did not accede to that. It is only in

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the case of Rothwell that the Government have acceded to what they call the wishes of the people, although, as I have said, it is not quite clear that there was the overwhelming vote that has been suggested.
The other excuse that has been given is that the Leeds area is big and the Wakefield area is smaller. I said something last week about the way in which the West Riding of Yorkshire had been divided up into a large number of little areas, but this is the way the Government divided it up; and I should have thought that if it was desired to make Leeds smaller and Wakefield bigger, the very last thing that should have been done was to
Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
11.17 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I beg to move Amendment No. 18.
Amendment moved—
Page 213, line 31, after ("Parlington") insert ("Sherburn-in-Elmet, South Milford and Huddleston").—(Lord Popplewell.)
On Question, Amendment negatived.
take Rothwell out of Leeds. There are other ways of doing this. I am hoping, even now, that the noble Lord will say that the Government will reconsider this between now and the Report stage. But in the absence of such an undertaking, I must divide the Committee, late as it is and knowing that many noble Lords have gone home. I would appeal to noble Lords on all sides of the Committee to join me in the Lobby.
11.10 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 17) be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 37.

CONTENTS

Amory, V.

Diamond, L.

Shackleton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Simon, V.

Bacon, Bs.

Hemingford, L.

Somers, L.

Barrington, V.

Henderson, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Beaumont, L.

Hereford, L. Bp.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Berkeley, Bs.

Hylton, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Blyton, L.

Lindsay of Birker, L.

Terrington, L.

Boyle of Handsworth, L.

Middleton, L.

White, Bs.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Milner of Leeds, L. [Teller.]

Wigram, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Newall, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Popplewell, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Seear, Bs.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Digby, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Abinger, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Redesdale, L.

Balfour, E.

Dulverton, L.

Sandford, L.

Belstead, L.

Elles, Bs.

Sandys, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Falmouth, V.

Sudeley, L.

Coleraine, L.

Ferrers, E.

Thomas, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Gowrie, E. [Teller.]

Tweedsmuir, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Cranbrook, E.

Limerick, E.

Waldegrave, E.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lothian, M.

Ward of Witley, V.

Davidson, V.

Northchurch, Bs.

Young, Bs.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

LORD ABERDARE: I think we have had enough geography for one day. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.