Lords Sitting of 11 August 1972

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

IMMIGRATION CONTROL: CASE OF MISSES KOTECHA
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what decision has been reached in the cases of British citizens and passport holders who have been refused admission to the United Kingdom, who are denied admission to India, whence they sought to come to this country, and to Uganda the country of their origin, and who were held in Los Angeles after being transported from London to Delhi, Bankok, Hong Kong and Tokyo; and what is the cost to the Home Office of these enforced non-ending world tours.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord is referring to the Misses Kotecha and their brother, about whom I gave a Written Answer on August 8. They were admitted to the United Kingdom for three months on August 3. Accounts have yet to be received from the companies who carried them.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him to agree that this whole procedure is proving not only cruel but futile, in that in the end these people are admitted to this country? Cannot steps be taken now to bring this procedure to an end?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, as the noble Lord is probably aware, meetings are currently going on with the various carriers to try to ensure that people who do not have the necessary permits do not get
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here in the first place. I entirely agree that for people in this position to be subjected to great round-the-world trips is undersirable, but the snag in this particular case was that the only aeroplane that could take them back to India went on from that point—India was not its final destination—so when they were refused permission to stay in India they had to rejoin the aeroplane and continue their journey. We are now taking steps to see that anybody who goes back is aboard a flight which ends in India, and this should go some way towards meeting the point which the noble Lord raised.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while again thanking the noble Viscount, may I ask him to bear in mind in the discussions that are taking place with the airlines and the shipping companies that there may be the difficulty of those companies having to carry out the international travel regulations? In other words, there may be the danger of asking them to make political decisions which are not recognised by European countries and which are sub judice, in view of matters being before the European Commission for Human Rights.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, in view of the fact that the discussions to which I referred are now going on—they are taking place literally at this moment, at any rate with some of the carriers—it would be unwise for me to say anything about them and a mistake for me to prejudge the response of those who are now in consultation. However, I am sure that the point raised by the noble Lord will be in the minds of those who are now conferring and I think that it would be better for us to await the results of those deliberations.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, while we have every sympathy with the case put forward by my noble friend Lord Brockway and appreciate his insistence that every consideration should be given to the people concerned, may I ask the noble Viscount to agree that it is necessary, indeed imperative, for any Government to maintain safeguards in matters of this kind, remembering that it is vital for us to know precisely what is happening to people who are seeking to come to this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords, the noble Lord,

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Lord Slater, is quite right to say that this is a matter which would concern any Government. It is recognised as being an exceedingly difficult problem from the point of view of those who want to come here, from our point of view and that of those who live in this country, among whom the people who are admitted will live. We must remember the effect on the people in this country if one had too great an influx of Asians, however meritorious one may consider their case to be.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, what will happen to these unfortunate people if they are placed on an aeroplane which ends its journey in India? Will that mean Her Majesty's Government disclaiming all future responsibility for them?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, my Lords, because one cannot generalise in a matter of this kind. Each case must be dealt with on its merits. Continuing discussions are going on, not only with the Indian Government but with all Governments, and varied decisions are arrived at as among the different cases. I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Segal, a generalised answer on a matter of this complexity.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations believes that it is highly undesirable for its members to become involved in controversial issues of this kind? While his right honourable friend is having discussions with the managements of the carriers, would it not be wise for IFAIPA to be brought into the discussions?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I simply do not know the answer to that question. Nevertheless, it is right that we should start by considering the matter with the carriers, because it is presumably at the check-in points where one first has the opportunity to intercept people who do not have the necessary vouchers. What happens if they get on to the aeroplane—this was the subject of a Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, some days ago—is still being considered, I think, with the pilots as well as the carriers.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount to say whether an
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approach has been made to any United Nations or other international body about mass expulsions by racialist dictators in Africa?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not know about that. It is a matter for my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, who I understand will be commenting on the subject later.

TRIDENT ACCIDENT: B.A.L.P.A. AND PUBLIC INQUIRY
11.13 a.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what opportunity will be afforded to the British Air Line Pilots' Association to appear before the public Inquiry into the B.E.A. Trident accident.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALYBN): My Lords, the British Air Line Pilots' Association will have an opportunity to apply to the court for permission to appear as an interested party in the public inquiry into the Trident accident at a preliminary interlocutory hearing to be held on September 29, 1972, notice of which was given in the Press on August 4. 1972. The decision whether or not to accept this application will be made by the court.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. I understand that the Association has in fact made application to Mr. Justice Lane, but may I ask the noble Lord whether he would agree that if the Association are allowed to appear formally as a party, or whether in some other way, they should be called upon to place at the disposal of the court their quite unique body of experience both in the operational and safety matters involved? And would be not also agree that it is particularly important that they should be given this position in view of the fact that some sections of the Press have already prejudged this accident and put the blame on certain individuals?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it is the case that in 1956 Mr. Justice

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Phillimore refused to admit the representative of B.A.L.P.A. in a situation where the pilots concerned were not members of the Association and were separately represented. It is not the practice, I understand, since then, for the courts automatically to admit applications either from B.A.L.P.A. or from other unions with expertise who might also be involved; but assistance is being given to the court and the Attorney General in the matter of expertise by the Chief Inspector of Accidents who has the power to co-opt experts in any field of activity that may be considered appropriate, and arrangements have already been made to co-opt an experienced airline pilot who is currently engaged in flying Trident aircraft.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am most obliged to the noble Lord. I am aware that an assessor has already been appointed, but would not the noble Lord agree that if the provision in the Investigation of Accident Regulation 1969 means anything at all, in this case B.A.L.P.A. should be appointed as a party?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, that is a matter for the court. The Government have no power to direct what the court should do in these circumstances.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, while supporting my noble friend in his inquiries, may I ask the noble Lord whether, apart from evidence of hours worked by the members of this particular crew, will it be in order for the court of inquiry to demand evidence of personal histories and medical evidence in this case?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sure that the report will demand all relevant evidence—all evidencee that appears to it to be relevant.

NORTHERN IRELAND: FUTURE OF CREGGAN AND BOGSIDE
11.16 a.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: 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, in the interests of economy of forces and of finance, they will hand over that part of Londonderry which is West of the River Foyle (Creggan and Bogside) to the Republic of Ireland.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND (LORD WINDLESHAM): No, my Lords.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, I would ask him: is it not a fact that in unemployment and social security benefits alone this area costs the British taxpayer up to £100,000 a week? Is it not a fact that at least five major units of our Services are generally required there and they are welcome as managers? Would it not be of great propaganda value to make such a transfer, as those affected could then demonstrate to their fellow Fenians remaining in Northern Ireland on which side their bread is buttered?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, as I explained on a previous occasion when the noble Lord raised this same question, Government policy in Northern Ireland does not depend primarily on what Northern Ireland or any part of it may cost in terms of finance or military effort.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, in view of the situation which the country is now facing I wonder whether the noble Lord is wise to be quite so dogmatic in his reply to the noble Lord? Would he not agree that an extraordinary situation arises when, in the first and fourth Questions on the Order Paper we are dealing with people trying to force their way into the United Kingdom, and yet here we are dealing with a situation where people are trying to shoot their way out? Would he not agree that there is some merit—although not put forward so attractively by the noble Lord—in the suggestion that a revision of the boundary would be of some assistance?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I hope that my reply was not dogmatic. It seemed to me, after a good deal of thought, to be the correct Answer to the noble Lord's Question. The arguments against transfer are very considerable. The most important is that action on

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these lines would not resolve the fundamental problem of Northern Ireland, which is to achieve the reconciliation of differences between conflicting groups. Even if it were practicable, a proposal of this sort would merely transfer part of the problem elsewhere, leaving the root cause of the problem untouched.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, might it really not be possible to organise a plebiscite in this benighted suburb in order to know what they really want? If they want to return to the Irish Free State why should they not?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, as your Lordships know there is the possibility of a plebiscite over the whole of Northern Ireland later this year, but the form and the timing have not yet been settled.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, in the discussions to take place about the form of this plebiscite has it been ruled out completely that there should be provision for determining the wishes of individuals in particular areas?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, as I said, the form of the plebiscite has not yet been settled.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, how many Roman Catholics are involved? Recently when I was in Londonderry I was told that to the West of the River Foyle, 98 per cent. of the population were Roman Catholics. I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how many that represents?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I do not have the figures in my head. A very large proportion on the West side of the River Foyle would be Roman Catholics, but what one must also appreciate is that the area referred to in the Question—
"that part of Londonderry which is West of the River Foyle (Creggan and Bogside)"
also contains the principal business area of the City, the Diamond. Many of the traders of that area are Protestants, even though they may live on the other side of the river.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, would the noble Lord whose answers have been so courteous and kindly explain to
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a simple Celt the difference between a "plebiscite" and a "referendum";and if ever he thinks of using a plebiscite in Northern Ireland, does he not think that the British people might understand the terms of a referendum on the Common Market?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I do not think I ought to be drawn on that question.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will bear in mind the fact that I regard a plebiscite in Northern Ireland as equally unattractive?

IMMIGRATION CONTROL AND U.K. PASSPORT HOLDERS
11.20 a.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: 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 for what reason are some British citizens, holding British passports, being refused entrance to this country and being deported, in some cases more than once, to the country from which they came.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 United Kingdom passport holders without direct personal or ancestral connection with the United Kingdom became subject to immigration control, and this is to remain the position under the Immigration Act 1971. Under the published immigration rules, people subject to control are admitted for settlement only if they have obtained an employment voucher or a special voucher or in other limited circumstances. In accordance with the rules, United Kingdom passport holders who arrive here for settlement without a document of entitlement are, after examination, refused admission. They are normally returned to the country from which they started their journey.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, and while realising that the situation has altered appreciably

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since the Question was put down a week ago and anxious not to embarrass the Government in their negotiations, I would ask the noble Lord whether he does not agree that the present system has not proved to be satisfactory and should be reviewed?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the quota was increased quite substantially, as recently as last May with a specific eye to the United Kingdom passport holders in East Africa and India. I have no doubt that the whole question of the number of vouchers is tied up with the overall consideration which is being given by the Government; there is a Working Party across the board of the major Departments. This is doubtless one of the items on the agenda, but of course it cannot be the only consideration, on the ground that I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Slater, just now.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he recollects that when the Bill of 1968 was before this House all the Conservative Members who had been associated with the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office voted against it, including at least one Member of the Front Bench, on the ground that it was a matter of national honour and that a commitment had been made? Has the Minister's attention been drawn to the letter in The Times this morning from Mr. Woodhouse, the Conservative Member for Oxford, which emphasises this particular commitment?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am in this difficulty: that I cannot remember the intricate details of what was rather a fevered night, if I remember rightly, in 1968. And I have had so much to do with other matters this morning that I have not yet had time to read The Times. But I think the commitment in the end is the same as it always was. It was inherited from the previous Government, and it is the basis upon which we are trying to operate the present controlled entry system that has been referred to in the Question. I do not think there has been any change of policy on this matter.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, when the Minister does get round to reading his papers he might care also to look at the leading article in the Spectator, which
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refers back to the statements which were made by Mr. Macleod at the time. I think he will find that a valuable stimulus to his memory.
May I ask, in relation to the people from India, whether he thinks that the additional 500 vouchers which he mentioned in a previous answer really is adequate in comparison with the 2,360 persons whose applications have been accepted, according to the figures given by my honourable friend Mr. David Steel in the Commons? Would the noble Viscount now give special consideration to the situation of persons in India who are prevented from working there and who originally come from one or other of the countries in East Africa?
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, does the noble Lord remember, in connection with what he described as a somewhat fevered night, which indeed it was, that one Conservative Peer, the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, who is, I think, the only active survivor of the negotiations which arranged this voucher system, voted with the minority of my Party against the majority of the Opposition?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, there are some of my colleagues whose memories are better than mine, and they confirm that the noble Baroness is quite right. As to what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury said, I think possibly we are all looking forward to the end of to-day, when we can start to read some of the things we should have liked to read a good time ago. The adequacy of the number of vouchers for not only the United Kingdom passport holders in India but those all along the East African coast has to be looked at together, and I suspect that this is one of the things that is being gone into in detail by this inter-Ministerial Working Party that is going on at the moment.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why the excellent work performed by U.N.R.W.A. over a period of so many years cannot be extended to encompass the plight of these unfortunate Asian refugees from East Africa?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am afraid that the answer to the noble Lord is, No, not without notice.

DOCKS STRIKE
11.27 a.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question of which I have given Private Notice—namely:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the prospect of settling the dock strike and in particular restoring the normal supply of animal feedingstuffs."
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, since the official National Dock Strike started on July 28 the Jones/Aldington Committee have held a series of further meetings. Their aim has been to clarify the recommendations in their interim report published on July 25—in particular those relating to container groupage work. The Government had hoped that by now the Committee would have made sufficient progress to enable, the Transport and General Workers' Union to recall their National Delegate Conference and secure a resumption of work. This has not yet happened, but I am sure we all hope that there may be an early recall. The Committee are continuing to meet—they are indeed meeting again at this moment. Your Lordships will, I am sure, join me in expressing the desire that all concerned should act with the utmost speed to bring this damaging strike to an end.
The present position on animal feeding-stuffs remains much as I described it in your Lordships' House during the debate on the Emergency Regulations two days ago. It has been agreed with the National Farmers' Union and the feed trade that the need to use emergency powers will not arise within the next few days. We remain hopeful, however, that an early resumption of work will restore not only the normal supply of animal feedingstuffs and other essential imports but also the vital flow of exports.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his helpful Answer, and sharing with him the hope that agreement will soon be reached on the basis of the Jones/Aldington Report, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware of the magnitude and the imminence of the danger which now confronts the small livestock industry of this country? Is
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my noble friend aware that there are some 130 million chickens, including my own breeding flock, some 8½ million pigs, which are almost completely dependent on a fed ration, which at this time of year is almost entirely imported before the main harvest begins to flow, and that that consists of some 200,000 to 300,000 tons of feedingstuffs per week?
Is he further aware that the best forecast that can be made is that these supplies of feedingstuffs, in the hands of both merchants and farmers, will be completely exhausted certainly by the end of next week, and possibly by the middle of next week? Is my noble friend also aware that before farmers start slaughtering their pigs and poultry they will probably keep them for a few days in the hope that supplies will come through, so that these animals will be starving for several days before they die. Is my noble friend aware that this crisis implies the starvation of millions of pigs and poultry by the end of next week; it means the ruin of tens of thousands of livestock farmers, and the drastic reduction of home-produced supplies of pig and poultry meat and eggs? I beg him to give a more definite reply that if agreement has not been reached by the middle of next week he will be prepared to use his emergency powers in order to restore normal supplies?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am generally aware of the position as described by my noble friend, although I was not aware of the precise details of the amount of poultry for which he himself may be responsible. Having said that, I think I should add that my understanding—indeed, the Government's understanding—which is based on close consultations with the trade, is that while the position on the animal feedingstuffs front is undoubtedly very serious, it is geographically patchy. There are certain areas—I refer particularly to Cornwall, Devon and Dorset—where it is more critical than others. In that connection, it is perhaps not without significance that a meeting is taking place at Bristol at this moment to decide whether the dockers at Bristol, where there are considerable quantities of animal feedingstuffs locked up, if I may use that expression, will move on a voluntary basis animal feedingstuffs and

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release them to the critically affected South-Western areas. I do not wish to say anything which might in any way prejudice the successful termination of this important meeting.
Having said that I would only wish to add, in the words which my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, used after a meeting with the trade interests last Wednesday, that we are living here rather from day to day. But I can give my noble friend this assurance: that the Government will not hesitate to use their emergency powers if it becomes essential to ensure the continued flow of supplies. But again, as I said when we were discussing the Emergency Regulations last Wednesday, we regard such a step as a last-resort measure.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I believe there will be general support for the moderate stance the Government are taking, while acknowledging the acute seriousness of the situation as described by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford—and my noble friend Lord Beswick is more competent to comment on this aspect than I am. But is he also aware that the continuation of the dock strike, whether triggered off by some unfortunate statement from the Government of a kind we have had in the past (though I am happy to say that on this occasion such a statement has not been forthcoming), could lead us into such a national disaster that by comparison the feedingstuffs disaster would pale into insignificance?
We must all hope that an agreement will be reached, but in the event of the continuation of this strike have the Government in mind that in certain circumstances Parliament may have to be recalled?—though he may not wish at this moment to discuss the question of a recall.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not dissent from what the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, has said about the possibly grave implications downstream if this strike were to continue for any considerable length of time, and I am gateful to him for the moderate and reasonable line he has taken in questioning me on this subject. As regards the recall of Parliament, I think it is the hope of all noble Lords that this strike will
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be settled reasonably and soon. I would not wish anything I said at this moment to prejudice chances of a settlement. I feel that the noble Lord's question about the recall of Parliament is a hypothetical one, and all I would say is that in circumstances of this kind there are well-established channels for consultation between the major Parties to cover this eventuality.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the point made with regard to the poultry industry by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford is not in any sense an exaggeration? In fact, with his usual moderation he did not go far enough. In this particular industry I do not think it will be possible to slaughter all these small animals. Is my noble friend aware these animals will die of starvation? It is not going to be possible to take millions of very small chickens and have them slaughtered in a plant designed for large animals to be hung for slaughter. I think the urgency of this matter is therefore very great. May I ask the Government whether they cannot organise, through the National Farmers' Union and the poultry-packing industry, very urgently, some emergency plan as to how these small birds can be humanely disposed of if a crisis develops.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should be glad to pass on that suggestion to my noble friend: indeed, I will take it up with my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, while not in the least wishing to urge the Leader of the House to subtract one iota from the reticence and moderation with which he has answered questions put to him, may I ask him to give the House an assurance that there are in existence plans which, if the fears expressed by the Leader of the Opposition should be realised, would enable the proper and orderly distribution of the essentials of life? It is my experience, based upon war-time administration, that the orderly distribution of the essentials of life take some time to organise. It would be reassuring to feel that the Government had plans in existence against an emergency which all of us, of course, hope will not occur.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord that assurance.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, in order to avert the unnecessary suffering of small animals dying from starvation, may I ask Her Majesty's Government to make a special appeal to the dockers to shift feedingstuffs for animals now?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear hear!
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, appeals have been made in this regard, but they are being made locally. In the circumstances of the particular situation with which we are faced, that is probably the best way appeals should be made.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, without wishing to criticise what the noble Earl has said, may I ask whether he would not agree that, while panic is to be deprecated, complacency is not without dangers? We are, therefore, appreciative of the nice balance that the noble Earl has struck. May I raise a point about the particular grains involved? The noble Earl has said that the problem is geographically patchy; but would he not agree that the difficulty is that there are particular grains which are in short supply? It is quite impossible to feed the poultry with home-produced grain which is now coming forward. There is therefore a special danger, which is possibly being masked by the apparent introduction of the newly harvested grain.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think I should be careful about going too far into agricultural details. I recognise there is a question of selectivity involved. I am grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Beswick has said about the need to maintain a balance, but the fact that an airlift is being organised at this moment, and is to take place to-morow, to the Orkneys and Shetlands, shows that the Government are determined to see that essential supplies for our community are maintained.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware of the news item on the 9 o'clock bulletin this morning? The item said that dockers have decided to load foodstuffs and materials for the Shetlands and the Orkneys.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am aware of that. There was a meeting this morning of dockers at Aberdeen, and I am glad to say that, in response to the appeal made to them (this is what
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I had in mind about the efficacy of appeals being made locally), this was the decision of the dockers. The position, however, is that there are certain critical shortages in the Orkneys, and above all in Shetland, and any relief which could be obtained from seaborne supplies from Aberdeen would not be in time to tide the two communities concerned over the weekend. The two loads of 90 tons each which are being supplied in Orkney and Shetland will give about half a week's relief. It is hoped that by then normal supplies, loaded through Aberdeen, will be becoming available.
LORD VERNON: My Lords, would the noble Earl agree that one of the lessons to be learned from this dispute is that the Government should aim to reduce the population of people and animals in these islands to numbers which we can feed from within our own resources?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, while there are many lessons to be learned from this dispute, I am not absolutely certain that that is one of them.

BUSINESS: TRIBUTES AND THANKS TO STAFF
11.41 a.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like, since time is going on, to refer to the fact that we have now reached almost the penultimate lap of what has been a rather heavy Parliamentary year. I accept, of course, that the House will be faced with a little more work during September and October, but I think that this would be a suitable moment for me to express my gratitude to all Members of the House for the way in which your Lordships have stayed the course so far with assiduity and, if I may say so, with remarkable good temper. May I therefore take this opportunity of wishing all Members of your Lordships' House a very enjoyable respite, be it on shore or on moor, as the case may be. I should like to congratulate noble Lords opposite on the gay sartorial note which they are striking to-day. There were two Labour buttonholes opposite; I am sad to see there is now only one. However, there is also, I find, a marvellous holiday tie

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on what I now learn is the "Earls' Bench ".
I feel, however—and I should like to add this—that we owe an immense debt of gratitude, and we are very conscious of it particularly at this moment, to all the staff of this House. Compared with another place our staff are very much smaller in numbers, and yet in the past few months they have had to serve a House which has been sitting for unusually long hours. They have, as we all know, been under really taxing strain. I should therefore like to thank the Clerks and all their assistants, and perhaps especially those in the Printed Paper Office whose work has been added to by the printing difficulties of which we have been aware. I should like to thank Black Rod and his staff, the attendants and the Doorkeepers, who so much facilitate our communication within the House. I should like to thank the Hansard staff—it is remarkable what good sense they manage to make of our discussions; the policemen and custodians, who have managed to keep us safe and sound, at least so far; and last, but by no means least, the ladies and the one solitary male in our ever-willing Refreshment Department. We know the burden that they have carried and the added difficulties which they have had to cope with as a result of the reconstruction of the Dining Room. I am sure that all your Lordships will wish to join me in this expression of thanks to our staff, who have served us so very well.
11.45 a.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his statement. I shall not repeat his tributes beyond saying that we all wholeheartedly echo them. I would add that what has been particular striking is, despite the strain on the staff, the extreme courtesy with which we have been met on every occasion—even when that disaster struck and they ran out of sausages in the Dining Room. We are exceedingly grateful to our staff, who contribute quite notably to the good atmosphere that we are able to maintain.
May I add, with no desire to go back over the arguments of the last few days, that I should also like to pay tributes to your Lordships, and indeed, particularly as I was too exhausted to do so last
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night when the noble Earl thanked his Front Bench, to thank my noble friends Lord Beswick, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale and others on this side who have been so active, and not least the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, who has contributed to the education of us all. I may say that I noticed various degrees of educational progress on the Government side.
In the light of that, may I just say, in view of those arduous four days, that I am a little surprised to see the headline in The Times which says:
"E.E.C. Bill slips through the Lords."
For those of us here, it was a very hard fought debate, and I should have thought that that heading was grossly inaccurate. There is the further inaccuracy in the statement that the Bill now just goes to Third Reading. Despite the size (and I mean this in no offensive way) of the Government's steamroller—which I should have thought also had some news value, but it happens not to have been noticed—with the greater flexibility we have in this House, as opposed to another place, we can insist on a Report stage, and that is what the House is doing. We shall therefore return in September, full of vigour and still determined to try to persuade the Government to accept one Amendment. However, I do not wish to spoil the pleasant atmosphere, and I would echo the noble Earl's good wishes to all Members of your Lordships' House for a very pleasant holiday.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with everything that has been said and to add to the general stream of congratulations which we are all showering on ourselves as a result of our work during the last fortnight or three weeks. One of the things that has happened is that we are all now making great progress in our study of what is called "Euro law". Even the Law Officers of the Crown are making great progress in that direction, so that is hopeful for our prospective entry into the Common Market. I should also like to associate myself with the tributes that have been paid to the staff. I have even received this morning my copy of Hansard for July 31, so almost everything is now cleared up, and I think we may now all leave for our holidays

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with a clear conscience and a fairly light heart.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, in view of the charming valedictory addresses that we have had, may I ask the noble Earl whether the Business of this term is now over, and whether we shall not now be proceeding with the Local Government Bill during the rest of the day? If that is too optimistic a line to take, how far do the Government intend to take the Local Government Bill to-day?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, but I think I must leave it to my noble friend who is in charge of the Bill to inform your Lordships what the usual channels have worked out, or will be working out, about the progress which the House will be making in the next twelve hours or so.

UGANDA ASIANS
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 2.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie will be making a Statement on recent events in Uganda affecting Asian holders of United Kingdom passports.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL
11.49 a.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Schedule 1 [Counties and Metropolitan Districts in England]:
LORD MIDDLETON LORD MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 214, line 16, leave out ("North") and insert ("East").
The noble Lord said: I wonder if it would be convenient to the Committee to take also Amendment No. 38 and Amendments Nos. 41 to 47 inclusive.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD MIDDLETON: I seem to be opening the batting for Yorkshire to-day, having had my pads on as it were during the last part of what I think can be described as only a fair day for the county on Wednesday. I am asking the Government to look more carefully than they so far seem to have done at a much wider area than the parish and district boundaries which we were discussing on the first day. In brief, what these Amendments seek to do is to divide none metropolitan England between Tees-side and the Wash into four new counties and not into three as in the Bill, for the reasons which I outlined in the debate on Second Reading.
Humberside on the North bank would be drawn nearer to the port and associated industries, though giving Hull enough room for expansion. On the South bank the boundary would remain as in the Bill. The rest of Yorkshire, except for Cleveland, would be divided into a smaller North Yorkshire, much larger than the present North Riding and still the largest county in England of 1¾ million acres, and a new East Yorkshire. The boundary between the two would run from the sea just below Scarborough and roughly along the River Derwent as far as York, which would go to East Yorkshire, and then across to West Yorkshire, thereby eliminating the Selby-Osgoldcross "appendix", which would be very inconvenient to manage from North Yorkshire and which would go to East Yorkshire.
I do not propose to repeat the argument in favour of this Amendment in detail—I spoke fairly fully on Second Reading—but I wish to put as concisely as possible my case. It was that the Government made several serious errors when drawing the boundaries for non-metropolitan Yorkshire. First, their North Yorkshire was much too big for good administration of services. Secondly, whatever we think about North Yorkshire, the Selby-Osgoldcross appendix should never be in it. Thirdly, while a Humberside local authority astride the Humber is a very sound strategic concept, the northern boundaries were drawn much

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too far to the North. Lastly, historic York was left without a role.
I suggested that the answer was to insert a new and viable county, which for convenience we might call East Yorkshire, between the geographical Humberside and North Yorkshire, with York as its chief town. One of the many benefits arising from this solution would be that we would not cut out a police force that has only just settled down after a two-year-old reorganisation. This would satisfy both the deep public concern in the present East Riding about a forced marriage to a—to them—irrelevant maritime-oriented Hull, and also the dismay felt in York at the fate handed out to them in the Bill. One can overdo the cricketing metaphor, but I should like to deal with the series of "no balls" and "wides" delivered by the Government.
There is strong local feeling that the Government case for their Humberside boundaries is founded on certain misconceptions and that these were apparent when a similar Amendment was moved in another place, although in the case of that Amendment Humberside had only Hull and Haltemprice on the North bank. The purpose of this was to perpetuate the East Riding. If there were not strong local government reasons I would not be taking up your Lordships' time in arguing about boundaries and indeed asking the Government to give birth to a new county. The intention was to recommend a different demarcation of boundaries in order to achieve a better administration of local government services. This Amendment would create a quite new county based on York. If by so doing we were to perpetuate, or at any rate to reap the benefits of good administration of services in the present East Riding, particularly in the field of education, that cannot be a bad thing.
The next argument was that the Amendment would make a shambles of the Humberside county proposed in the Bill by cutting off Hull and Haltemprice from their area of influence to the North and industrial development to the East. There was some force in this argument, had it not been based on the false premise that Hull has an area of influence to the North. This concept seems to be firmly fixed in the Minister's mind. It is most important that we should get things right. There is no such area of influence
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or development North of Hull and Haltemprice. Hull's areas of influence stretch westward and eastward across the Humber.
The effect of my Amendment would be to put the whole of the industry and associated residential areas and also a considerable area of undeveloped land and open countryside both on the East and West of Hull into the Humberside county. I would ask the Government to take note of the difference between my Amendment and that which was moved in another place. I believe that this one goes the whole way towards meeting the Government's wish to include Hull's area of influence in a Humberside county.
The next argument of the Government was that Humberside was not a metropolitan county and should be combined with different rural areas. Neither is Cleveland a metropolitan area, and any rural hinterland in the Bill's proposals for Cleveland are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the Government have cut off the the large rural area of Whitby—nearly equal in size to the present Cleveland county—taken it away from Cleveland and put it back in North Yorkshire. If Cleveland in the Bill is right then so must be my proposal for North Humberside. The Government really cannot quote Radcliffe-Maud on town and country in connection with Humberside and expect me not to say, "How about Redcliffe-Maud in connection with Cleveland?" I am fully in agreement with the Redcliffe-Maud philosophy about town and country, but it must be the right mixture of town and country and not the wrong one if we are to get happy and good local government.
The next argument was that there was a great flow of workers into Hull from the East Riding and a great flow of population out of Hull into the East Riding. This was not an accurate statement. Even under the Amendments proposed in another place, about 8 per cent. of the total work force of East Riding move in and out of Hull. This is based on the 1966 Census figures. I do not know of any more recent figures that would help us. Under these Amendments all areas with any volume of movement in or out of Hull are now included in the Humberside county. The fact is that the pull of Hull operates to a very limited extent beyond its immediate boundaries and this

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was commented upon in the Central Unit for Environmental Planning 1969 Report.
The next argument was that because of the geographical links between Hull and East Yorkshire they should go together and there should be no physical barriers. This is perfectly correct, but the biggest geographical barrier of all is the Humber Estuary. At Hull it is two miles wide. If the geographical argument were to be applied then the Bill's Humberside would be a nonsense. In fact there are very good reasons for having an authority astride the Humber.
The next argument was that Hull and Haltemprice were an enormously powerful economic magnet on the rest of the East Riding. That argument might have applied to an area which would be included with Hull in this Amendment, but there was no basis for saying that Hull was a powerful magnet for the whole of the East Riding. Although I played a minor part in drafting the recent strategy document issued by the Regional Economic and Industrial Council which the Government accepted, I know what we said about Humberside and about East Riding and we certainly never said that. It is just not in accordance with the economic facts. Hull is a port and its trade and industries and fisheries have national significance. This also applies to all the North bank industries which I have now included, not one of which is related to the economy of the East Riding outside the areas which my Amendment would give to Humberside.
Then we were told that there would be future large-scale development centred on Hull. This argument is based on the Feasibility Study of Humberside which was made in 1969 by the Central Unit for Environmental Planning. The purpose of that study was to assess the feasibility of collecting large numbers of the nation's expanding population and settling them on Humberside. Even while the Report was being written, the Registrar General's estimates of future population were revised, and since then they have been revised downwards again more than once. So there may very well not be the surplus population in the country to put there. This Report concluded that, while this would be the biggest exercise of its kind that had ever been contemplated. it was
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physically feasible to settle 750,000 people and their natural increase on Humberside, over and above the existing population and their natural increase. But no conclusion was reached as to the economic feasibility of that scheme.
I need hardly remind your Lordships that it is proving extremely difficult to attract industry to employ the present population. Even though Hull has had intermediate status since April, 1970, the male unemployment rate last July was 7·9 per cent. In July of the previous year it was 7·1 per cent., so the problem is not getting any better. Bearing in mind the difficulty which recent Governments have had in getting industry to the North-East of England, and bearing in mind that the Yorkshire region desperately needs new industries in such areas as the South Yorkshire coalfield, I leave your Lordships to draw your own conclusions as to the economic feasibility of finding work for a Humberside population three times its present size. No Government could undertake the expense of artificially inducing labour-intensive industry on such an enormous scale. People flow towards industry, not vice versa. Should we really use this planner's pipe-dream as a sound basis for drawing local government boundaries?
Lastly, my Lords, we were told that public opinion, as measured by views expressed in letters to the Department, showed a nil reaction and that most local authorities were opposed to a new East Yorkshire. I know that the Government attach great weight to public opinion. There was a test carried out in the form of a public opinion poll, done at the behest of the East Riding County Council. Views were sought on a random basis not only in the East Riding but also in Hull. The result of the poll showed that 75 per cent. of those questioned believed that there should be a separate county of East Yorkshire. With regard to letters to the Department, perhaps the 29,000 received by the East Riding County Council should have been forwarded on, but I really do not think that the Department would have welcomed that avalanche. As for local authorities, the views of Hull City and North Riding County Council were predictable. They stand to divide the corpse of the old East Riding between them.

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Now, my Lords, the district councils. Time and again on Wednesday, we heard of Government decisions based on views of district councils; and certainly due weight must be given to these views. The Government have taken great pains to carry out consultation as deeply as they could have done in the time available, but I have a feeling that you can put too much emphasis on the views of the second-tier authorities. Often their members are divided, often their views are formed by considerations quite other than the administration of good county services. Of course, it is convenient to use these views to argue a case, but how often are these views based on matters quite irrelevant? We had a very good example on Wednesday from the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, in her eloquent plea for Rothwell. The district councils in the proposed Humberside were divided, so it is not easy to form a conclusion. I am not sure that a more reliable guide is not the opinion of the consumers of services as measured in some kind of independent poll, such as I have mentioned.
Your Lordships may attach some weight to the fact that York City Council endorsed wholeheartedly and unanimously the concept of a new East Yorkshire County based on York. This is surely understandable. No one with any sense of history can gladly see York relegated to the position of a peripheral district of an over-large North Yorkshire. Instead of becoming an archaeological curiosity, York would, under these Amendments, become the administrative capital of a thriving new county. That is what I should like to see and I ask the Government to look more critically at their Yorkshire boundaries which really are wrong, and accept these Amendments that would put them right. I beg to move.
12.5 p.m.
LORD JAMES OF RUSHOLME: I should like to support in the strongest possible way the Amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton. I intend to do that in a very few sentences, because he has covered the ground so fully both in what he said to-day and in his admirable speech on Second Reading. But if my speech is very short, I hope your Lordships will believe me when I
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say that its length is in inverse proportion to the strength of my feeling and to the importance of the subject. On Wednesday we discussed at length the boundaries of places like Wardle and Windle—very important for their inhabitants, but perhaps more suited to a boundary commission than to a debate. But this morning we are not discussing something like that; we are discussing the extinction of the identity of a whole county borough and one which has, in a number of fields, a distinguished record.
I am not a Yorkshireman so that I cannot be accused of the sometimes excessive loyalty that comes from birth, particularly in that county. Though I have lived and worked for 11 years in what is now the East Riding, I can, I hope, view this Bill from a reasonably detached point of view, for I have no doubt that the University of York will enjoy the happiest relationships with North Yorkshire if North Yorkshire comes into existence. So that I do not have an axe to grind. Viewed with that degree of detachment, I regard the present proposals in the Bill as misguided, both socially and administratively. They are misguided in at least three important ways.
First, from my experience and from all the evidence, the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, was absolutely right to emphasise that the economic and cultural links of the East Riding are not in fact directed towards Humberside, except perhaps for a very small part in the extreme South-East of the county. There is in the greater part of the East Riding area a strong local feeling that has made it, for example, one of the best educational authorities in the country. We all know those articles that prove how much worse education is in the North of England than in the South; and, on the whole, there is a lot of truth in them. But there is one bright spot in any map you like to draw of educational provisions, and that bright spot is the East Riding of Yorkshire. That kind of situation can arise only from a genuine local feeling. In so far as there is an outside pull, then that pull is undoubtedly towards the City of York. But suppose we disregard what the inhabitants want, and let a reputable and good government go for nothing and dismantle its machinery, which is what the Bill seems to be wanting to do. What do we get in its place?

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I would really ask your Lordships to consider again the human and administrative problems raised by the new North Yorkshire. What unity, what community of interests can one hope to find in an authority that will extend from the Fells of Swaledale to the Plain of Selby: and what kind of administrative headache must inevitably, I think, be introduced by that scattered and immense area of over two million people? This is supposed to be a Bill about good local government, and it is, I think, in general conception, probably a good Bill; but in my part of the world it is in danger of creating something that is certainly not local and in my view perhaps will not be very good government either.
Lastly, there is the position of York itself. I have no desire to be sentimental about the glorious past—it seems to be unfashionable to be that, even in your Lordships' House—but actually the Romans who chose York were rather good at local government themselves and Wentworth's Earl of Stratford, who did the same, was at any rate efficient whatever his other failings may have been. But if one considers the matter quite dispassionately—and I wish we could consider it that way; if this is not the place, where can it be considered dispassionately?—how many towns are better fitted not only by history, not simply by amenity, but on practical grounds, ease of communications, to be a county town, the natural area of which it would be the centre, as in fact it aready is the centre in the minds of the people who live there, is the new authority of East Yorkshire?
These Amendments are not suggesting a new kind of authority. They are not messing up any fundamental principle of the Bill. They are not suggesting any new principle. They are not seeking to perpetuate even the present East Riding of Yorkshire. What they are proposing is that in a vast area of the North of this country there should be one more authority than the Bill envisages, and one which can naturally evolve on a firm and already existing base. It is a proposal that seems to me to be sensible and practical on all grounds—economic, social and administrative. Is it too much to hope that for once the Minister will permit himself the luxury of a wise man, by throwing away the admirable brief
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that lies in front of him and saying, "No, for the following reasons," and admit that the Government have made a mistake and need to think again?
12.14 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT: May I support this Amendment very briefly and draw your Lordships' attention, as one Member who is resident near Selby—and I want to make that point clear so that you can see that I talk from local knowledge—to the fact that in my belief this hangs on two points. The first one is that, very rightly, the South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire industrial areas have been hived off into new metropolitan counties; and the second important thing that should happen is Humberside to be created. I should like to dwell on Humberside for a moment. Up till recently, the West Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire have exported to the Commonwealth and to the world through Liverpool, Birkenhead, Manchester and so on. But we are about to enter the Common Market, and the M.62, the motorway from Liverpool to Hull, is just about to be pushed through to Hull. It has got as far as Huddersfield, and the M.18 is being pushed from Doncaster to join it and also go to Hull.
This will make Humberside the major port, after London, exporting to the Common Market. It lies opposite Rotterdam, that immense Europort at the mouth of the Rhine. Humberside was the correct creation as a port, and as an industrial area with the ancillaries to a port. Maybe it will have something to do with the expansion of natural gas and the oil industry, too. That is all that Humberside should be. What has now been created is a new area of Humberside, to give elbow room, they say, to Humberside, which is as big as if London had, as its Greater London area, an area from Reading, Luton and Chelmsford. The men of Hull are big chaps, but they do not need as much elbow room as that. It is unnecessary. And you are dragging this agricultural community living in the East Riding into administration from Hull, where they will not have the same interests, who are concerned with other industries, and other ways of life. This Amendment seeks to put these Northern areas of the East Riding in with the areas of the West Riding where I live—to put the Tadcaster District Council,

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Selby District Council and Osgoldcross District Council together into one agricultural community. My area, which is at the moment in the West Riding, is going to have to take its local government troubles to Northallerton, over 70 miles away.
I know that your Lordships are not interested in details because you are really losing sight of the kingdom at the moment, you are so confused with detail. This is not a detail matter; it is a vast and simple matter which your Lordships should consider very carefully. I do press that the Minister looks at this matter and gives us an answer.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: I should like to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, with which I wholeheartedly agree. I spent the first twenty years of my life in the East Riding of Yorkshire and my name is incorporated in Kingston-upon-Hull, so I know a little about the district. There is one thing that I should like to bring to the Government's attention; that is, that bringing the South Bank of the Humber into Humberside does not make sense. I lived for many years at North Thirkleby. Across the Humber is South Thirkleby, a place I have never been to. There is no interchange between Lincolnshire and Yorkshire people whatsoever. We are getting a new bridge at Hull, and I hope that that will help the development of industries besides shipping to come to Hull so that they will have easier access to the rest of the country. But that bridge is not going to make any difference to the population, and therefore I ask Her Majesty's Government to review the South Bank of what is known as Humberside.
My second point is this. I think it is a terrible thing to do away with East Yorkshire as a county. It has sentimental value. I do not mind including it with York, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, said in his Second Reading speech, all roads lead to York. Let us get it quite straight and have a North Riding, an East Riding, a Humberside and a West Riding.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: I should like, quite briefly, to support the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, as he has been supported from all sides of the Committee. I think his case is a strong one. My reason for supporting the noble
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Lord is that the rural districts in the area of which he has spoken are almost unanimously desirous of becoming part of a new county council of East Yorkshire. During all the talks leading up to the drafting of this Bill there has been a great deal of consideration about remoteness, and your Lordships may not be aware—because although I do not come from that part of the country, I visit it a great deal—that the distances involved are enormous. If we are to get good councillors to serve these new authorities, some consideration must be given to the remoteness of the centre of government. I think that is one of the points to which your Lordships should give careful consideration if the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, asks your Lordships to support him in the Lobby.
12.21 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: At least I have the great advantage in this particular debate of being totally impartial on the question of Yorkshire. I am a Scot, and I confess that my personal knowledge of either side of the Humber is extremely limited. What I have done, therefore, is to try to ascertain all the facts, both geographic and otherwise, as fully as I can in order to try to answer this debate. So at least no one can say that there is any bias in anything I say from any personal background. As my noble friend Lord Middleton said when he opened this debate, he is not expressly trying to resurrect the county of East Yorkshire, though I think the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, did make that plea. The fact remains that this Amendment is the first one in this Committee stage whereby we are attempting to go in for a major refragmentation of the pattern of the Bill. It is therefore, I believe, an important Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, asks: "What is wrong with one more authority? "But if the noble Lord looks at the list of Amendments, he will see that it is not only one more authority that is being sought in the various proposals put before this Committee stage: there are a number of others. I am afraid one cannot take it altogether on the one swallow argument.
The other introductory thing that I should like to say is this—and perhaps I must chiefly direct my remarks to my noble friend Lord Beaumont, though it

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is something that seems to underline a good deal of the thinking on this subject. I believe that noble Lords and others who have considered this matter are hypnotised by the name, the label that has been given to this proposed new authority. "It is called Humberside ", they say. "Therefore it must be connected only with the Humber." This came out strongly, I think, in the debate in another place; it has come out strongly in a number of the speeches made on this Amendment to-day: and although we do not have down a specific Amendment relating to the Lincolnshire side of the river, I think the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, was on the same point as was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincolnshire when he spoke on Second Reading. Everybody seems to think that because one labels the authority "Humberside" it must be solely connected with the river; not in any circumstances beyond the banks of the river, the docks, shipping and matters of that sort. This seems to be an underlying misunderstanding. What does it matter what it is called?
Let us look at the reality of this and consider the situation as it really is. I hope that, even if there are to some extent different interests in the rural areas from those in the built-up areas on either side of the river, this Committee will remember that this is precisely one of the things in a non-metropolitan county that we are seeking to foster: that there should be an interchange between city and town, and we should no longer, unless we absolutely must, go in for that awful conflict which has gone on in the past for so long. Let us just consider what this Amendment means. My noble friend has fully described it. It takes the majority of the North part of the proposed new county of Humberside and turns it into what is very nearly a re-ceation of the East Riding—though I know that the areas are different. It reduces the North Yorkshire new county from 626,000 to 446,000 population.
I do not want to go over all the arguments that were put forward in another place, and to which my noble friend referred, but I should like to comment on some of them. We have, first of all, the arguments on economic links and
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geographical links. My noble friend confessed that the geographical links were there, and I think this is perfectly plain. One has only to look at the map and one sees the roads certainly leading East and West, but also leading very fully into the country areas into the North. The economic links have been hotly denied by noble Lords, but I think that I ought now to tell the Committee a little more about this. Hull and Haltemprice are an enormously powerful economic magnet on the rest of the area of the East Riding. The strength of the combined economic pulls of Hull and Haltemprice may be gauged from the fact that in 1966—because I have to work on the 10 per cent. census as well—16 per cent. of the resident employed population of the county districts round Hull which the Bill would include in Humberside found employment in Hull or Haltemprice. By contrast, York has nothing like the same influence on the area with which we are concerned: indeed, its pull is almost entirely concerned with a small area adjacent to it in the Pocklington rural district.
I know that your Lordships do not like statistics, but let us look at this. My noble friend's Amendment leaves the borough of Hedon in the Humberside complex. But if one looks at the other adjoining local authorities, we have a number which are outside my noble friend's proposed Humberside County. To the East we have Holderness, a rural district, with 37 per cent. of its employed population working in Hull or Haltemprice; at Withernsea, an urban district to the East, or North-East, 32 per cent.; the rural district of Beverley, to the North—while it is outside my noble friend's boundary—29 per cent.; Hornsea, an urban district to the North-East, 27 per cent.; the borough of Beverley, 14 per cent.; and then in the urban district of Driffield we are down to a much smaller figure. All these are North, North-East and East and well outside the area which my noble friend says is all that should be left, the rump on the North side of the Humber. Conversely, a considerable proportion of the working population in these adjoining areas live in Haltemprice or Hull. In the rural district of Beverley, 33 per cent. of the work force of the rural district comes from Hull and Haltemprice; in Holderness Rural District Coun

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cil there are 22 per cent., and in Beverley Borough even 20 per cent. come from the borough of Holderness.
So we have these cross economic links of a very significant nature between the two areas where noble Lords have denied that there are any links at all. There has been a considerable movement of population from the urban areas—this has been going on all over the country—into the rural areas during the last few years. Incidentally, this movement includes many of the younger families and these are no doubt the people who are partly contributing to these cross economic links between the areas. If there is no economic link between Hull and the North, why is it that even in these days, when buses are perhaps not the most popular form of transport, there are 70 buses daily from Hull to Beverley to the North and 31 daily to Withernsea, to the East?—the areas where my noble friend denies that there are economic links.
That is the present situation. We must then look to the future. My noble friend Lord Middleton sought to throw a certain amount of cold water on the plans put forward in 1969 for the addition of further population to this area. I know it was a very large figure and I know that these things are always somewhat hypothetical. I have seen a good deal of this in another part of the country, down on Avonside—another hotly disputed area—where there is a great deal of argument about whether the proposals will ever come about. But Humberside has been identified as a possible and, as we now know, a feasible area for growth. What does my noble friend's Amendment do about this? All the areas that were identified for this possible economic growth would, if this Amendment were passed, lie outside the area of the Humberside County, outside the area which was meant to be the place that attracted this growth, the nucleus round which it would grow, the driving force which would energise it, and indeed—and this is very important when you are grafting on population—the social centre round which the new communities could grow up.
But no, not under my noble friend's Amendment. It would be in the new East Riding County Council that all these possible places would be. First of all, we have the possibility that the
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East Riding County Council, if there were one, and if it hotly denied that there was any affinity, as my noble friend has suggested, between Hull and the hinterland, would have complete power of veto over this. What form of planning would it be for one authority—narrowly confined as this would be, though I grant that my noble friend has left a little room—to say "Attached to us there should be these new areas for growth ", only to find the newly preserved East Riding County Council saying, "But we do not want this in our area; it certainly should not be planned in conjunction with us, because we wish to have none of it."
The whole argument relating to this new county is that its centre should be in York. This means that the vast majority of the population of this proposed new county would be in the Western half. What we should seek to do, if there was to be an expansion of Hull, would be to add a certain amount of new population in the Eastern half. We should have a totally split county; we should have all the existing population in the West with all their links apparently looking to York and not to the East. Then there would be a suggestion that the eastern half should suddenly take a large area of the population and of industry in connection with Hull. I cannot believe that this would be the right way to plan it, or indeed the right organisation to plan it.
Then we come to the question of what the people there think. My honourable friend, who was the then Parliamentary Secretary at the Department of the Environment, Mr. Heseltine, met the local authorities in the East Riding at Anlaby last November. My noble friend, Lord Middleton, tried to underrate the results of that meeting. He tried to say that there were perhaps divisions in the local authorities concerned and that they did not truly represent the views of the people. But let us just get the facts. The majority, 8 out of 13, of the present East Riding county districts who are concerned with the proposed Humberside County were in favour of Humberside as proposed in the Bill. For the sake of the noble Earl, Lord Gainsborough, let us now look at the rural districts in that area. The Howden Rural District with a population of 13,000 were prepared to accept and support the Humberside proposal.

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The Beverley Rural District Council, with a population of 32,000, said the same. The Holderness Rural District Council, with a population of 24,000, said the same. The three of them represent a rural district population of 68,000. It is true that there were three rural district councils—Bridlington, Driffield and Pocklington—who did not support the idea, but their total population is, if my arithmetic is right, 36,000. So we have more than twice the population in rural districts supporting Humberside in the Bill than there were opposing it. As for the urban district councils, as far away to the North as Bridlington they were in favour, and there is a very large proportion of the population as represented by the local authorities who are in favour of the Bill's Humberside as opposed to the retention of the East Riding.
Then I must say a word about the North Riding of Yorkshire. This has been criticised; it has been said that the North Riding, for obvious reasons, would not like this Amendment to pass. But noble Lords have gone further and have said that this is a poor county and it is far too big. Of course the district council system has not yet been altogether worked out, but, as I understand it, there are eight perfectly sensibly-based districts which could each be centred on a good sound geographically-placed central point. The size of the county is to some extent misleading because the Committee will know well that a good deal of the North-West part of it consists more of hills than of people, though I know there are small populations there. Indeed, the main East/West dimension is certainly not increased in any way by the Bill; it is the North/South area which is increased.
My noble friend Lord Beaumont said that he would have to go 70 miles to Northallerton. I know that at the moment there are reasons for people to think that Northallerton would be the centre, but I do not know that that is necessarily right. The question of Northallerton brings me on to the position of the County Borough of York, about which the noble Lord, Lord James, spoke so strongly. I have read with interest the speech in another place of the honourable Member for that City, and I noticed that he did not himself support the Amendment which was withdrawn
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by my honourable friend the Member for Howden, which is somewhat similar to this Amendment. The reason why the City of York appear to have supported a similar Amendment—I hope I am not being in any way defamatory—reading between the lines of their own M.P.'s speech, is simply because York has not itself been chosen as the capital of the North Riding and they were going to have to go to Northallerton. With a city as proud, as historic, and as fine as York, I have no reason to suppose that the city council could do anything else than come to such a conclusion—but it is not altogether conclusive if that is the reason upon which they did it.
I wonder whether this Amendment makes much sense from the point of view of York. At least my honourable friend the Member for Howden gave them a little bit of room round the North of the City. This Amendment is quite different. It cuts right down to the bone, round the county boundary to the North and it adds not an inch of the Flaxton Rural District in with it to provide a hinterland for York, just as there is not very much hinterland in this Amendment to provide for Hull. That is not the way to do it. What one must not do unless one is dealing with a metropolitan county (and we are not) is that one must not pare down too fine or restrict the large towns in the way this Amendment does. We must give them the hinterlands, the country areas, so as to stop this everlasting conflict between one and the other.
With regard to the future economic draw of Hull, the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, said that nobody from Lincolnshire ever went to Hull. I am not altogether surprised because at the moment the ferry is not the most attractive form of crossing the river, though no doubt it does a very fine job. If you want to go by road you have to go to Goole. I have driven along the South bank of the Humber and I remember being told by the people who live there that nobody bothered much about the roads; what they were interested in was land drainage. That is why there are four right-angled bends every two and a half miles, or rather less, and it is a very bad road.
But, on the other hand, as everybody knows, the Humber bridge will be open

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in, I think, 1976. One noble Lord, I think my noble friend, Lord Beaumont, mentioned the M62, and there is also the M18 from Doncaster. This is going to revolutionise the attractiveness of Hull; it is going to make it a very different kettle of fish for the people who might want to set up factories. This is where one would get the stimulus for growth, because communications are all important, particularly when one is dealing with a port so convenient for the Common Market as Hull will be. This is going to make an entirely different picture.
If any noble Lord wishes to consider this let him go down to Bristol or Monmouth and consider what is the change of situation in that part of the world from the situation before the Severn Bridge was opened. Who would deny now—certainly none of the local authorities in the area—that people flood to and fro from the Welsh side over to Bristol, that Bristol's area of attraction has increased enormously since the opening of the Severn Bridge simply because people can get there? That is going to make quite a different situation in Lincolnshire. This is going to make it much more sensible to have this county well spread out——
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: Surely, my noble friend ought to consider putting Mon-mouth into Avon if that is his view.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: There is something called "Wales" which one does not lightly tamper with. Whether Monmouth is part of Wales has always been a slightly dubious point. People refer to Wales and Monmouthshire. Probably the noble Lord, Lord Champion, would think I was a little rash if I tried to change that particular boundary.
Noble Lords have spoken glowingly about the present East Riding County Council services. Education was particularly highlighted. I am sure this is right, and I would not be surprised if, like all other great historic counties, they have built up a very fine service for their population in other fields as well. Everybody concerned with this Bill must feel pangs and agonies of regret in the loss of the old structure and any endangering of the services so provided.
The area of Humberside that we are creating comprehends a very large
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majority of the present East Riding. Why should these services be disbanded? Why should they be cut adrift or set aside altogether? Surely it must be recognised by the Committee that new county councils like Humberside, non-metropolitan county councils, will draw heavily upon the existing resources in terms of staff, experience, equipment, and in terms of method, of the counties they are superseding. Why should education in Humberside go steeply down hill merely because this area goes into a new county? I do not believe that this is the way it will work. I think people have more sense in the new reorganisation than to throw overboard everything that has been learned in the past, everything that has been built up, and say, "We will have none of this. We will start again from scratch in a totally different way." This is not the way the debate has been going previously on this subject.
I hope that I have demonstrated that this Amendment is wrong in principle and is probably based up a mistaken idea of what Humberside ought to contain. I hope that I have demolished the denial of economic links; I hope that I have dealt with the points about what the local authorities and the rural district council, in particular, do; I hope that I have shown that there is no real fear of a reduction in the quality of the services that will be offered. I hope that I have answered all the points and that your Lordships will think on balance, however much one may regret the passing of the East Riding, or the inability to resurrect it, that we have in Humberside a viable, sensible, proper new county entirely in accordance with all the principles in this Bill.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: May I offer a compromise? Instead of calling Humberside, "Humberside", call it "East Riding".
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think I am right in saying that the names are not absolutely final. I suspect that if the right reverened Prelate, the Bishop of Lincoln, were here we might even then have to find a compromise.
LORD MIDDLETON: I am grateful for the great care that my noble friend has taken to look at the case. In the very short time that I have attended your Lordships' House I have always been

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impressed by his advocacy on these most difficult cases. This is not a good case for my noble friend to speak on; I answered all the arguments that he produced when I moved my Amendment. It is most disappointing that the Government are being so inflexible in this way
12.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved Amendment No. 21:
Corrigendum, page 1, line 14, after ("Sod-bury") insert ("except the parishes of Alderley, Hawkesbury, Badminton and Acton Turnville").
The noble Earl said: If it would be convenient for the Committee I should like to take Amendment No. 23 and this Amendment (No. 21) together. These Amendments stand in the name of my noble friend Earl Bathurst and myself. I should also like to speak about Amend
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and I am afraid that I have no option but to divide the Committee.
12.47 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 20) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 36; Not-Contents, 65.

CONTENTS

Henderson, L.

Ridley, V.

Ardwick, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Royle, L.

Beaumont, L.

James of Rusholme, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Blake, L.

Lee of Asheridge, Bs.

Seear, Bs.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Maybray-King, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Camoys, L.

Mersey, V.

Sudeley, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Middleton, L. [Teller.]

Summerskill, Bs.

Falmouth, V.

Netherthorpe, L.

Terrington, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Nunburnholme, L.

Vernon, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Oxford and Asquith, E.

Wakefield of Kendall, L.

Grimthorpe, L. [Teller.]

Pargiter, L.

Wolverton, L.

Hale, L.

Platt, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Hawke, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Eccles, V.

Mottistone, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Effingham, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Balfour, E.

Elles, Bs.

Belstead, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Brentford, V.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Northchurch, Bs.

Brock, L.

Gage, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Goschen, V.

Onslow, E.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Carrington, L.

Grenfell, L.

Roberthall, L.

Colgrain, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Just, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

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

Saint Oswald, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Sandford, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Hodson, L.

Sandys, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hylton, L.

Selborne, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Selkirk, E.

Cranbrook, E,

Kemsley, V.

Strang, E.

Daventry, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Davidson, V.

Limerick, E.

Thomas, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lothian, M.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mancroft, L.

Vivian, L.

Digby, L.

Milverton, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

Monck, V.

Young, Bs.

Dundee, E.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

ment No. 22 standing in the names of my noble friends Lady Berkeley and Lord Sandys. We turn now from Humberside to Gloucestershire. The Amendments concern some 12 parishes and 9,200 people. Under the present proposals all lie within the northern boundary of the new Avon area. The purpose of the Amendments is to seek to adjust the boundaries so that these 12 parishes would move within the southern boundary of Gloucestershire. The reason for this lies largely in community of interest.
During the course of the Committee stage of this Bill I have had a good deal of sympathy for my noble friends on

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the Front Bench who have been almost continuously harried with territorial matters not always familiar to them. In some cases these matters were clearly of major importance because they concerned an important principle of the Bill. The last Amendment which we discussed was one of those. There are other cases in which the Amendments would have a minimal effect because they would simply make small adjustments which would not present any danger or impair any principle of the Bill. I submit that both these Amendments come within that category. I have noted that my noble friend has shown a commendable flexibility in other such cases and I am hopeful that he will be persuaded to accept these Amendments at a later stage.
For the purposes of clarity, I should like briefly to discuss Amendment No. 21 separately from Amendment No. 23 because it has a quite different argument. Amendment No. 21 concerns four parishes and some 2,100 people. These parishes represent a very small part of the rural district council of Sodbury; the parishes concerned are Alderley, Hawkesbury, Badminton and Acton Turnville. The case which I should like to submit to my noble friend for his kind consideration is on geographical grounds. Unless the adjustment is made we shall all be guilty of geographical sacrilege under this Bill. These parishes comprise four small and beautiful unspoilt villages situated in one of the most famous and uniquely beautiful areas of Britain, the Gloucestershire Cotswolds. They lie in the dipped slope of the Cotswold scarp with the rolling countryside, the stone walls and the brash and stone soil. Having lived, trained and worked there for a number of years I can claim to know the area very well although I do not live there at the moment. Anyone who does not know the area would need to see it to appreciate its beauty. It is not surprising that one finds that the whole of the Cotswolds is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is no accident that it has survived, because Gloucester County Council has jealously guarded and protected this area—in fact, well before the 1968 Act; and they have striven to preserve its entity.
The proposal in the Bill, if the Amendment is not accepted, would mean that these parishes would be divorced from
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the County of Gloucestershire which for years has striven to protect them. It would mean that these towns would be divorced from the rest of the Cotswolds. It would mean the break-up of the Cotswolds as an entity. Such a policy, I would suggest to my noble friend, is fundamentally against the modern concept of good planning and indeed good local government. The Government have already shown a certain sympathetic approach to such a geographical argument as in the case of the Mendips. I hope that, equally, this case will be accepted by my noble friend as being a special case on geographical grounds. There are of course other grounds. There is the ground of community of interest and there are educational considerations, and both would be seriously disturbed. If it was argued that they would be only temporarily disturbed I personally would strongly disagree that the community of interest would be only temporarily disturbed; I believe it would be disturbed for a great length of time.
There is one further argument to which I would draw the attention of my noble friend in regard to these four parishes. It is an argument which carries great weight locally. Among these four parishes is the parish of Badminton. It has been the home for the past forty years—indeed, I hope it will be for the next forty years—of a distinguished and much loved Lord Lieutenant of the County, my noble friend the Duke of Beaufort. His home has, I believe, been the symbol of the county and I believe the inhabitants of Gloucestershire have been proud of it. Whereas one would not suggest to my noble friend that this consideration should be judged as a primary consideration in regard to this Amendment, nevertheless I would urge my noble friend and the Department to consider this point when he comes to reply.
It is, after all, poor reward to both the county and the Lord Lieutenant to find that under the present proposals Badminton will be taken out of Gloucestershire. Not only would it be poor reward; it could be said to be insensitive thinking, albeit unintentional, on the part of those who drew the boundary. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Dulverton could not be here to-day, as I know he would have expressed with great eloquence the local

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feelings of these four parishes. Again, I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Bathurst could not be here because he would know the situation and express a very powerful case. However, that is the case I should like to put to my noble friend in regard to Amendment No. 21.
I should like now to turn briefly to Amendment No. 23. This concerns eight parishes lying within the rural district council of Thornbury and concerns some 7,800 people. The Amendment is similar to that of my noble friend Lady Berkeley, save that it adds two additional parishes which in the view of the Gloucestershire County Council should be included. This Amendment raises no fundamental principle of the Bill but, again, seeks a simple adjustment. But their case is once more a special case and I should like to suggest three main arguments to try to persuade my noble friend. The first is community of interests, the second is economical considerations, and the third is the views of the residents and the parish councils there, and of the county council. Community of interest is an argument, as one has seen during the Committee stage of this Bill, to which the Government have shown great sympathy. I hope they will show sympathy here.
It has been accepted by the Gloucestershire County Council and the Somerset County Council that these eight parishes have a far more natural pull towards the North than to the South. There is undoubtedly a close affinity with Gloucestershire. One sees this in employment. If one looks at the figures one sees that some 700 inhabitants who live in Dursley, Gloucestershire, work in Berkeley, at the power station. One sees that some 660 inhabitants who live in Berkeley work in Dursley; whereas one sees that the interchange into the Avon area and vice versa is very much smaller. One sees it also in the social and leisure activities, in the youth clubs and social clubs.
Moreover, one sees it in the educational field—for instance in the case of the secondary modern school at Berkeley which has a catchment area of all the parishes named in this Amendment and co-ordinates their curriculum with Dursley's. Again, there are the youth
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employment services which operate at Dursley and at Sharpness. Here, if the Amendment is not accepted, these youth employment services would have to be based at Filton, I understand, some 17 miles away. One sees it from the Church point of view in that all the parishes are, I understand, linked ecclesiastically together at Dursley.
I should like to come to the economic considerations. The main consideration, which I think is generally taxing the Gloucestershire County Council, is the future of the Gloucester/Sharpness Docks. They feel strongly, and rightly, that the complex of the Gloucester/ Sharpness Canal, which links them, should be under one authority. I am sure my noble friend would not disagree with this view bearing in mind the Government's recent statement on inland waterways. The wishes of the inhabitants is the third issue I would draw to the attention of my noble friend. The views of the inhabitants, particularly those of Berkeley, have been demonstrated most effectively and with great skill by my noble friend Lady Berkeley when she produced her petition to the House last week. I am sure the inhabitants of Berkeley, and indeed the House, are grateful to her. In fairness, one should perhaps say that among certain of the other parishes and indeed the Thornbury District Council the views in support of these Amendments were not at all unanimous. Nevertheless, I would strongly suggest to my noble friend that the vast majority of the people would favour these Amendments.
Besides the local residents and the parish councils, the Gloucestershire County Council have already put up a strong case which I know my noble friend has; and the Somerset County Council has come down in favour of these Amendments. The grounds which they favour are those of community interest. As these Amendments deal only with parishes, I have noticed with interest my noble friend's warning on Wednesday that the Committee and indeed the Government could easily get into some difficulty if they had to discuss parish boundaries and their merits almost individually. I of course accept that argument in principle. My noble friend went on to say it would be much better if the parish boundaries were left to the Boundary

1477
Commission. I would accept that, particularly if we are discussing parishes which are eventually decided by taking a vote on whether or not the advocacy of those who have put the case has been sufficiently strong.
I would draw the attention of my noble friend to the deep concern felt by the Parish Councils' Association—here I must declare my interest—over the anticipated delay before the Boundary Commission get round to dealing with the boundaries of parish councils. It is estimated at the very best that it could be ten years. I do not know whether my noble friend has a counter-estimate on that. But it is also stated (and I think it is true) that the parish boundaries would be the very last in the queue which the Boundary Commission will deal with. Therefore I would urge my noble friend that where certain parishes have a good case he should consider changing them at this stage of the Bill rather than waiting for the Boundary Commission to report.
My final point, of which I have given notice to my noble friend, is that I have noticed on a number of occasions that his arguments have included a warning that any adjustment now might cause an imbalance between the urban and rural populations of the district we are discussing. I believe it would be of general interest if my noble friend could say what criteria are used in judging balance or imbalance in district areas as between urban and rural life. I submit that neither of my Amendments would cause such an imbalance. Both Amendments represent a simple adjustment of boundaries. On Amendment No. 21 I rest my plea to my noble friend on geographical grounds. On Amendment No. 22 I rest my case on the community of interests and the wishes of the local inhabitants. Despite my inadequate presentation I believe that both Amendments are worthy of being treated with great sympathy by my noble friend, and with the flexibility which he has so admirably shown in other cases. I beg to move Amendment No. 21.
1.12 p.m.
BARONESS BERKELEY: I wish to support my noble friend Lord Kinnoull in his Amendment No. 21 on the Sodbury area. This is an integral part of Gloucestershire; it is entirely rural and it would
1478
be better suited to be left in the county of Gloucestershire and better served by that county council than being transferred to Avon. It has historical associations with Gloucestershire and, above all, the inhabitants wish to remain in that county.
If I may now turn to Amendment No. 22, since the name of Berkeley is mentioned in this Amendment I think it is well to inform your Lordships that I have no territorial interest to declare, as for the last three generations my family and I have not lived in Gloucestershire. But before that my direct predecessors lived there for several centuries, so I have ties and feelings of great sympathy for the present people who inhabit the parishes named in the Amendment.
Last week, as your Lordships may recollect, I presented a petition on behalf of the councillors and people of Berkeley and the adjoining parishes, praying that this Local Government Bill may be amended to enable them to remain in Gloucestershire. If I may, I should like to say how grateful I am for the gracious way in which your Lordships received the petition and to thank you for the warm welcome that you gave it. The inhabitants of these parishes are almost unanimous in their wish to remain in Gloucestershire; their links, ties and affinities are all towards mid and North Gloucestershire, and not towards Bristol and the South.
For reasons of brevity, if I mention Berkeley, which is the largest unit of these parishes, it includes all the places mentioned in the Amendment. Their services, such as the magistrates who function to the North, the police, the postal, ambulance and fire services all operate from Dursley, Stroud or Gloucester. The local taxation office also administrates from that direction. The church, too, is linked to the North as the parishes are in the Gloucester diocese and also stand in the Dursley deanery.
As regards employment, apart from agriculture (for much of the Vale of Berkeley is farmland) there are various works and factories at Dursley and the atomic power station at Berkeley. Here there is a crossing of the populations, as many of those living in Dursley work in Berkeley, and vice versa. The docks at Sharpness, too, provide employment, so there is no need for the inhabitants of these parishes to go as far afield as Bristol

1479
to seek employment as there is a good variety of work to be had in their own vicinity. Other social services which are linked with mid-Gloucestershire are too numerous to relate. In fact, the only link with Bristol appears to be the hospital at Berkeley which is served by two consultants from Bristol; but that is balanced by having two consultants from Gloucester!
The reputation of the Gloucestershire County Council stands high as regards the education services it provides. A new school has recently been built at Wanswell close to Berkeley, with room for expansion if required. Dursley has schools for secondary education, so it is most unlikely that these parishes would receive any better services if they were attached to the Bristol Avon area. They wish to remain in Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire County Council wishes to keep them. The feeling is entirely mutual.
Bristol is a city of renown, an ancient port. It is great enough to stand on its own feet, as it has done for centuries, and beyond a certain area required for expansion it does not need to have rural areas tacked on to it. I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, in regard to the marriage of town and country. Large cities and rural areas are unlikely to march in harmony for long for their needs and their way of life are completely different and the city will probably dominate the country areas, to their detriment. The needs of these rural parishes are far better looked after and understood by their own Gloucestershire County Council.
As regards numbers, Circular 8471 gives the population of the Avon area, including Berkeley and the adjoining parishes, as 910,000. Gloucestershire would be left with 456,000. The population in the rural parishes is given as 7,200. So if left in Gloucestershire this would help to balance the numbers in that county, and Bristol would hardly feel the loss of that small number in its vast population.
I hope that I have been able to give some idea of the material and practical reasons why these rural parishes should remain in Gloucestershire. But there are other reasons of an intangible nature why this should be so: loyalty to your
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county, pride in its history and achievements, contentment with the services it provides and, above all, the feeling of belonging. Some families have their roots deeply entrenched as they are still living in houses occupied for generations by their forefathers. Are these things not to be taken into consideration? Feelings on the question of the boundary are very strong; the inhabitants of these parishes care passionately for their county.
In the Department of the Environment Circular 58/71 the Boundary Commission, when making boundary changes, is instructed to consider—and I quote:
"Amongst other things, they should have particular regard to the wishes of the local inhabitants, the pattern of community life and the effective operations of local government services."
By leaving these parishes in Gloucestershire those directions would be entirely fulfilled as they coincide with the wishes of the petitioners who, living there, know best what suits them. I beg Her Majesty's Government to accept this Amendment.
1.20 p.m.
LORD SANDYS: I should first of all like to thank the Committee very much for agreeing to take these three Amendments together—Nos. 21, 22 and 23—and I rise to support Amendment No. 22. Having heard so eloquently from my noble friend Lady Berkeley, who presented the petition on behalf of one group of parishes, I think it would perhaps be for the convenience of your Lordships if I gave the views of Gloucestershire County Council, since I have only very recently received in my hands a letter from the clerk of that county council; and, with the permission of the Committee, perhaps I may be permitted to read a paragraph. It says:
"I can assure you that the county council feel as strongly about this matter as they did when they made their representations to the Department in 1971. Indeed, the more we have thought about it the more we are convinced that on physical, social and economic grounds the affinities and the future of these parishes lie properly with Gloucestershire, and not with Avon. Nothing said on behalf of the Government when the Bill was debated at the Committee and Report stages in the House of Commons has in the least changed the county council's views on this matter".
Perhaps it would again be for the convenience of the Committee if I referred to what the county council's views were

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on May 25, 1971, when they replied to Circular 871 from the Department. I assure your Lordships that they are quite brief. I quote:
In the opinion of the county council, the northern boundary of the Thornbury and the Sodbury Rural Districts is not the appropriate southern boundary for Area 27. Its acceptance would have the effect of excluding from the new county a number of parishes in those two rural districts whose populations have affinity with mid-Gloucestershire rather than with Area 26".
My noble friend Lord Aberdare will know the full content of the Gloucestershire views expressed in this letter of May 25, 1971; and it is very interesting to note that their views precisely coincide with these three Amendments taken together. The map which they have provided with their evidence on this subject shows this at a glance; and I feel that the views put forward by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, combined with those of my noble friend Lady Berkeley, need not be added to in any way by myself other than to heartily support every word that they have said.
THE LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER: I think everyone who lives in this part of Gloucestershire knows that these Amendments are thoroughly sensible, for the reasons which have already been explained to your Lordships. I do not know that they are any more sensible than some of the Amendments which were proposed on Wednesday, and the reception which those Amendments received did not, I think, much encourage the hope that Her Majesty's Government want to get this right at this particular stage. This refers, of course, to the whole question of South Gloucestershire. The most southerly parishes in the county accept the general principles of the Bill. I will not say that they are enthusiastic about going into Avon, because I think that would be an over-statement. They have been very happy in Gloucestershire. We have an exceedingly good county council; and, of course, as your Lordships will remember, God is said to reside in Gloucestershire, so they are not anxious to move into the new county of Avon. But they accept that this is reasonable, because they plainly have very close affinities with Bristol.
The case for these Amendments is that these few parishes to the North of this group patently have no such con
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nections with Bristol. They are part of the very heartland of Gloucestershire. You have only to think of Badminton, and all that that means, with its horse trials and the Duke, the Lord Lieutenant—and a much beloved Lord Lieutenant. It will seem honestly to Gloucestershire people an act of vandalism to separate Badminton (I was going to say, "almost of all places") from Gloucestershire. The same is true, to a large extent, of Berkeley. Berkeley Castle has always been a part, as I say, of the very heartland of Gloucestershire. Edward II was murdered there, and he is buried in Gloucester Cathedral. I know that these historical matters are not decisive: of course they cannot be if there are any compelling reasons why they should be overthrown.
As has been explained, there are no compelling reasons here at all. Everyone who knows the area is agreed. Our county council are perfectly sensible people: they are not trying to knock the Bill. They are simply saying, "If you are going to draw a line between Avon and Gloucestershire, let us get it right". Now as I understood Her Majesty's Government on Wednesday their argument is, "Do not bother to get it right now: make obvious mistakes now, because there may be an opportunity for the Boundary Commission to put it right later". This seems to me a very strange argument. It is like saying that you can sin to-day because you may be able to repent in 15 months' or 10 years' time. That is very bad moral theology; and I would suspect it is very bad politics, too. It is surely very much easier to avoid making mistakes than it is to rectify them when they have been made.
I cannot for the life of me see why Her Majesty's Government cannot accept this kind of simple, common sense Amendment. It is not going to make the slightest difference tot he viability of Avon, or indeed to the viability of Gloucestershire, whether these little parishes stay in one or go to the other. But it is going to mean a very great deal to the comparatively few people who live there. It is going to mean a very great deal, I believe, to the credibility of the proposers of this Bill, who have said some noble words about community of interest and about historical associations. Nobody is questioning the

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nobility of the words which have been used, but I really believe that this is the kind of opportunity when the Government can show whether their words really mean anything. These are all small Amendments. They could not conceivably do any harm to anybody. They would in fact do very great good; and I would beg Her Majesty's Government to think again about accepting them.
LORD SOMERS: I do not want to waste the time of the Committee too much, but I should like to support both these Amendments. I happen to know the Cotswolds quite well, because my first job was there and I have frequently visited them since. There is no doubt that, as a geographical unit, the Cotswolds are very much one; and their people do not, from my past experience, mix happily with people of other parts. There can be no doubt where lies the loyalty of the people in these parishes which have been named: it is in Gloucestershire, in the Cotswolds. It seems to me that the Government cannot ride roughshod over the local loyalties of people in any locality simply for the sake of a theoretical alteration. I think I can anticipate what the Government's answer is going to be. They want a rural hinterland for the very urban district of Bristol in order to make up the County of Avon. That may be so, but that rural hinterland should not be found on what I might term utterly foreign soil; namely, the Cotswolds. I sincerely hope that the noble Lord will consider these points.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: This being the last day of term, so to speak, I suppose one could not put down an Amendment to the Amendment: but might I suggest: "After Sodbury, insert the rural district council of Gomorrah."
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGS-BRIDGE: I think I can reply for the working class, because the feudal side has already been spoken about—Badminton and Berkeley. I was for six or seven years the elected Labour representative of Hawkesbury in the rural district of Chipping Sodbury. I was chairman of the housing committee there for a couple of years. It is the best training for chairmanship that anybody can have. Hawkesbury is very different from Badminton,
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but its claims are none the less important. Hawkesbury is a rural village and it is only there because it was brought in to help build the railway. The attitudes there are different from the feudal ones you may find in Badminton. It is a place which says "Thank you" to nobody—and least of all to Bristol. While I was there, we grumbled a good deal about the Gloucestershire County Council but we had learned to live with them. I think it is 15 years since I was there so I may he out of date.
The people of Hawkesbury live, be it not forgotten, at the top of the hill; Alderley is half-way down and Chipping Sodbury is at the bottom. In the country, these contours are very important. People at the top are very different from the people at the bottom. As the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said, the Cotswold inhabitants are in no sense like the Bristol inhabitants and they wish to maintain their independence. I think the right reverend Prelate was out of date in his Roman Catholic view of sin. Nowadays you do what you like and see a psychiatrist after a few years. But I think he made a powerful case. If ever the Government were going to give way on anything, this place so small in numbers and so obvious in value, and the sentiment is so great in Badminton and in Berkeley for historical reasons and in places like Hawkesbury for local and independent working-class reasons, that they should give way over this.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: I cannot match the eloquence of noble Lords who have spoken before, but I should like to add my plea to the Government to accept these Amendments. Gloucestershire, in which I lived for a number of years, is a very great county with a tremendous feeling of unity among its population. This unity was exhibited prior to the last war in their Yeomanry. You never needed to recruit into the Gloucestershire Hussars; there was a queue to join from all the farmers all over the southern part of Gloucestershire. They are a most closely knit community. They are totally foreign to the people who are South of them, as you come off the top of the hills and into the vales.
The same goes for the people of the Vale of Berkeley. They, too, are a totally close-knit community. They have no connection at all with those South of

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them. They speak a language which is almost foreign to some of the languages spoken to the South. If some visitor went into the neighbourhood of Badminton and asked what dialect they were speaking, I think it would appall them to have to say that they were speaking "Avon-shire". It would be unheard of. Should we ever be able to recruit another Gloucestershire regiment for the Territorials or the Volunteers, how do you think they would like to be called the Avon Yeomanry"? It would almost be like one of those ladies calling from the advertisemen on the television. There is great personal feeling involved, the feeling of human people. It is the people we must consider here. I am sure they would support this Amendment and I trust your Lordships will do so.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: It may surprise the Committee to find that I am probably the only friend Lord Aberdare has on this particular Amendment. On the last occasion I was "shot down" by the noble Viscount, with his great legal skill, over the district councils in Yorkshire. In this case, the Thornbury and Sodbury district councils both have resolved to accept the recommendations of the White Paper and the Bill and to go into Avon. They have already set up, as suggested by the Department, the necessary machinery to make the new county work. Like some other noble Lords and like the noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley, I have had family connections in Gloucestershire for over 400 years. I do not like to say anything against Gloucestershire. We should avoid this talk of "for" or "against" one county. We are looking forward to a new form of local government which is bound to make a difference to the people on these fringe areas.
For many reasons I have been carefully into this matter, and I am quite satisfied that the rural districts of Sodbury and Thornbury are firmly in favour of going into the new County of Avon. Since their members come from all parts of their districts they represent the views of the parishes—even of those which apparently must be a little out of touch with their representatives on the council because these representatives have voted to go into Avon. The only other point is that it has always been said by the
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Department that, where possible, districts would not be fragmented in the new local government map. For that reason, and for many other reasons, I think the Government should stand firm on this matter. Many of the arguments that were advanced in the case of Humberside apply to this area. If the Government are to be consistent they should resist this Amendment.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGS-BRIDGE: May I point out that by far the greater part of Chipping Sodbury Rural District Council area quite properly goes into Avon. It is the marginal bits that we are talking about. Of course, the vast majority of the representatives are from the South. I do not think that the fact that the council agree means a great deal.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: I accept that; but at the same time it is my duty to point out that these two rural district councils have supported the Government proposal to go into Avon.
LORD SUDELEY: Before the noble Earl finishes, would he accept that there is a difference between the opinion of the rural district council and of the county council?
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: Rural district councils do not always agree with county councils. I do not think it would be very useful to go into the reasons why they do not in this particular case.
1.39 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: We have had a fascinating debate. I was happy to hear that I had one friend in the noble Earl, Lord Gainsborough. There are a few more friends whom I could call into supporting the case put forward in the Bill. These are the sorts of difficulties we run into in creating new counties. They are the same sort of difficulties that we found in the case of Tyne-Wear and the same as those we met in connection with the boundaries of Humberside. I think that it would be generally agreed that the formation of the County of Avon is the correct decision and that this county should include parts of South Gloucestershire.
These certainly were the proposals which emerged from the Severnside study and I think that in general noble Lords

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who have spoken to-day accept that parts of South Gloucestershire should be included in the new County of Avon. It therefore seemed right to us, and it is not questioned in the Amendment—and it was repeated by the noble Earl, Lord Gainsborough—that in our endeavour to keep rural and urban districts intact so far as possible, we should include the whole of Thornhury rural district and Sodbury rural district in Avon. I can confirm that both those rural districts are in favour of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Sandford has telegrams from both of them and this was the underlying reason why the boundary is drawn as it is at present.
I do not think that we would all agree that God lives in Gloucestershire. If I may say so to the right reverend Prelate, I think that, in this Committee, there would even be grave doubts as to whether God is a man. But I have carefully considered the case made. I have listened carefully to all the speeches. I do not think I need refer to all of them in detail. They have all made quite clear that there is strong feeling in these parishes. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, speaking as he said for the working classes—I think he said that—put very forcefully that Hawkesbury should go to Gloucestershire, as I understand his case. Well, I have another telegram which I think I should read to the noble Lord:
"At the annual Parish meeting the parishioners of Hawkesbury Upton have decided to remain in the Sodbury Rural District Council in the new Avon county."
These are the difficulties we are in. There are all sorts of views on these matters.
LORD DONALDSON 0F KINGSBRIDGE: May I apologise to the Committee? I had not seen that telegram and I did not know until to-day that this matter was coming up. It was of 15 years ago that I was speaking.
LORD ABERDARE: I acknowledge that, and I think my information is rather more up to date. As I say, these are difficult matters and in this Committee it is very difficult to arrive at parish boundaries. In general, the line we have taken is that it is better to stick to the boundaries in the Bill and to invite the Boundary Commission to have a special
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look at them, as a matter of urgency immediately after 1974. This will not, as was suggested by my noble friend, Lord Kinnoull, mean a long delay. The Boundary Commission, we very much hope, will review all parish boundaries well before the ten-year period put on it by my noble friend. The fact is that these are not essentially parish boundaries. They are major county boundaries which affect parish boundaries and would be considered as a matter of priority by the Boundary Commission; therefore there would not be any delay.
He also asked about the criterion for a balanced county. This is a question which I cannot answer, in general. It depends so much on the specific geographical make-up of any individual county. Another point he made which explains some of the difficulty—and it was made also by the right reverend Prelate—was contained in his powerful plea for Badminton, and particularly for the fact that the Duke of Beaufort is the Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire. But I believe I am right in saying that the Duke is also the Lord Lieutenant of Bristol, so I am not sure that that is a particularly convincing argument.
I have listened very carefuly to the arguments and I have been impressed. I think that there are real difficulties in this area, and a lot of these parishes look North perhaps more often than they look South. I very much regret the rather scornful words of my noble friend Lord de Clifford on the subject of Avon. I think we ought not to decry a new county. I would take the line that we should refer this matter to the Boundary Commission 1974, but as there has been strong feeling in the Committee, and because I do not wish to be more rigid than is necessary, if my noble friend would consider withdrawing the Amendment and if my noble friend Lady Berkeley would consider not moving her Amendment. I will have another look at this matter between now and Report. I cannot commit myself to any acceptance of them but I will certainly have a thorough look at the matter again.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: I was not trying to be scornful about the County of Avon. I was merely saying that for a Gloucester man who had served in a Gloucester unit, suddenly to find himself

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being called a member of Avonshire Yeomanry would be a rather peculiar experience.
1.47 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am very glad that my noble friend, Lord Aberdare, has promised that he will look at this matter again, if the Amendments are not pressed now. It seems to me that there is a strong case for thinking that the Bill has not got the boundary correct on the North side of Avon and the South side of Gloucestershire. If the Bill goes through unatnended the likelihood is that certain parishes will be transferred from Gloucestershire to Avon and when the Bound-any Commission after 1974 comes to re-examine the line it may well recommend that some, at any rate, of those parishes should go back from Avon into Gloucestershire. That would be to have the worst of all worlds. It is bad enough for an area to be transferred from one county to another, but for an area to be transferred from an old county to a new one, and then shortly afterwards to be transferred back again into the old county, would do immeasurable harm to local government.
I would have found it impossible to support the Government if my noble friend Lord Aberdare had not made the reassuring statement that he did, because I do not believe we should settle county boundaries by reason of existing rural district council boundaries. That is not a good enough argument. In these questions, where there is a suggestion that certain parishes ought to be moved from one county to another, the case in respect of each parish must be looked at on its merits, and the question must not be settled by considering where the existing boundary of the rural district has gone. I very much hope the words my noble friend has used will produce a useful end to this short debate to which I have listened throughout and that on Report stage a more detailed recommendation which will get the line more correct may come forward.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have supported the Amendment. It received almost unanimous support except from one "Gloucestershire rebel". I am particularly grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for his eloquent
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and powerful support, and to my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor who has spoken very wise words into the ear of my noble friend Lord Aberdare. I should also like to thank my noble friend Lord Aberdare for feeling able—after, I think, being persuaded by the support of the Committee—to take these Amendments away and to look at the matter again. Perhaps I may correct my noble friend on one point. My noble friend the Duke of Beaufort is in fact the High Steward of Bristol and not the Lord Lieutenant. I am very happy to accept my noble friend's undertaking to look at this matter again. I do not know what my noble friend Lady Berkeley intends to do but I should like to see the Amendments withdrawn, to remind my noble friend of the feeling of this Committee and to reserve my position until the next stage in the progress of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS BERKELEY BARONESS BERKELEY had given Notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 22:
Corrigendum, page 1, line 14, after ("Thorn-bury") insert ("except the parishes of Alkington, Berkeley, Hamfallow, Ham and Stone, and Hinton").
The noble Baroness said: I should like to thank those who have spoken on this Amendment, especially my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor, whose words will carry great weight, because he probably knows more about this subject than many of us. I most gratefully accept the offer of my noble friend Lord Aberdare to consider this matter.
1.51 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE moved Amendment No. 24:
Corrigendum, page 1, leave out line 17.
The noble Lord said: Fifteen Amendments are required to give effect to the proposals which I hope to explain; namely, Amendments Nos. 24 to 28 inclusive, 57, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70 and 71. My noble friend Lord Aberdare has kindly suggested that since these Amendments are all related they should be discussed together, though they may have to be moved separately. I hope that that will be for the convenience of the Committee.
At the outset, I should say that these Amendments, taken together, do not conflict with the broad principles of the

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Bill, nor, in my submission, do they militate in any way against the implementation of these principles in the area concerned, which is part of North Somerset. My argument will be more material and factual than sentimental, not because I underrate sentiment. On the contrary, I regard it as a very important consideration, particularly in these boundary matters, but it cannot always be a dominant consideration. In proof of that, if proof were needed, I. might inform your Lordships that I, a Scot, have lived in Somerset for over half a century in the same place, the village of Cleeve.
Under the proposals of the Government, the village of Cleeve is and will remain in Avon, so I am not influenced by sentiment to that extent. My noble friend Lord Harding, whose name is associated with this Amendment and who was here throughout Wednesday but unfortunately cannot be here to-day, was born and bred in Somerset, and he has asked me to say that he most strongly supports the Amendment; that he knows entirely the lines on which my argument is going to develop and that he supports it.
Under the Bill's proposals, consequent upon the creation of a new county of Avon, the area left to the county of Somerset is some 850,000 acres, a reduction of 150,000 acres. But area is not the most important criterion in this context. The population of the county will be 390,000 against the present 600,000, a reduction of 33 per cent.; and its rateable value will be £14 million against the present £23 million. It would become one of the smallest counties, measured by population and rateable value; and I understand that on the basis of its reduced population it might not be a separate police authority, might lose its functions as fire authority, and would no longer be the base of a separate Probation and After-Care Service. It would be virtually non-viable and there would almost inevitably be some waste of existing administrative resources, which are of course geared to the needs of the county at present.
Not unnaturally these proposals have aroused considerable protest in the county. No doubt many of your Lordships are aware, in connection with the "Save Our Somerset" campaign, which
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sought to keep the boundaries of the county inviolate, that a referendum was held in North Somerset. There was a poll of 73 per cent. and 85 per cent. of those who took part voted against the proposals. I mention this only to show how strong was the feeling of the people immediately concerned. I think it is clear that the creation of a new county of Avon is essential if the general principles of the reform proposed in the Bill are to be applied to that part of the country. It is not clear, however, that thereby Somerset as a county must be reduced to a state of virtual non-viability.
Under the Amendments that we are now considering, which seek to retain within Somerset 40.000 acres and 73,000 population, the population of the county would become 460,000 as compared with the 390,000 proposed, and the rateable value slightly over £17 million as compared with the £14 million proposed. Those are still considerable reductions and by any standards it would still be a small non-metropolitan county. As I understand it, the average population of such counties, as proposed in the Bill, is around 699,000. But in fairness I ought to mention that the borough of Weston-super-Mare, to which I will refer later, accounts for 50,000 of the 73,000 population and for £2,287,000 of the £3,130,000 rateable value, the rest coming from the Northern part of Exbridge and Clutton rural districts.
These proposals are not only vital to Somerset in the material sense; they also have the very great merit of making it possible to avoid dividing no less than seven parishes which, under the boundaries as at present proposed, would be divided. The parish still means something in the structure of local government, and I was delighted to hear the support, from that point of view, expressed in your Lordships' House two days ago by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, among others.
May I mention here the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, one-time Member for Taunton, who had hoped to speak in favour of these Amendments and who has asked me to apologise for his not being here to-day and to say that he

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strongly supports the proposals enshrined in these Amendments. As regards the neighbouring authority, the city and county of Bristol are of course vitally concerned and would also support the Amendments. In a material sense the effects on the viability of the new county of Avon would be relatively very slight. Its population, even if these Amendments were approved, would still be 830,000 and the rateable value would be £40 million. If, later on, with the realisation of the sort of growth now envisaged in the area lying immediately to the North of the city of Bristol, it were considered right to give the county of Avon metropolitan status, the argument for that could not be said to be prejudiced by acceptance of these Amendments.
In so far as South Gloucestershire is concerned and in so far as it is a part of Avon, I believe they would not raise any objections to these proposals. Somerset County Council would strongly favour them. The borough council of Weston-super-Mare has voted in favour of their being in Avon, despite the fact that it is clear from the referendum to which I have referred that the people of that borough prefer to be in Somerset. May here make an observation of a general character? Not infrequently in such cases the views of those immediately concerned are influenced largely by the current local political situation. I am not suggesting that this is wrong—indeed it is very natural—but I do suggest that it should not be a dominant consideration. Political situations are subject to change and here we are looking at the problem from the point of view of what is right in the long term. I am in no doubt that, leaving other considerations aside, on a factual basis the good to Somerset of Weston-super-Mare being in that county outweighs the consequent disadvantage to Avon.
Your Lordships have in these Amendments a proposal which, without invalidating the purpose of the proposals for the new county of Avon, would ensure that what remains of the county of Somerset would have a chance of being viable and the integrity of the parishes in Somerset would be preserved. I therefore warmly commend the Amendments to your Lordships. I beg to move.
2.0 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: This group of Amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleve—like the group of Amendments moved earlier this morning so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, on behalf of a variation in the boundaries of Humberside—is extremely important and rises above the local detail of boundary adjustment. These matters are fundamentally important because they concern the formation of a new county and must therefore be looked at with great care.
On Second Reading I spoke strongly in favour of the creation of the new County of Avon and the principles involved in the creation of the new county. Much water has passed under the bridge—perhaps I should say many feet have passed through the Division Lobby—since I made that speech, but I have heard nothing, either in our deliberations or in the many discussions I have been having privately all this week on this subject, to give me reason to alter my view. This is an important Bill and after eighty years it is absolutely essential that we reform the structure of local government. This reform is long overdue and I am glad that all the way through there will be a radical break with the past, because we do not want to be reforming local government too often. While we are doing it we must do it thoroughly.
Some noble Lords have spoken, and understandably so, with great feeling about local patriotisms, but perhaps they do not altogether realise the differences that will be brought about in local government. For example, there will be no hierarchy. The districts will in no sense he like the old district councils; they will not even be called district councils. The district will not be subordinate or answerable to the county. We must learn to understand this fundamental change and appreciate that we are to have two independent tiers which must co-operate and work together as equals. For all these reasons I support the concept of a new non-metropolitan county to be called Avon. This will be a composite county, if one may use that phrase, with an urban and rural balance. It is the intention to have a county which will be the pattern of future counties.
I must take issue with my own Diocesan the right reverend Prelate the

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Bishop of Bath and Wells who spoke on Second Reading. I did not quote his words in my Second Reading speech because OFFICIAL REPORT had not been printed and he was not present; I did not want to misrepresent him. At long last Hansard has been printed, presumably at double time, and I will quote a sentence from his speech because it underlines very much of the feeling that is generated by this matter. He said:
"The only ground the present proposals could have for being acceptable is that there are advantages for the people of North Somerset, who are being taken into the new county of Avon which, despite its name, is only an enlarged. Bristol."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31/7/72; col. 45.]
At present Bristol is not a balanced, rural and urban, county. It is urban, and the country people say, "We are country people and we do not want to go in under a city government". But they do not have to do that because the new county will be balanced. To create such a new balanced county we must take territory from the old existing counties. This is the breaking of the eggs to make the omelette and, as I said on Second Reading, all the evidence available to me shows that it loks like being a very good omelette.
Nobody should under-estimate the anxiety that wells up in the bosoms of people in the territory when they hear of a move of this kind. They ask, "Have we proved inefficient in Somerset? What is wrong with us? Why do we have to be chopped up and made into a new county? "There is of course no question of inefficiency, and the real point which must be considered and the real problem to which an answer must be found when we are faced with Amendments of this kind—I hope that we will get some answers from the Government to-day—is whether the new County of Avon will be properly balanced and viable if a large chunk of it is taken back again.
My noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve spoke of this chunk involving 30,000 acres, 73,000 people, perhaps more, and £3 million of rateable value. That is what your Lordships are being asked to take back. Will the balance of the urban-rural area of Avon be affected or even destroyed if that amount is taken back? The next important question to
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ask is whether the new Somerset will be viable without that 30,000 acres, 73.000 people and £3 million of rateable value. In other words, is the boundary which the Government have drawn a sound one? I hope that we will get a straight answer from the Government to these important questions and not the type of answer in Greek that we have had on Second Reading. If we are to get that type of answer, perhaps this time we can have it in Latin.
I come to the question of non-viability. The anxiety is still here. It has been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, most eloquently and most sincerely. I was full of this anxiety myself when this whole matter was first mooted. Your Lordships will remember that this matter was first debated in March, 1971 when the White Paper came out; and at that time I expressed as forcibly as I could to your Lordships my fears that Somerset was going to be made non-viable. I said that surely we should not be able to manage like that and I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, got up and said to me—and I read from column 1150 of Hansard:
"My Lords, perhaps I could intervene immediately and say that Somerset will have us nearly all in tears if they go on any longer."
I thought it was rather a compliment that I had moved the noble Lord. Perhaps I can do so to-day. He then went on to say that there was all this process of consultation, and that we shall go through all these things and reports will have to be put in. That has all been done now; but still there are large numbers of people in North Somerset (as we heard there were also in Gloucestershire) who are not convinced with what the Government have done with consultations and who still feel that they are going to be grabbed into a great urban city, which they do not like or understand, and that the counties that remain will be non-viable.
If I may say so, I feel I must criticise the Government here and say that there has been a bad public relations exercise in this matter. It has not been got across to the people. I believe that people are unduly nervous that they are being left in non-viable units or gobbled up by great cities they do not like. I believe it is all right, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to so explain it to us to-day. I want to hear from the noble

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Lord who replies for the Government real assurances that Somerset is viable. We are going to be the smallest county; but somebody has to be the smallest just as somebody has to be the biggest, unless we are all going to be equal.
The noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, said to-day that it will not have a police force and it will not be a police authority. Does that make it non-viable? So far as I remember, Devon and Cornwall have shared a police force for some time and I think they are both viable. I would remind Somerset of the arguments they used to Bath recently when—I will not say gobbled up—Somerset Constabulary amalagamated with the Bath police force. It does not necessarily make them non-viable not to be a joint police authority, but we must have good reasons given to us to-day to make people understand that.
A very important matter, it is said, is that in a small county such as this we should not get the right type of staff or the right kind of councillor. Is that really so? There will be a great challenge in this small county of Somerset, which is a very interesting county. It is not without industry. It is not without points of development. It will not have a new town like some of the other small counties, such as Shropshire, which will have a great new
town, Darley. It is not called Darley now, but it used to be Darley.
LORD SANDFORD: It is now Telford.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Yes, Telford. It does not have that. But, without wearying the Committee, do not think there are no towns at all in the new Somerset. Think of the towns of Bridgwater, Frame, Yeovil, Shepton Mallet, Street, Taunton,—all these towns may be small towns, but they have real industries in them. We have the cellophane industry and the printing industry. We make aeroplanes and helicopters at Yeovil. One must not advertise, but we do make some rather amusing new kinds of drinks in Shepton Mallet. We make shoes in the centre of Somerset. We make cider and have a great quarrying and tourist industry.
I could wish, when we come to the tourist industry, that Weston-super-Mare, which is really the crux of the whole matter, was 15, or even 10, miles further down the coast. Then there really would not be
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any argument at all because that would go into the new Somerset. There would be most of Lord Sinclair's rateable value, poulation, seaside town, and the whole business and even territory. But, unfortunately, Weston-super-Mare is not 15 miles further down the coast. We must now, therefore, apply our minds to what is the essential balance of this new county of Avon as compared with the truncated county of Somerset. Remember, in this new conception we are trying to end the old racial discrimination, this old tribal warfare between town and country. We should not lightly throw that aside, and I am surprised that we have had two right reverend Prelates—I see the Bishop of Gloucester is here—saying really that what has been right in the past must be right in the future. The right reverend Prelates recently decided that it would be right for us, the Anglicans—I am an Anglican—to join with the Methodists and when a certain number of laymen voted against that we were scolded week after week from the pulpit by the right reverend Prelates. We had obviously come to the wrong decision. Apparently the Bishops are always right. They were in no doubt at all that their Amendment must be right and it must be right to leave old Gloucestershire where it was and old Somerset where it was, and that it must be wrong to leave the old 1662 Liturgy where it was. But be that as it may, remember that we are trying to end this rivalry between the two factions and make new composite counties of which Avon can be a very good model.
There is one final very important point which I do not want to forget to mention. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, said how disastrous it would be if a boundary commission quite soon after some hotly contested change had taken place, should reverse that decision; that there would be all the upheaval for nothing. That seemed to me to be a very wise and proper plea. I have heard it said—it was in one of the briefs that your Lordships will have seen—that there is more than a likelihood, in fact it was almost the Government's intention—that is what was said, and I want to know what is the truth of this—that if the developments which we all hope will come about on the Severn-side do come about, that area will increase enormously in importance, population and

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industrial strength, and that that area will then become a metropolitan county.
If Avon turns into a metropolitan county in ten, fifteen or twenty years we shall have to unscramble the omelette and try to recreate the eggs. This you never can do. We shall have to take some parishes back and put them into Gloucester. We shall have to take other parishes back and put them into Somerset. I hope most sincerely that this is not the intention of Government: that, if, for instance, there are great developments in South Hampshire, we shall have a South Hampshire metropolitan county; which would mean that all this heartbreak is for nothing and you would have to unscramble what has been decided in these last days in your Lordships' House. I hope this most sincerely, because we simply should not contemplate doing this. I hope that what we are trying to do here is to form a new type of local government unit when we have a chance to do so. The big urban towns, the big cities of the Midlands and the North, have grown up and exist and are there, and they must be metropolitan counties; you cannot inject countryside now into the middle of them. But with the newly developing areas. Avon and the Severn-side, we may be able (and I understand this is what the Bill intends to do) to create a new kind of animal, a really strong new county properly balanced between countryside and town, and end this division.
Nobody, though, can doubt the sincerity of the views or the strength of the arguments that have been put forward by my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve on this Amendment. This is a case where I very much hope that if we are not all convinced, or if the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who is to reply, cannot convince us all, we do not at this moment force this to a Division and try to settle it once for all with this rather thin attendance in the middle of August. I think this is a case where the Government should say there have been very strong feelings and cogent arguments put forward—I am not at all sure that I agree with the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, but they have been put forward sincerely and cogently. This is no less a case than that in regard to which the Minister has been
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so accommodating with the smaller matter of parishes in Gloucester. I say that with no disrespect, it is a slightly smaller matter than this, which deals with a whole new county. He has said he will take back those Amendments and reconsider them between now and Report stage. I hope that when he comes to reply he will be able to say he will do the same for these Amendments.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: May I ask a very simple question. Looking at the map of Avon along the edge of the border there are the parishes of Bleadon, Loxton and Winscombe. I am wondering whether the children in those parishes would travel North or South to go to secondary schools; in other words, whether they would be crossing the border. Furthermore, if you look a little further West there are two other parishes, Burrington and Blagden, which have been divided through the middle; they are mentioned in Part III. Do those parishes, for example, have their own secondary school? Would it mean that the children from the North had to cross the border to go South? This is the sort of thing that can create administrative problems. At some time I would be very pleased to have a reply from the mover or the Minister, in order to be able to make up my mind which way to vote.
2.23 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My excuse for intervening in this debate really is that I was born in Somerset and I am proud of my origins. When the proposals of the Government were made known I received approaches from many friends in my old county, and I thought it right and proper that I should take some interest in it, because it seemed to me that the Government's proposals in regard to that county involve a surgical operation of a very drastic nature.
I have listened with the greatest interest to the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, and, quite frankly, at the end of his speech I was wondering whether he knew which side of the fence he was on. It seemed to me that the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, presented a very straightforward case, a very understandable case, and he put it forward in a very persuasive manner. Let me say that I am speaking, and I can only speak this afternoon, for myself. We on this

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side are neutral in our approach to these local problems, but I hope I may be excused for speaking from this position in regard to this matter. I doubt very much that anybody questions that if this Amendment is accepted or carried the new county of Avon will become nonviable.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: May I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? I never suggested that for one moment. I said it might become unbalanced, which is a very different thing.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am sure the noble Earl will appreciate that I am addressing the Committee as a whole and I was not taking him up personally on that matter. I doubt that anybody would question whether the new county will remain viable. What is concerning me, and I think should concern the Committee, is what the effect on Somerset will be; and the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, made it quite clear just how deep into the resources of the county of Somerset the proposals would cut.
My words will be few, but may I say—and here I speak directly to the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave—that this Amendment would not leave Somerset where it is. It is not an Amendment intended to preserve the status quo. And it is little use telling us what the position would be if Weston-super-Mare was 10 to 15 miles down the coast. Weston-super-Mare stands where it has always stood and where it is likely to remain; and if we are going to take Weston-super-Mare into account—and it seemed to me that the noble Earl made it inevitable that we must consider the position of Weston-super-Mare in regard to Somerset—then we have to accept that Weston-super-Mare is precisely where it is. I think, therefore, if there is any point that he made in that connection, it is that Somerset deserves Weston-super-Mare.
May I just very briefly remind the Committee of facts which I thought the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, put with great clarity. If this Amendment is carried, the population of Avon will be reduced by only some 8 per cent., but it will increase the population of Somerset by nearly 20 per cent. At that level and with a rateable value of over £17 million the new Somerset County Council could
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expect to have responsibility for the provision of the full range of county services, and in consequence (and I think this is very important) it would be able to attract men and women to its service of the highest possible calibre. I think we ought to have regard to the status and resources of Somerset. We ought to be equally concerned with Somerset's future as with Avon's. I therefore support the Amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve.
2.30 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR: I wish to speak briefly and I think I have much less justification for speaking than the noble Lords who have spoken before me. I merely lived for ten years in Somerset, but that is nine years more than is necessary to learn it is no ordinary county. Surely this Amendment deals with a matter of a different order from the Amendments put forward in many other cases. It is not a question of whether a particular area should be linked with district A or district B. It turns on whether a great old county is or is not to be emasculated. Surely, the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, gave us make it overwhelmingly clear that a drop in the population from 600,000 to 390,000, and a drop in the rateable value from £23 million to £14 million, is emasculation. The burden of proof is overwhelmingly on the Government, first, to show that this is not so—it is hard to see how they could do it—and, if they are determined to emasculate Somerset, to show that there is an overwhelmingly strong reason why this should be done. Yet as the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair, told us, Avon has agreed that it is not necessary to go forward with this plan; that people of the district have voted overwhelmingly to stay in Somerset, and in order——
LORD ABERDARE: Did the noble Baroness say that Avon had agreed to something? I do not think there is an Avon.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: May I interrupt the noble Baroness at this point to say that I said Bristol, not Avon?
BARONESS SEEAR: I stand corrected—Bristol. But the area due to gain from it has made it plain that it does not think it necessary that the plan should

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go forward as put forward by the draftsmen. So, the burden of proof is on the Government to show why they are determined to go forward with this plan and that, in doing so, they will not only be creating—which all of us want to see happen—a viable Avon, but they will also be saving and keeping a viable Somerset. In these debates noble Lords have tended to apologise for historical references; I do no such thing. I believe it is immensely important, and I am sorry that we have not said more about it, that the historical and mythological roots in our country should be respected. Somerset does enshrine quite exceptional mythology and history. It is, after all, the county of Joseph of Aramethea and the Glastonbury thorn that flowers on Christmas day; and it is the country of Arthur and the Vale of Avalon. So one can go on. I do not think these things are trivial. We do not live by mythology, but mythology and history are a very important ingredient of our daily bread.
In discussions on this Bill far too little attention has been paid to the importance of these deep-rooted traditions. But it is not only important to the past. We know from all modern studies that modern society suffers from rootlessness and modern man from rootlessness. Somerset is essentially a deep-rooted county in which there are many people from all sections of society who have a strong sense of belonging, a strong commitment to their county, and a strong willingness to serve it. This is something we ignore at our peril. I very much hope that, remembering what this county stands for, remembering its reputation of competent and devoted local government service in the past, the Government will support this Amendment.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Before the noble Baroness sits down, I would say that Saint Joseph of Aramethea may well have gone to Glastonbury but he could not have gone to Weston-super-Mare; and Glastonbury will remain in Somerset.
LORD HYLTON: I rise to support this Amendment moved in measured and balanced terms by my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve. I believe it is a constructive Amendment and one which is based on and relies on sound local government arguments and not merely on
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sentiment. If it were a wrecking Amendment it would seek to include Bristol in Somerset or in Gloucestershire. But it does none of these things. It strengthens what is left of the county of Somerset without seriously damaging or unbalancing the future county of Avon. It recognises, accepts and welcomes the future county of Avon. What may not, perhaps, be generally known is that the town of Weston-super-Marc is now the largest town in the old county of Somerset. Until 1935 it was the administrative headquarters of that county. For these reasons, I very strongly wish to support the Amendment.
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH: I intervene very shortly, and perhaps with great temerity, to support the Amendment, I hope without impertinence. I do not come from Somerset; I hail from further afield in the West. I have always had a keen interest in the future of the South-Western peninsula. Many people are uneasy about the Northern boundary proposal for Somerset. I will not try to repeat all the arguments of my noble friend, which he made in such a balanced and well-ordered fashion. All I will say is that in this case I am convinced of the reasonableness of his arguments. The new child of Avon is taking too many people from one of its parents, Somerset, leaving an unbalanced Somerset, and by that way falling against the provisions of the Bill. The right reverend prelate the Bishop of Gloucester referred to the question of boundary revision. It may be argued that the English Commission will look into future anomalies on either side of this border either under routine or special direction. What we should like to know is, when? Anyway, I always think that in local government in particular it is always wrong just to chop and change. May I urge my noble friends on the Front Bench to try in this case to reduce the chop of this part of Somerset to save making changes in the future?
LORD ABERDARE: We are now considering the Southern boundary of Avon. and the Amendment, which, if I may say to my noble friend, has been moved so lucidy and clearly by him, is to exclude from the proposed new county, Weston-super-Mare, all but two parishes in Axbridge rural district and those parts of four parishes in Clutton rural

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district which in our proposals are divided between Avon and Somerset.
It seemed, as I listened to the debate, that my noble friend Lord Waldegrave had made my speech for me, because I agreed with so much of what he said. I hope that I can answer the few questions he particularly put to me and those put by other of your noble Lords during the course of this short debate. As I have said on the last Amendment, it is inevitable that in creating a new county of Avon, it will include some territory which is now part of Somerset as well as some now part of Gloucestershire. The question which has to be decided is where the boundary goes and how much of those counties are included in the new counties. I thought it fell rather poorly, if I may say so, from Lord Garnsworthy's lips when he talked about surgical action. I wonder if he remembers his own Government's White Paper on their proposals, which were far more drastic, from a surgical point of view, than anything which we are proposing at the moment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I make the point that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has no reason for thinking that I would necessarily have approved that.
LORD ABERDARE: I am extremely glad to hear that. I hope, therefore, he will vote for the Government's proposals. We believe that the boundary line we have drawn in this area in the South of Avon is right, and we have given a great deal of thought to it. It runs from just East of Bath and joins up with the Men-dip massif, which forms a natural boundary to the sea just South of Weston-super-Mare. It is not for merely frivolous reasons—I would say particularly to my noble friend Lord Balfour—that the new boundary happens to divide existing boundaries. That is the last thing we would normally wish to do. The fact is that it is drawn very carefully, after a lot of consideration on the ground, because this happens to fit in with the geography of the country, and includes the crest of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. The boundary is chosen as near as possible to correspond with the area of influence exercised from Bristol. It is very important, in our view, that the area of influence of Bristol should be contained within the one new county, and that the
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boundary should reflect the pattern of life for the administration of services and, may I add, should also take into account, where possible, so far as we can see ahead, likely future developments.
The proposals in the Severn side study certainly suggest that Bristol should be in the same county as Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon, Portishead, and Norton Radstock, which all have strong links with it, and of these the Amendments would exclude Weston. But I would suggest that this contradicts the Severn side study, and also ignores the likely future when, with the completion of the M5, Weston is likely to be in even closer contact with Bristol. This has not yet been mentioned—and I think my noble friend Lord Sinclair did not contradict this—but the fact of the matter is that Weston-super-Mare Borough Council want to be in Avon. I would prefer to accept that view rather than any referendum or other type of public opinion poll, which, frankly, I think is always very difficult to accept.
My noble friend Lord Waldegrave essentially asked me two questions. He asked whether we have achieved the best possible balance in the new County of Avon between Bristol and the rest of the county. I would assure him that, in my opinion, we have reached that balance, but that to accept the Amendments and put Weston-super-Mare into Somerset would upset the balance. Bristol at the present moment has a 47 per cent. share, and I would feel it undesirable to increase that. If we accept the Amendments Bristol would have a share of over 50 per cent. in the new County of Avon. Some concessions have already been made to Somerset. Frome urban district and Frome rural district, and certain parishes in Axbridge and Clutton rural districts South of the crest of the Mendips are now included in Somerset, but I think it is important not to reduce Avon any further.
I can also give him the assurances he asked for about the future; there are no powers contained in the Bill for bringing into existence independent metropolitan districts as such. 'There are powers in the Bill, as I mentioned on Second Reading, in Clause 47(1)(d) for reviews to take place in the future, and who can say by the end of the century what developments might take place anywhere. These are proposals for the creation of

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new metropolitan counties, or of the reverse, new non-metropolitan counties, and there is certainly no intention of upsetting the present arrangements in Avon.
The second question he asked me, and which was repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, concerned viability—or I think the noble Baroness called it "emasculation". I do not accept that. I have every sympathy with Somerset. I think all your Lordships would feel that it is not a pleasant thing to be reduced in size, but on viability I certainly cannot agree. The new Somerset would have a population of 385,000, which is well above the minimum 250,000 which has been accepted as the minimum ever since the Redcliffe-Maud proposals, and which is the minimum necessary to sustain an efficient administration of the education and personal social services.
In fact, one can foresee that population rising by 1974 perhaps to some 400,000, and it would take only an increase of less than 2 per cent. a year to reach it. It is not the smallest county as I think my noble friend Lord Waldegrave said that it would be. There are three other counties that would be smaller: Cornwall, Salop, and Northumberland. If we look at the rateable value, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sinclair in opening, I think it more realistic to consider rateable value per head, because there will be a reduction in population as well as a reduction in rateable value, and the new Somerset will be slightly better off than the present administrative county in terms of rateable value per head.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: We have got the figure which the noble Lord has given for the new Somerset; will he give us the population for the new Avon?
LORD ABERDARE: I am not sure that I have that actually with me. It is about 900,000. I am not arguing in any way that this matter affects Avon to that extent; what I am arguing is that the new Somerset will be a viable county in terms of population and in terms of rateable value per head.
So far as the police authorities are concerned, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is still discussing matters regarding the new police forces. He has proposed an amalgamation of the
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Somerset and Avon police forces to build on the present Somerset-Bath force. This would be one of nine amalgamations which he proposes: seven of them to preserve existing amalgamated forces and two others to meet new situations arising from the creation of new counties. However, these matters are still under consideration. I know of no proposals with regard to fire authorities. The counties will remain, so far as I know, the fire authorities, and certainly there has been no intention of changing the arrangements about probation and after-care service without very careful consideration and a great deal of discussion with the new county. I would only say that the Government are very disappointed that Bristol City Council and Somerset County Council have decided to withdraw from working parties and preparatory committees. We feel that this sort of co-operation is essential if the transition to the new system is to proceed smoothly.
The burden of my speech really is that Weston-super-Mare wants to be in Avon; Weston-super-Mare is closer and more under the influence of Bristol and will continue to be more so in the future: that it would be wrong to separate Weston-super-Mare from Bristol. On the other matters that are raised by these Amendments on the parishes I should like to suggest again that the boundary is right because we have given it very careful consideration over a very long period. I should like to suggest that this is best considered by the Boundary Commission after 1974, as a priority task, being a county boundary. I cannot accept the Amendment about Weston, but as I have tried to be flexible over the parish boundaries in the North of Avon, and if it would help my noble friend, I am prepared to have another look at the parish boundaries on the Southern borders of Avon, if that appeals to your Lordships. But I very much hope that my noble friend will not press his Amendments. If he does, I would ask noble Lords not to agree to the Amendment concerning Weston.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: Had it been possible to vote on the proposal in the Bill, from the degree of support I have had from so many of your Lordships because of my strong conviction that my proposal is right, and having regard particularly to what I said about

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the other considerations that tend to fog the issue on many of these questions, I should certainly have wished to press this Amendment. Unfortunately, technically I cannot do that; each Amendment has to be taken separately. The first of these 15 Amendments is that which excludes Weston-super-Mare and, as my noble friend Lord Aberdare said and as indeed I said in my speech, Weston Borough Council has voted in favour of going into Avon and therefore against the proposal in the Amendment.
I feel some reluctance in asking the House to divide on this question when it is simply and solely a question of Weston-super-Mare itself and against the opposition of the borough council. Therefore I should prefer not to press that Amendment nor to press any of the others, on the undertaking—I hope that I am not putting words into the mouth of my noble friend, Lord Aberdare; I want to be as fair as possible—that between now and Report the Government will carefully consider the whole question. I recognise that they have given no indication of their being able to make an exception of Weston-super-Mare, but they will consider the whole question and in particular the practicability and desirability of putting the other Amendments into effect, or of making other amendments, subject to the review of the Boundary Commission, as one of those priority cases affecting county boundaries. On that basis I should be prepared not to press the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE had given notice to move Amendment No. 25:
Corrigendum, page 1, line 22, leave out ("Banwell, Bleadon.").
The noble Lord said: I was hoping for an assurance from the Government before giving an answer to the question of whether I move this Amendment.
LORD ABERDARE: My assurance still stands. I cannot accept the first Amendment, now withdrawn, but I will look at the other Amendments before Report stage.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: I do not now move Amendment No. 25
LORD ABERDARE: I think it would be convenient if we resumed the House at this stage for a Statement.
House resumed.

UGANDA: EXPULSION OF BRITISH ASIANS
2.54 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIF): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to make a Statement on recent events in Uganda affecting Asian holders of United Kingdom passports. On August 9 President Amin confirmed to our High Commissioner that all Asians in Uganda who are holding British passports must leave the country within 90 days. The same order is to apply to Asians in Uganda holding Indian or Pakistan citizenship. Though he stated that there would be a number of exceptions, including employees of Government, professional people, owners of industrial and agricultural enterprises and others, the effect of this order as it stands is that the vast majority of the Asians in Uganda who cannot prove that they have local citizenship must leave the country in the stated period.
Our High Commissioner in Uganda was able to see the President beforehand and made strong representations against the proposed expulsion order. He also conveyed to him a message from the Prime Minister.
In view of the serious situation that would arise if the order were carried out, it has been decided, with President Amin's agreement, that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should visit Kampala in the very near future to discuss the whole matter. My right honourable and learned friend will also visit Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam for discussions with the Kenyan and Tanzanian Governments, with whom we have been in touch. We are also in touch with the Governments of India and Pakistan who now have a common interest with us in this matter.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for making that

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Statement. There is little I have to say. We have, by Questions, discussed the situation in various ways during the last few days. I think that the overwhelming majority of these Indians are people with British passports, rather than Indian and Pakistani passports. We must just ask Mr. Rippon to look at the matter. I take it that this has no connection with Mr. Rippon's other commitments, but it is because he is a senior Cabinet Minister who is going to see what can be done in this desperately worrying situation. I would ask again how far the talks with the Indian and Pakistani Governments, to which my noble friend Lord Brockway has referred and on which subject we had a rather more forthcoming answer from the noble Baroness, have gone. This Statement justifies the vital need for those talks. I hope that we can be told something more than just the fact that we are in touch. When Mr. Rippon has acquainted himself with all the circumstances we should like to see the Government and President Amin concentrating on the whole problem. This is no reflection on particular departmental Ministers who have to cover such a wide range of subjects, especially when we are faced with a very critical situation.
LORD TANLAW: My Lords, I should like to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, have said. We are glad that the Government are aware of the seriousness of the situation. I think it would be wrong, in fact dangerous, to add further remarks, bearing in mind the future of tens of thousands of people involved in this situation at the moment.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, for the good wishes they have offered to my right honourable friend and for the moderation of the questions which they have asked. It is without doubt potentially a very serious situation, but the object of the visit by my right honourable friend is of course to see whether President Amin might have second thoughts. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton is quite correct. There are altogether about 57,000 United Kingdom passport holders of Asian origin including dependants. As I said the other day, we had an orderly arrangement whereby British
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passport holders could come into this country and it was agreed upon with the Ugandan Government only in May last year. We feel that it is inhumane to the people concerned to suggest that people who have spent their lives in Uganda should suddenly be asked to uproot themselves. It is for this reason that my right honourable friend is making this journey.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I want to be careful not to say anything which will make this situation more difficult. While welcoming the visit to Kampala by a representative of the Government and the separate approaches both to the East African Governments and the Governments of India and Pakistan, may I ask the Minister whether the situation is not now so comprehensive that it would be desirable to follow up these separate approaches to the different Governments by a conference of all of them, so that this very difficult situation might be resolved? I also want to associate myself with what others have said in criticism of what has been done on a racial basis, but, nevertheless, understanding that the Asians in East Africa who are now suffering from these decisions have declined to become citizens of their different countries. Is the Minister aware—I do not say this personally—that with Indira Ghandi, who is now Prime Minister of India. I addressed large audiences of Indians in these East African countries urging them to become citizens of East African nations, and that it is because they declined to become citizens of those East African countries that they are now involved in this situation? Will Her Majesty's Government bear that in mind when approaching this very difficult problem?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I should have thought that if we looked at our own country we should find thousands—if not over a million—of people who are not necessarily United Kingdom citizens, but whom we are glad to welcome to these shores for their skills and for what they can contribute to us. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, that I took note the other day of the question he asked about a possible conference between all of those involved and, while we are now in the process of having personal discussions, it is a possibility which we are bearing in mind.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether she will ask her right honourable friends to consider the feasibility of helping these 57,000 Asians holding British passports by providing funds to help them to rehabilitate themselves in, for instance, the countries of their families' origin—Pakistan and India? I understand that we give President Amin a considerable amount of aid. We might even take a small amount of that aid to help these unfortunate people. I think that they require some help.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I shall certainly bear that suggestion in mind and will draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend. But I think the immediate step is for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to go out and have personal conversations with President Amin and see whether this really is a definite decision, because for any country suddenly to have an influx of people of this magnitude is extremely damaging to those concerned and also to the country of reception.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I add my welcome to the visit of Mr. Rippon to General Amin? I am sure that is the right method of approach. But may I suggest that it would be very wise of Her Majesty's Government—and I hope they are doing this—to have some contingency plans in case his visit is unsuccessful, plans whereby very real hardship to these many thousands of individuals will be mitigated. There is always a danger that, when one is dealing with 57,000 people, it is such a large number that one thinks of them as being 57,000 and does not think of them as being people.
As the noble Baroness so rightly reminded us a few days ago, Her Majesty's Government have a responsibility for the British passport holders, and I would urge on them to give very serious thought, in the event of these talks being unsuccessful—and I certainly hope that they will not be—to seeing that the actual transport of these people is undertaken in as pleasant a way as possible, and that their reception, wherever it may be—if it be in other countries of the Commonwealth, as I would hope, with a
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proportion coming to this country—is such as to minimise the very real hardship to which they are being subjected.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we have in fact established a Ministerial Committee and an official Committee to review possible contingency plans. As I said the other day to other noble Lords interested in this matter, although we may have contingency plans and although we may completely accept these British passport holders as our citizens, we think it only right that they should have a choice of which country to go to, and also that the best possible arrangements should be made for them if it should come to that.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that some of us, who may have had opposition to the Government on many issues, have sympathy and understanding on this occasion in the very difficult position into which they have been put? May I follow my noble friend and say, in the connotation of the word "Asian", that we must remember that a proportion of these people may well be an asset even to this country, because they are not necessarily all people who are unable to make a contribution to our economy. Lastly, as it is almost the Recess, I and most of us on this side wish the Government well in this very difficult problem which they now have to meet.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I should like very much to thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, for his understanding of this problem and for his good wishes, which I am sure will be noted by all members of the Government. I think I made it clear that many of the people who come to our shores contribute a great deal to this country, and that would certainly be so in the case of those who happen to be Asian holders of British passports. But we think it right that anything of this nature should be done, as was agreed, in an orderly and humane way.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, while welcoming very much Mr. Rippon's visit to East Africa, and particularly his personal contact with General Amin, may I ask my noble friend whether he intends to consult on a purely unofficial basis

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some of his colleagues within the European Community, to sound out their feelings on this matter and to see whether in the months to come they could be of some assistance?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think his immediate plan is to go to East Africa right away. We shall wait and see what happens after that.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL
3.8 p.m.
House again in Committee on Schedule 1
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER): I have to call the Committee's attention to the fact that if Amendment No. 29 is agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 30 and 31.
EARL HOWE EARL HOWE moved Amendment No. 29:
Corrigendum. Page 2, leave out lines 17 to 25.
The noble Earl said: My Amendments this afternoon deal with the boundary between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which I consider has been drawn unfavourably to Buckinghamshire. The Amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, on the other hand, seek to move this boundary and that with Oxfordshire in favour of Berkshire. These Amendments clearly have relevance to mine and those noble Lords, and I suggest that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if, with permission, all these Amendments were debated together.
It seemed to me on Wednesday evening that the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, wanted us to give some indication of our qualifications for speaking in the debate. I hoped that he would be here to-day, and in order to please him I intended to give my qualifications in the hope that he would support me, but he is not here. I should like to say straight away that, so far as these riverside parishes of Buckinghamshire are concerned, I was educated at what is frequently referred to as a single-sex comprehensive school—Eton
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College—and that I am and have been for many years a county alderman. As such I represent, not a constituency and not an area but my own county of Buckingham. In that capacity I feel that I have a considerable advantage and that I know—if I did not know I should be ashamed of myself—what the needs and wants are of the ratepayers of Buckinghamshire. The effect of the Amendment is to retain Buckinghamshire as it is, with the existing boundary between Buckinghamshire and Berkshire along the River Thames, which is our natural boundary.
As for the borough of Slough and the Eton urban district, for so long a part of Buckinghamshire, there is no overwhelming view of the population either for or against the proposed change. If Slough is wrenched into Berkshire it will only be because a majority of the borough council of Slough wish it, and it is inaccurate to say that the borough council view represents the overwhelming view of the population of that area. There is no very close association between Slough and Berkshire. Slough looks as much towards London and the North as it does to the South and West. If Her Majesty's Government set great store on the views of the local population and the Buckinghamshire County Council—and they should do so—I suggest that it is not too late for them to change their mind. During our debate on the White Paper on Local Government Reorganisation I was most grateful for the support given to me at the time by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, who then felt strongly that Slough—I think I am right in inferring this—should remain in Buckinghamshire. However, in spite of first thoughts being better than second thoughts, I understand that he has now, unfortunately, changed his mind. I am sorry about this in view of his distinguished services in another place as the Member for Eton and Slough. Buckinghamshire would have welcomed his support. If he is doing this for any political motive he need not worry, because my arguments for the retention of Slough have no political undertones whatsoever. I am appealing only to those who respect ties of loyalty and tradition.
For a thousand years or more the Thames has been the boundary between these two counties. Not only is it rooted in history but it is a clear and distinct

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boundary, completely severing the two except for a few bridges. Any change from the river as boundary is going to create many problems. Most important of all, the wishes of the people to remain in Buckinghamshire should be respected. I am opposing any attempt at a further takeover by Berkshire. It is unfortunate to see a neighbouring county acting in such an unfriendly manner. The effect of the Amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, apparently is to claim not only the parishes of Datchett, Horton and Wraysbury, the transfer of which is already provided for in the Bill, but also the whole of the parishes of Dorney, Taplow, Burnham, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges, Wexham and Iver, which under the Bill are to remain in Buckinghamshire, except the Britwell part of Burnham and a small part of Wexham. In fact they are claiming even more than their spokesman claimed in another place. To repeat my remarks on the Second Reading, this is a policy, frankly and bluntly, of greed and grab by Berkshire, in which, incidentally, they also threaten Oxfordshire—but my noble friend Lord Camrose will be referring to that later on. Almost needless to say, this further transfer of riverside parishes would be disastrous for Buckinghamshire. If such a substantial part of the Eton rural district is seized by Berkshire, Buckinghamshire would be reduced in population and rateable value to figures very much lower than Berkshire. It is therefore much more vital to Buckinghamshire than to Berkshire that no more should be taken from them.
All our riverside parishes are now threatened by Berkshire. Dorney, for example, is rigidly opposed to being transferred. For over a thousand years it has been a part of Buckinghamshire and has never wavered in its determination to remain loyal to Buckinghamshire, and on the Report stage of the Bill in another place it was decided that Dorney should not be transferred. 'The Berkshire attack is bitterly resented by the people of Dorney, not just by a local authority but at a full parish meeting and by the expressions given to me personally by so many people, and from what I have found out for myself. This applies to all the other riverside parishes who have maintained their strong loyalty to Buckinghamshire over so many years. I feel sure that Her Majesty's Government
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would not wish to ignore the wishes of local people and will consider the age-old ties and traditions of these Buckinghamshire people.
After this rape of Buckinghamshire all that would be left of the Eton rural district would be four parishes—a population loss of well over 100,000 and over £9 million of rateable value in a rapidly expanding home county. Also, with the rapid growth of our new city of Milton Keynes in the North and the problem and burdens of supporting all this development they would be weakened just when they should be strong—bearing in mind that the Government's purpose in promoting the Local Government Bill is to create local authorities whose areas are large enough in size, population and resources to meet administrative needs. I do not want to be dramatic over something which is, frankly, not of world-shattering importance; but to the people of Dorney and those other riverside parishes it is sheer brinkmanship by Berkshire almost reaching a point of all-out war in their attempt to capture our riverside parishes. I beg to move.
3.17 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I do not know if somebody else is supporting the noble Earl. I may be asked what interest I have in Slough. I would point out to this noble House that many years ago the Welsh. in the hungry 'thirties and the hungry 1926's, when there was mass unemployment, with the usual conjunction of cheerfulness and poverty, tramped, almost barefoot, towards the South-East of England looking for jobs. One of the parts of Britain that accepted these weird Celts with understanding, gave them comfort and succour and found them jobs, was dear old Slough; and I had in those remote days, which affluent noble Lords will have forgotten, a brother who was glad of the comfort and aid, and the job which Slough offered him. Consequently I hate to see the noble Earl left lonely, without any of his Peers rising to defend him in this piece of acquisitive brinkmanship on the part of another county.
Slough's affinities are more with London than with anybody else. Further, the River Thames has since the time of the Caesars been the natural boundary in that area. The other day in a brief speech I gave an example of the impor-

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tance of the ecology of an environment to the ethnology of the development of individuals. The Celts and the Swiss are barrel-chested, the reason being that they climb mountains and have to struggle in the thin mountain air, so we breathe deep and we play a damn good game of Rugby. We sing, too, from calling in the sheep. The same is true of the Swiss with their yodelling.
LORD JACQUES: We sing, too.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: If my noble friend wants to know the origin of yodelling I will tell him some day, but not now. Consequently I say that this is a neophiliac desire, a love of change for change's sake, and there is a real case to point out that there is no close association at all between Slough and this area. It looks to London.
Finally, all this state of flux that is being created between these two counties because of the building of this new town of Milton Keynes (I have an interest there, not cashwise but in friendship), is going to alter the whole rateable value. If I may cast one word of wisdom into this Chamber I think these local government boundary changes are too rapid. We should have a discussion of the layout of the country according to Crowther. Further—but do not ask me for the answers—we must find a new method of financing local government concerns, since 15 per cent. of the gross national product is under local government control. Here is an example par excellence where I am convinced that as a result of the suggested changes in the White Paper the burdens will be greater on those people living in the areas that are left after the piece of acquisitiveness on the part of the neighbouring county. Consequently, I sincerely support the appeal of the noble Earl who spoke from the other side of the Committee.
LORD CAMOYS: I should like to support what my noble friend Lord Howe has said. I am a supporter of the Government, but on this occasion my tie is rather pale blue. I believe that the Government should think again about this matter.
LORD BROCKWAY: I was at one time the Member in another place for Eton and Slough. Let me first acknowledge the generous remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in regard to my service
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while I was the Member there. May I also express to my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek my appreciation of his remarks about the acceptance which Slough gave to the Welsh community. Perhaps I might add that the support, comradeship and good fellowshin I received from the Welsh community there during my representation of Eton and Slough in another place is one of my happiest memories.
We are here discussing a very difficult problem. When the subject of local government reorganisation was first discussed, I took the view that the great developing area of Slough was associated more with London than with Reading, and that therefore it should remain part of a county which was more closely linked with London. I think it quite possible that that is still true. I have given deep consideration to the memoranda which have been issued by the Buckinghamshire County Council, the Berkshire County Council, the Slough Borough Council and the Eton Urban District Council on this issue. I think one now has to face the fact that, whatever one's views may have been earlier, this great area of Slough will become a part of Berkshire and will be associated with Reading; and we have to think of it in that context as to what is best to be done. Slough was in a difficult position. It had two Greater London Council estates, one at Langley, which was within its borough, and the other at Britwell, a portion of which was in Slough and a large part outside. It also had its own housing area, built by the Slough Borough Council, in Wexham. Amendments which were accepted in another place have now made the Slough borough a logical area. It has included the Brit-well estate, it has included the Slough housing estate in Wexham, and Slough now, for the first time, is a logical geographical area, with the population in its borough centred on Slough, with a bus service in Slough, purchasing its needs in Slough—in fact, a co-ordinated community.
In that situation, one had to ask what was the best solution to this problem of association with Berkshire or with Buckinghamshire, and of the surrounding villages. Let me just say to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord

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Brooke of Cumnor, that I know all the villages they mentioned almost as though I were living in them. I can see in my mind's eye all those lovely Buckinghamshire villages—Datchet, Dawnay, Horton, Wraysbury, Taplow, Burnham, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges, Wexham and Iver. But when we are considering whether they should be associated with Berkshire or with Buckinghamshire, I would say this. There is a case, since the decision has been made to move Slough into Berkshire and towards Reading, that it should be this co-ordinated area, while the other areas, rural Buckinghamshire linked with High Wycombe, seem to me to be logically part of Buckinghamshire itself.
I make just one criticism of the present proposal. There was Eton. I delighted in the fact that I represented Eton as well as Slough: I loved the balance of it. I got on well with the boys of Eton College and with the masters. If you look at the map now, you see that the Eton urban area is detached and divides the great area of Slough from the new Berkshire. I shall perhaps get into some trouble with my own Labour Party in Slough for saying that it seems to me that the Eton urban area is more associated with Berkshire than with Buckinghamshire. There is only that little willow-pattern bridge between the High Street of Eton and Windsor. Its association really is with Windsor. If any change is to be made in the pattern which is now before us, it may be that the Eton urban area should be linked with Slough and Windsor, and therefore linked with Berkshire, rather than with Buckinghamshire. Trying to take a very broad view, I come to the conclusion, regrettably, that these Amendments should not be accepted. But I hope that the Government will look at this problem again and try to find a final solution on the lines that I have proposed.
3.30 p.m.
LORD THOMAS: With permission I rise to speak to this whole group of Amendments, Nos. 29, 30, 31 and, later on, 48. May I first of all declare that I have no territorial interest in the particular area under review. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Sudeley raised the question of Wales because I was born in Wales. I have never had very much succour one way or another in Slough, although I have had a number of busi-
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ness and commercial activities in that borough and the surrounding districts. It seems to me that the changes proposed in the Amendment make very good sense from the commercial point of view. This is borne out by research studies such as those made in January, 1968, by the Greater London Group of the London School of Economics and the conclusion was also reached by the Redcliffe-Maud Commission in June, 1969.
I think that recent events such as the development of the M.4 Motorway make it clear that there are improving communications between Maidenhead and Reading, and the same kind of recommendation for the alteration of the boundary was made by Mr. Derek Senior in his Memorandum of Dissent in Vol. 2 of the Royal Commission's Report, which places Slough Borough, Eton Urban District and parts of Eton Urban District with Maidenhead Borough, Windsor Borough, Windsor Rural District and Cookham R ural District in his District 29(c) based on Slough. He also proposed the formation of a large Reading Region No. 29. The Department of the Environment Circular 8/71 of February,1971, again placed Slough Borough, Eton Urban District and Eton Rural District with Reading. So here we have a whole marshalling of facts in favour of what is proposed in these Amendments.
I turn now to speak on Amendment No. 32, without any burning passion but supported by the full knowledge that the flow lines of the working population, health services and educational facilities plus some sentimental and emotional reasoning, indicate that the recommendations made in the Amendment I am now proposing would be beneficial. I can claim residential and territorial interests in various parts of Oxfordshire, in Oxford City itself and now at Remennam, which is in Berkshire just across the river from Henley. My commercial and residential experience makes it quite plain to me that there is a far greater affinity between Henley and its surrounding parishes with Reading than with Oxford. Inevitably, this Amendment would raise a conflict of claims between the Henleys and either Oxford or Reading. Suffice it to say that it is 28 miles from Henley to Oxford as against eight miles from Henley to Reading. From Henley to Reading there is a regular bus service

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making 39 trips each way—a journey of half an hour only between the two places—compared with seven daily journeys between Henley and Oxford and a journey-time which is twice as long. This geographical fact also has a bearing, obviously, on support and fire fighting services. Henley also has a rail link with Berkshire, but none with Oxford. For people in the Henley area their daily paper is published in Reading and the news is slanted southwards towards Reading and London and not towards the Midlands and Oxford. I must say that in Henley our television programmes are a little confused. I get B.B.C. from Southampton and I.T.V. from Birmingham, but it is hoped that a booster station will shortly be introduced.
I admit that this is not a debate on the National Health Service, but I can assure your Lordships that the people of the Henleys look to Reading for their hospital-based services. If the present boundaries are adopted, the people in the areas under review will be subject to one authority for some parts of the Health Service and a different one for the remainder. These are pertinent factors and there are also other pertinent factors which support the Amendment and the changes which it would bring about. Finally, may I say that I support these Amendments.
3.36 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I hope that we can discuss this group of Amendments in rational rather than emotive terms, because the simple issue is how the principles underlying this Bill can best be applied to the boundaries between Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire—boundaries which are now supplied by the River Thames. I would suggest to your Lordships that words like "greed and "grab", of which I must hold my noble friend Lord Howe guilty, are really quite out of place. The story of this, as my noble friend Lord Thomas has said, is that a number of objective inquiries (including the Royal Commission on Local Government) have all resulted in recommendations that there should be substantial adjustments to these boundaries. Those proposals were accepted by this Government in their 1971 White Paper. The Amendments to which I have put my name, following that of
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my noble friend Lord Thomas, go less far than did the original proposals of this Government in extending the boundaries of Berkshire.
The reason I am familiar with this subject, particularly with Amendment 32, is this. The village of Cumnor is five miles from Oxford, and has hitherto been in Berkshire. Under the principles laid down by the Government, and indeed by the previous Government so far as local government reorganisation was concerned, it was quite clear that a portion of Berkshire West of Oxford should be moved from Berkshire into Oxfordshire. It really was indefensible that the village of Cumnor and other villages nearby—Cumnor is five miles from Oxford, but 30 miles from Reading—should look to Reading rather than to Oxford as their county town and the headquarters of their county council. It was, I had thought at one stage, accepted by everybody that it would be a wise plan for a substantial area of North-West Berkshire South of the River Thames to be moved into Oxfordshire and correspondingly, on exactly the same principle, that a rather less substantial part of South-East Oxfordshire should be moved into Berkshire. The same principle applies to the Buckinghamshire/Berkshire boundary, but I will not go into that at the moment because it has already been discussed.
The Berkshire County Council accepted this plan. They agreed to a very large stretch of Berkshire, extending all the way from Oxford to Wantage (a distance of 15 miles) being transferred into Oxfordshire. Wantage, Abingdon, Wallingford, all of them ancient Berkshire towns, were in future to become part of Oxfordshire. They accepted this on the assumption, which seemed to them a fair one, that the same principle which pointed to the transfer of that part of Berkshire to Oxfordshire would point to that part of Oxfordshire abutting on Reading being transferred to Berkshire. That was the Royal Commission's scheme. That was the original scheme of the present Government. It was only when this Bill was published that it came to be seen that though the principle was being applied to North West Berkshire, it was not being applied to South East Oxfordshire. Some change in the county boundary is essential North of Reading. Whether these

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Amendments have it exactly right is an open question—we have had so many of these questions during these debates. But the Thames flows through Oxford and that has been the boundary, and it has meant that even the Western suburbs of Oxford have been in Berkshire hitherto. Now they are rightly going to be moved into Oxfordshire. The Thames also flows through Reading, and that has meant that even the Northern suburbs of Reading have hitherto been in Oxfordshire, though Oxford is 26 miles away. It cannot be consistent to apply a principle to that part of Berkshire which is near to Oxford, and not to apply it, in sensible terms, to that part of Oxfordshire near to Reading.
I have no idea why the present Government changed their mind, or why, when they published this Bill, they decided to depart from their own principles and not apply to South Oxfordshire what they were applying to North Berkshire. Clearly it is going to cause very considerable difficulties if the Bill is not amended. My noble friend Lord Thomas mentioned the health service, and there are all kinds of other links and services. The natural affinity of that part of South Oxfordshire which one may broadly describe as the Henley Rural District is with Reading rather than with Oxford. I am not arguing whether Oxford or Reading is the better town. What I am arguing is that the distance decides this. It cannot be right for the boundary of Berkshire to be drawn so tightly North of Reading if the boundary of Oxfordshire is not to be drawn tightly West of the City of Oxford. The same argument broadly applies to the territory around Slough, which is the subject of another Amendment.
The boundaries of Berkshire in this Bill are drawn too tightly. The boundaries drawn by the Royal Commission were drawn too loosely. That is why in our Amendments we are not even seeking to add to Berkshire as much as the present Government, following the Royal Commission, originally proposed to add. There is no selfishness here. There is simply a genuine desire to try and get the principles of this Bill properly applied to the whole of this boundary which now follows the curves of the River Thames. This boundary ought, in our submission, to be determined on the principles which
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underlie the reorganisation of local government that we are all trying to carry out. Let me just add that if the wishes of the inhabitants are to be the sole criterion for settling these matters, there will be no local government reorganisation whatever, because there is hardly a spot in the country where, if you ask people whether they would like to stay where they are or come under some other area, they will not reply almost unanimously that they are in favour of staying where they are.
LORD CAMOYS: I must oppose my noble friend and Lord Brooke so far as the idea that part of South Oxfordshire, including the borough of Henley, should go into Berkshire. We have had long debates this afternoon and I am not going to refer to omelettes, cooking or liturgy; we have had those before. People do not want to go into Berkshire because of the old traditional boundary which is the River Thames. I am certain that the Government in their provision have done the right thing in keeping the South part of Oxfordshire in Oxfordshire. I speak with some knowledge and I had better declare by interest. I live in South Oxfordshire; I spent 33 years on the Henley Rural District Council, seven as the chairman, and many years on Oxfordshire County Council. I was chairman of many committees; I was a member of Henley area planning committee for 13 years, et cetera. I have made it my duty to talk to people of all levels. We do not want to go into Berkshire. My family, and the families of some of my employees and tenants, have lived in the same place for a good many hundred years. I believe that I am speaking for the people of South Oxfordshire in resisting this Amendment.
3.46 p.m.
LORD BURNHAM: Although I bear the name of one of the parishes named in Amendment No. 30, I have no significant interests in that parish. I have, however, lived in South Buckinghamshire for forty years, whenever the War Office did not want me somewhere else, and my family have lived there for getting on for a hundred years. I am thus reasonably familiar with the area. It seems to me that Berkshire, having established a bridgehead over the river at Slough, are now seeking to consolidate it, though I accept what my noble friend Lord Brooke

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has said that this is not with any intention of a future breakout in the direction of Hedgerley and Gerrards Cross on the lines of the White Paper.
It is perfectly true that ideas have changed since the White Paper was published. They have changed because the local communities have had more of a chance to make up their minds where they want to be. Slough has decided that it would like to be in Berkshire. This happens to be bad luck on Horton and Wraysbury who do not, but who would be cut off if Slough goes into Berkshire. It may or may not be bad luck on Datchet, who would like to be in Berkshire but who wished to go in with Windsor, anyway. The other communities are not appendages of Slough; they are communities in their own right and they have been so for a long time. They are quite sure that they wish to remain in Buckinghamshire. My noble friend Lord Brocke said that if we paid attention to the wishes of local people nothing would ever get done. He may be right: but if Slough goes into Berkshire because people want it to, then a fortiori the people of the other communities, who feel much more strongly than Slough does, ought to remain in Buckinghamshire. If there were overwhelming administrative advantages in putting Burnham, Taplow. Dorney and the others into Berkshire with Slough I should like to hear them, because I have not so far heard them.
The Thames is a logical, well-established boundary. The methods of communication, North and South, are at least as good and, in some cases, a great deal better than those East and West, apart from the M.4. It is easier to get, for example, from Dorney to Beaconsfield than it is from Dorney to the centre of Slough. Bearing in mind that no great administrative advantages have been produced, and that people have expressed through their parish council meetings and every type of association, from the women's institute upwards, downwards, or sideways, their wish to remain in Buckinghamshire, I ask the Government to resist Amendment No. 30, even if they feel that they cannot agree to Amendment No. 29.
3.50 p.m.
LORD HODSON: I am concerned only with Amendment No. 32. I am afraid
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that Members of the Committee may be getting a little confused by various speakers addressing themselves to different Amendments. I have lived in the village of Rotherfield Greys for the last forty years. I was not born in the county of Oxford. That is one of the villages in the group set out in Amendment No. 32. There are about twenty villages in the rural district of Henley-on-Thames. The parish councils have all met to consider this question and have passed resolutions in favour of these villages remaining in the county of Oxford. The Government have accepted that un to date, and I hope that they will continue to do so. The same opinion has been expressed by the borough council of Henley-on-Thames itself.
I have listened to the debates on a number of these Amendments and I know that importance is attached to local sentiment in spite of the perhaps rather cynical way in which my noble friend Lord Brooke has expressed himself on that subject. There is not the smallest doubt that local sentiment, as expressed by the parish councils, is overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in Oxfordshire. I do not understand the reference of my noble friend Lord Brooke to the fact that a large slice of Berkshire is being handed over to Oxfordshire in the Abingdon neighbourhood. He talked as though there were a sort of horse-dealing business—we have got something so we must give something back. I do not attach much weight to that argument.
I do not fully understand either what was said about hospital services. As many of your Lordships know, not so long ago I had the misfortune to have a serious accident. I was picked up unconscious in the neighbourhood of Henley-on-Thames and I was taken to hospital in Reading. I am not a member of the Berkshire Council, but it seems not to make the slightest difference in what county you are injured when you have to be taken to hospital. The police or the hospital services will see that you are taken to the nearest and most convenient place as rapidly as possible.
My noble friend Lord Thomas mach; a point that seemed to imply that it is easy to get to Reading and that it is 20 miles or more from Henley to Oxford. That is true. Henley is only 7 or 8 miles from Reading, whereas it is 25 miles from

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Oxford. But it is difficult to get from Henley to Reading. You cannot go by train without going to Twyford by stopping train, then changing trains and getting a train to Reading. If you try to go by road, at the rush hour it is almost impossible because there are only two bridges across the river, and they are choked with traffic. You cannot get across without waiting for a long time. If you had an amphibian vehicle you could drive it down to the river and get across. I am not impressed by the argument in favour of trying to persuade the Government to abandon the stand which they have hitherto taken.
I ought to make one further point. My noble friend Lord Thomas has some connections with Nuffield. The suggestion contained in Amendment No. 32 involves the splitting of three of these villages, Nettlebed, Nuffield and Bix, because it is suggested that half lie to one side of the Oxford Road as you go one way and half lie to the other side as you go the other way. Lord Nuffield, for whom my noble friend worked for many years, would turn in his grave if he thought that Nuffield was to be split in two. I am surprised that Lord Thomas should press that. I hope he will not Press the Amendment to a Division and that if he does it will be resisted and will fail.
LORD RATHCREEDAN: I should like to say a few words in support of the opposition to Amendment No. 32. I have lived in the Henley district for over fifty years. Although there seems to be some suggestion by the movers of this Amendment that we would be better off by being in Berkshire rather than in Oxfordshire none of the arguments placed before us makes me agree. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, who suggested that we have some sentimental attachments to Reading. It is certainly the other way round. All the sentimental attachments are to Oxford rather than to Reading. We do not go to Reading for any entertainment or culture because the town of Reading does not possess a single theatre, whereas Oxford has two very good theatres. The argument that Henley is 26 miles from Oxford whereas it is only 7 or 8 miles from Reading might have been an argument before the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and others produced the cheap form of transport, so that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord
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Hodson, has said, by the use of the motor car it is very nearly as easy to get to the centre of Oxford as to get to the centre of Reading. The boundary of the River Thames is a much better boundary than any other that can be thought out or made in Whitehall or by these Commissions. It is a well-defined boundary. The better a boundary is defined, the more satisfactory it is likely to remain. I hope that the Government will resist this Amendment as they have come to the very sensible conclusion that Henley rural district should remain in Oxfordshire.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: The Committee need not be afraid that I shall detain them for more than a moment. I have a small interest to declare in that I live in Berkshire, but not anywhere near the area we are now discussing. My noble friend Lord Howe twitted me on Wednesday because I were an old Etonian tie on the day on which I thought this Amendment was to be discussed. I had to remind him that in all the time I spent at Eton the address used by my family and by anyone else who cared to write to me was Eton College, Windsor, Berks. That has always been the case.
My noble friend Lord Howe accused Berkshire County Council, unfairly I thought, of being greedy. So did the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. I do not think this is the case. Berkshire County Council has taken a realistic point of view. The noble Lord, Lord Burnham, brought one or two very smart military phrases into his speech. As most noble Lords know, I have never been mixed up in local government but I was for many years in the Army, and I think that the realistic point of view that the council has taken has been that it is always better to administer those who are going to use one's services. Therefore I should like to support Amendments Nos. 30 and 32.
4.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: It seemed to me apposite that the debate on this series of Amendments should take place after the Statement made by my noble friend the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. When I heard the noble Earl, Lord Howe, talking about counties acting in an unfriendly manner, of policies of greed and grab, the rape of Buckinghamshire and the like, I thought

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we needed the F.C.O. to come in, and the help of my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir on this occasion. We have three things to deal with. We have the question of South Buckinghamshire being retained in Buckinghamshire, going back, so to speak, in terms of the Bill into Buckinghamshire. We have the question, secondly, of more of Buckinghamshire going into Berkshire; and we have the question of South Oxfordshire going into Berkshire and not remaining, as the Bill now proposes, in. Oxfordshire itself. I want to deal with these individually and I will try to bring up:is many points as possible which have been raised by noble Lords in a good series of debates.
May I first say to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, that I feel rather redundant here because to some degree they have answered each other. If not the anchorman in this tug-of-war, perhaps the referee has been my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor. I must respectfully differ from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson. I do not think my noble friend's point was about horse dealing; it was more about keeping the necessary balance between interests when making these very far-reaching changes. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, spoke of the long ties of loyalty and tradition in the area, and other noble Lords—Lord Davies of Leek particularly—have spoken about Slough looking essentially to London. I should have thought that it looked to Maidenhead and Reading as well. Here is a major artery. It has always been, so far as I know, a major artery of communication East to West. I would suggest to the Committee that these lines of communication, which are not only a major road and motorway and then a railway but are also economic and social as well, are strengthened by the Bill.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, if I understood him aright, said that the bulk of the population was against the change; but we would argue that the bulk of the population involved is in Slough, and Slough's council has come out emphatically in favour of the proposed changes. The councils speaking for roughly 90,000 people favour the changes, whereas councils speaking for just under 10,000 do not. The original proposals in Circular 8/71
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put the whole of Eton rural district with Slough and Eton urban district into the new Berkshire in older to avoid splitting the rural district. But this proposal was very strongly opposed by parishes in the North of the rural district, notably Gerrard's Cross and Denham. I think that if noble Lords know the area (and most noble Lords seem to) they would accept that it is rather a nonsense that Gerrard's Cross and Denham should belong to the rural district.
LORD DENHAM: Order, order!
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: I beg the acting Chief Whip's pardon in this respect. The protesting area was therefore transferred to the new Buckinghamshire and a fresh county boundary proposed running along the northern boundary at Slough except at Wexham, and there the boundary has been taken a little to the North to include the major hospital serving Slough and some houses contiguous with the town. The Bill also includes the Britwell ward of Burnham parish in the new Berkshire. This is to ensure that the municipal housing estate which is at.present divided by the Slough borough boundary should not be bisected by the new county boundary.
Here I must offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, whom on this side of the House we do not always find so helpful in his speeches. I can only conclude that he must have been affected by his position as an honorary old Etonian in this respect. I can however assure him that Eton urban district is proposed to be included in Berkshire along with Windsor and Slough. I think he seemed uncertain on that point. And of course we are extra grateful to have support from the noble Lord as he knows the area so well. Thus, the Bill now puts into Berkshire only those areas which must go if Slough is to be allowed to go as it wishes and as its natural affinities, I would suggest, dictate. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, here. But we acknowledge that some adjustments of the boundary in Berkshire's favour will clearly be needed, but that is an arena which I shall come to in a minute.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and I think also the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, brought up the question of

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Milton Keynes. During the consultations which followed publication of Circular 8/71 the Buckinghamshire County Council expressed their view that the loss of Slough and Eton would jeopardise the future of Milton Keynes New Town. Specifically, Buckinghamshire County Council said that the resources required to support expansion within the county were not merely financial but also included the large and diversified services and full range of specialist staff which only a substantial county could support. I believe our answer to this is that new Buckinghamshire will still be a county of substance; it is a case here of a very rich county becoming slightly less rich, and becoming a slightly less rich county temporarily only. It will have a population approaching half a million and a rateable value of over £26 million; and I do not think that is bad going. Milton Keynes is undeniably—we acknowledge this—a drain on resources at the present time. But it should be only a temporary problem. As the development of Milton Keynes proceeds rateable value should rapidly build up, and thus the New Town is potentially a great source of strength to the county.
I come now to the question of more of Buckinghamshire going into Berkshire and, if I may adapt myself to Lord Howe's phrasing, the land-hungry Berkshire aggression must be dealt with now. The effects would be that a larger amount of Eton rural district than the Bill proposes would be included in Berkshire, and I have already dealt with some of the parishes. My honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, during Commons Report stage, acknowledged that the Northern boundary of Slough was tightly drawn and he might be quoted here. He said:
"I accept that the borderlines are tightly drawn, probably to the prejudice of Berkshire, and therefore at an early stage after April 1, 1974, we expect to take a comprehensive look at the boundaries both to the North of Reading and in the Slough area."
May I now move on to the last point: the question of South Oxfordshire going into Berkshire. My noble friend Lord Brooke asked why the Government changed their mind on these proposals, and I will try to answer him. In our initial proposals we followed this recommendation by placing the Henleys in the new Berkshire. The proposal was,
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naturally enough, welcomed by Berkshire County Council, but it was opposed by Henley Borough Council, Henley Rural District Council and by numerous parish councils in the area, as well as by Oxfordshire County Council, who agreed, however, that some adjustment to the county boundaries might later be necessary to take account of the extension of the Northern suburbs of Reading. As was usually the case, and as has been the case in this Bill, with county boundary changes conceived to be in the interests of the inhabitants directly affected, the Government decided that in view of the opposition to the proposal the status quo should prevail, and some taste of that opposition has been given in your Lordships' House this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Camoys, whose family, I think, have lived at Stonor for over 1,000 years; by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson, and the noble Lord, Lord Rathcreedan. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson, in a telling phrase, spoke about the great importance of local sentiment.
However, to go some considerable way to meet my noble friend Lord Brooke we accept that the present county boundary will not be a very satisfactory long-term division between the two new counties as the Northern suburbs of Reading undoubtedly extend into the Southern part of the Henley rural district. But we believe that there is no clear-cut natural new boundary that we can adopt now. Therefore I recommend the Committee to accept our proposals, on the understanding that the Boundary Commission will be asked to make a thorough investigation of all the issues as soon as possible after April 1974.
Here I must say something to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor and also the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson, about the question of hospital services. I can assure all noble Lords that neither the definition of the county boundaries nor the new Health Service boundaries will affect the right of the patient and his own practitioner to use the hospital of their choice. I think noble Lords on all sides of the Committee will appreciate that it is impossible to tailor the organisation of local government to areas of the hospital service, although it is true to say that the Department of Health

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has been in close touch with my right honourable friend's Department and has made its preference known. As noble Lords will understand, in respect of this Bill in the final analysis local government considerations have obviously weighed most.
EARL HOWE: I should like to thank noble Lords who have supported me in my remarks this afternoon as far as Buckinghamshire is concerned. I cannot obviously speak for Oxfordshire. At the same time may I thank those noble Lords who would have wished to support me but who have been unable, for certain reasons, to be here to-day. I know perfectly well that they would have given me their support had that been possible.
I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Gowrie has been unable to accept my Amendment, although I am somewhat relieved to feel that he is to a certain extent in sympathy with me and with my noble friends in connection with the riverside parishes, because this is something that I, and those of us in Buckinghamshire, feel very strongly about. I am not sure that I feel particularly happy about this matter going to the Boundary Commission: it depends on the findings of the Boundary Commission. But at any rate I feel that I have drawn attention to it, and with those few remarks I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.10 p.m.
LORD THOMAS LORD THOMAS had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 30:
Corrigendum, page 2. leave out lines 21 to 25 and insert ("Datchet, Dornev. Horton, Wraysbury, Tanlow, Burnham, Farnham Royal, Stoke Foges, Wexham and Iver.")
The noble Lord said The noble Lord said: I am very much obliged to those noble Lords who have spoken in favour of this Amendment and I am equally grateful to those who have spoken against it, because the sum total of knowledge is increased; that is a good thing. On the general understanding that the case for Berkshire will be kept in mind by the Department I do not intend to move this Amendment.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE THE EARL OF GOWRIE: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Sandford I beg to move Amendment No. 31. This is the first of the two minor Amendments, one
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of which is purely drafting; the second is consequential upon an Opposition Amendment which was accepted in another place on Report. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Corricenium, page 2, line 22, column 2, leave out from the beginning to ("of") and insert ("ward").—(The Earl of Gowrie.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.14 p.m.
LORD WALSTON LORD WALSTON moved Amendment No. 34:
Corrigendum, page 2, line 29, at end insert—("In the administrative county of West Suffolk—
the urban district of Newmarket;
in the rural district of Mildenhall the parishes of Kentford and Moulton.")
The noble Lord said The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. This is a simple Amendment, dealing with a relatively straightforward area and straightforward boundaries. It does not have any of the complications, or indeed any of the fascination, of some of the previous proposals to which we have listened. But before coming to my reasons for moving this Amendment I should like to make one or two personal points. First of all. I am not moving this as somebody who sits on this side of the Committee. This is of no Party political significance whatsoever. Secondly, I am not moving it in any way as chairman of the Regional Economic Planning Council for East Anglia. It would clearly be very wrong of me to do any such thing. It has not been discussed by the Planning Council. Had it been discussed and any conclusion arrived at, the appropriate channels of communication would have been to the Secretary of State for the Environment and not to your Lordships. So I want to make that disclaimer. I am speaking solely as a private individual; as somebody who was born in Cambridgeshire and has lived there all his life—within ten or twelve miles of Newmarket, but firmly in the county of Cambridgeshire.
There are four main reasons why I have undertaken to move this Amendment. The first one is what one can call the logic of geography. I do not know how many of your Lordships have actually looked at the map which has been prepared, and I do not know how many of your Lordships' eyes are good

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enough to recognise the outlines from this distance, but if it is looked at it will be seen that Newmarket is jutting out prominently into Cambridgeshire, so that by all normal ideas of logical boundaries it should be included in Cambridgeshire. Furthermore, it may be said that it is impossible in fact to reach Newmarket by any road of any kind at all without passing through Cambridgeshire. Therefore, one starts with the first consideration, that geographical logic supports this Amendment. But, of course, there are many things other than geographical logic which have to be taken into account in these matters.
The second point I would come to is the major industry of Newmarket, which, as your Lordships well know, is horse-racing and bloodstock breeding. It is of perhaps some interest that the county boundary as at present defined, as proposed in this Bill, runs across the middle of Newmarket Heath. So that when, for instance, the Cambridgeshire is being run, the horses start, it is true, in Cambridgeshire, but they finish (if indeed they cross the finishing line) in Suffolk. Even more curious, perhaps, is that, if one sits in the grandstand, it depends on the particular end of the grandstand in which you sit whether you are sitting in Cambridgeshire or in Suffolk. That is a somewhat peculiar but perhaps not an enormously important consideration.
What is more important, however, is that the stud farms which are situated around Newmarket, the bloodstock industry, are divided—not equally, but are divided—between the two counties, and therefore have different regulations, different ratings and different local authorities to whom to look. If one excludes the Newmarket urban district but takes the rural districts around, far and away the larger number of stud farms are in fact in Cambridgeshire rather than in Suffolk. This, I suggest, is of some importance, because the bloodstock industry as such is not only of local significance to Newmarket, it is of very great national significance. That is something which is far too often overlooked—the export earnings of the bloodstock industry—and it would undoubtedly be far more convenient to the breeders of bloodstock, who are performing a very valuable national service in this way, if the great majority of them were in one administrative county. That is my second point.
Now I come to the third, which is, in a rather unhappy phrase perhaps, the argument of administrative convenience. We all know that this is very often given as an excuse by bureaucrats for not doing what common sense or humanity dictates. In this case, I suggest that administrative convenience and common sense, and to a certain extent, perhaps, humanity, all operate in the same direction. Let me just point out one or two facts. Newmarket looks to Cambridge rather than to Bury St. Edmunds as the present main communicative centre of the County of West Suffolk but not to be, one imagines, the centre of the new administrative County of Suffolk which will be very much farther away at Ipswich. Newmarket looks to Cambridge as the main shopping centre. In fact, of the total expenditure outside Newmarket, 49 per cent. is in the City of Cambridge and only 12 per cent. in the town of Bury St. Edmunds. Therefore four times as much money is spent and, one can say, four times as many people look from Newmarket to Cambridge as look from Bury St. Edmunds.
When you come to journeys to work. 14·2 per cent. go from Newmarket into Cambridge and only 4·6 per cent. travel from New Market to West Suffolk. In the opposite direction, going to Newmarket from Camt-ridge there are 26·5 per cent., and from West Suffolk to Newmarket 7·8 per cent. By these statistics it is clear that three times as many people from Newmarket work in Cambridgeshire as they do in Suffolk and three times as many people from Cambridgeshire go to Newmarket for work as from Suffolk.
In the previous Amendment there was a discussion about bus services and access to, in that case, Oxford and Reading. I do not think this matter is insignificant because it is by bus that a very large number of people travel; not everybody has a motor car of his own. The weekday bus service from Newmarket to Cambridge, 13 miles away, comprises 60 buses per week; whereas that from Newmarket to Bury St. Edmunds, 15 miles away, comprises only 17 per week. Therefore, all these arguments add up to !the inescapable conclusion that New-working area and entertainment area and market looks to Cambridge and Cambridgeshire as the main shopping area, not to Bury St. Edmunds or Suffolk.
Continuing on this argument of administrative convenience there are some other points which are worth bringing out. For instance, so far as planning of Newmarket and Cambridge is concerned, Cambridge is desperately short ofdevelopable land whereas it is reasonably plentiful in Newmarket. Cambridge is the largest and most varied market for labour and it is absolutely vital that the youth employment service of Cambridge is available for Newmarket children. Therefore I suggest it is an extremely important point. On the educational front it is also of enormous convenience (and convenient as reflected in the facilities offered to children and the opportunities that those children may then enjoy) that Cambridge and Cambridgeshire should be the educational authority for Newmarket as it is for its own villages and city.
It would seem that Newmarket's position in East Cambridgeshire should be the obvious centre to serve a wider range than the town itself for a great number of advisory services and further education: for instance, for the Cambridge College of Art and Technology, a very fine college, which has a wide range of studies and which should be within easy reach of the residents of Newmarket in the administrative County of Cambridgeshire. Similarly, social services would be more effectively and cheaply carried out. The administration of justice would be somewhat easier. At the moment there are two juvenile courts in Newmarket, one for Cambridge and one for West Suffolk. This is not a very logical or administratively adequate way of managing these affairs.
The psychiatric clinic in Newmarket Hospital is part of the Cambridgeshire psychiatric service. The social worker concerned with drug problems is employed jointly by the United Cambridge Hospitals, and the social services department is based in Cambridge but also operates in Newmarket. There are many other points of this sort which I could make, but I will mention only one other which I think of particular importance; that is, the police service.
As I have pointed out already, the urban district boundary nuts right across the Newmarket racecourse. Thus there is a division of responsibility for policing the racecourse between the Suffolk Constabulary and the Mid-Anglia Police
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Authority. Given the very special character of racing and the type of people who congregate at race meetings, it is surely obvious that there should be a strong and unified police force to deal with this. The Mid-Anglia Police Authority, on the logical understanding that the Government's proposals were to be implemented (I would remind your Lordships that it was originally the Government's proposal, incorporated in this Bill as it first appeared, that Newmarket should be in Cambridgeshire) has made plans for Newmarket to be the centre for the divisional police headquarters. They considered that the most efficient way to deal with this special and rather serious problem. Unless this Amendment is carried those plans will fall to the ground and the police force will have to abandon the idea which it has already promulgated for increasing its own efficiency.
At the same time, the Ely Urban and Rural District Councils have entered into very close support and co-operation with the Newmarket Urban District Council, at present in Suffolk, and Newmarket Rural District Council, at present in Cambridgeshire, for the unification of many of their services. Unless this Amendment is accepted by the Government, this arrangement will fall by the wayside. and again local government of that level will suffer inconvenience, and will be less efficient and probably more costly than otherwise would be the case.
The fourth point that I put forward, on which some noble Lords have laid stress and on which others have poured scorn, is the old-fashioned argument of democracy: what do the people want? I am encouraged to put forward this point in view of some of the remarks we have heard from Government spokesmen, and particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who said on August 9, in answer to my noble friend Lady White and my noble friend Lady Bacon, that the council of Rothwell, supported by several authorities in the Wakefield district, wanted to be in Wakefield. He adduced, quite correctly, that that was a strong argument for resisting a particular Amendment and for sticking to the Government proposals.
He went on to say that the fact that the people of Rothwell, through the expressed view of the urban district council itself and that of a considerable majority

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of people, had voted in favour of transfer to Wakefield district showed that the views of the people, and particularly the local authority concerned, quite rightly carried weight with Her Majesty's Government. In this case there can be no doubt whatever about the wishes of the Newmarket Urban District Council: they are unanimous in their wish that this Amendment should be accepted and that Newmarket should be in Cambridgeshire. In addition I have here a telegram which says:
"Newmarket Branch NALGO express their support for your efforts to include Newmarket in the new authority for Cambridge."
While, as I have said, there is not any Party political significance in this, the honourable Member for Bury St. Edmunds, in which constituency Newmarket finds itself, wrote a letter to the chairman of West Suffolk County Council in which he states his personal opinion to be that
"the links between Newmarket and Cambridge are so strong that it would benefit Newmarket if it was joined administratively with Cambridgeshire.… I personally have supported this view. Newmarket is a promontory sticking into Cambridge."
It is only fair to that honourable Member to say that I understand he has since changed his views but it is also only fair to point out that at one time he put very clearly and forcefully the reasons for supporting this Amendment.
I am asking Her Majesty's Government and your Lordships not to bring in something entirely new but to revert to what was in the original Bill as published, with the exception of Haverhill which I have not mentioned because nobody—neither the people of Haverhill themselves nor the other people who are concerned—wish it to be in Cambridge. For that reason this Amendment deals solely with what the M.P. described as a promontory. The local authority is unanimous in its desire that it should be incorporated. I therefore ask your Lordships to accept this Amendment.
4.32 p.m.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked me whether I would support him in this Amendment. I have read the case before, and after listening to the noble Lord's speech I have no doubt whatever that it should be supported. The noble Lord spoke about the logic of geography and the
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need to avoid promontories. It seems to me that part of the habit of the Government in this dividing of boundaries is to create some of these anomalous promontories. The noble Lord spoke about the importance of having all the racecourse and the urban district council in the same county. He proved that Newmarket looks towards Cambridge in every way and that the wishes of the urban district council are that they should be in Cambridge. I have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: We in Suffolk have got rather cynical during the last few years about the number of commissions, Bills, White Papers and the like which have tried successfully to force us into various Procrustean beds of ideas as to what a county should consist of—lopping of a district council here and adding one there. It was with a great sense of relief that we finally got this Bill in your Lordships' House with the county in its entire, traditional, geographical situation—the whole of Suffolk to be placed in one unit with the exception of one, two or three parishes in the extreme North which are to go into Norfolk, parishes which we think a Private Bills Committee would probably have put into the neighbouring county and which certainly ought to be dealt with by the Boundary Commissioner and not by an Amendment in your Lordships' House.
I was therefore somewhat surprised—perhaps "surprised " is not the right word, because we are used to being surprised by rather ill-founded suggestions about the way our county should be developed—but in any case it was nothing new to us, when we saw this Amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, in what I must confess was about the weakest case I have ever heard, knowing the situation in the county as I do. I have no doubt that if the noble Lord who sits on the Cross Benches had as close a knowledge of the county of Suffolk as some of us have, he might not have supported the noble Lord, Lord Walston, so quickly after hearing but one side of the question.
I will deal first with the question of democracy, to which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, referred as the last of his

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four points. He told us that the Newmarket Urban District Council was unanimously in favour of going into Cambridgeshire and that that therefore meant that all the people of Newmarket were also in favour of the move. In fact, at a meeting held on July 3 last only 11 out of the 15 members of the urban district council were present. Ten of them voted in favour of going into Cambridgeshire, one voted against and, as I say, the other four were not present. Thus, all one can say is that 66 per cent. of the members of the urban district council are in favour of going into Cambridgeshire, one is against and all the others have not voted on the subject.
The demos of Newmarket do not elect only the urban district council. Exactly the same people elect their county councillors, and of the four county councillors who represent Newmarket—one presumes that having been elected by the local people they are able to sneak on their behalf, knowing the will of the people—all of them, 100 per cent., have voted in favour of staying in West Suffolk. The only thing I have been able to discover about the real feeling of the common man there is by looking at the letters that have been written to the local newspapers, and all of those save one have been in favour of staying in Suffolk. That one letter came from Bottisham, a place in Cambridgeshire, and the writer, like another person from Cambridgeshire—the noble Lord, Lord Walston—felt that the neighbouring part of West Suffolk should come and join him. It will be seen, therefore, that it is certainly not the unanimous wish of the district council or of the county councillors to go into Cambridgeshire. The strong expression of view among the writers of letters to the local newspapers shows a strong desire to stay in their own county.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, then referred to the apparently ridiculous position of the racecourse going out of one county and coming into another, and of the training establishments being in the two counties. He suggested that the only way of overcoming the problem was to put the lot into Cambridgeshire. We in Suffolk have been fully aware of this position, but it affects only a few small parishes round Newmarket. We always felt that that was not the sort of matter
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about which we should trouble your Lordships. At various times it has been suggested that certain small parishes should go into the town so as to overcome these boundary complications, and it would seem on balance preferable that the small parishes which have caused this difficulty should be joined to the larger unit rather than having the larger unit taken away in order to join these small parishes.
It was curious to hear the noble Lord, Lord Walston. say—I hope I am not misrepresenting him; he will correct me if I am wrong—that 14 per cent. of the employed population of Newmarket went towards Cambridge to work and that only 4 per cent. went to the West, and he described going to the West as going to West Suffolk. In fact Newmarket is already in West Suffolk, and by my calculations the proportion of the people in the West Suffolk town of Newmarket who work in West Suffolk is 100 minus 14, which is 86. I should have said myself that 86 per cent. worked in West Suffolk and 14 per cent. go to Cambridge, which I think is a remarkably small proportion, bearing in mind that Cambridge is only 12 miles away and highly industrialised. I should have thought it would have taken at least 50 per cent. from any little town with a population of 10,000 or 12,000—inevitably a dormitory town—10 or 12 miles away from it.
He then referred to the fact that the surrounding district council area had its office in Newmarket, there were two juvenile courts in Newmarket and there were various other administrative bodies that worked in Newmarket from the surrounding district. Because that was so, he suggested that Newmarket should be joined to the surrounding district. I do not live in West Suffolk and I may have made some mistakes about what actually goes into West Suffolk, but certainly in the county borough near my home two rural districts have their offices. The county council has its office there and the magistrates from two divisions outside the county borough meet there. But none of us has yet suggested that the county borough should be joined to the rural district council which has its office there, or to the county council whose county court is there. Inevitably where there is any town in any rural district,

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the bench, the juvenile court and the whole of the social services will be administered from that town. That is the right and proper way to manage things.
I do not think myself, and I feel that your Lordships will not think either, that the noble Lord has made any case for altering the status quo which has existed for a great many hundreds of years. When Charles II came to Newmarket to see the races, justice was administered partly by the justices in quarter sessions sitting in Bury St. Edmunds and partly by the justices of the peace sitting in quarter sessions in Cambridgeshire; and exactly the same position occurs to-day. Indeed, that visit, it has been said, is part of Suffolk history, because had not his late Majesty been accompanied, I am told, by the Duchess of Cleveland, neither your Lordships' House nor we in Suffolk would have had the pleasure of numbering among our friends and companions the noble Duke, the Duke of Grafton.
4.43 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: I wish to support my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, and to tell your Lordships that I live in Newmarket and served for nine years on the West Suffolk County Council. I should like to tell your Lordships very briefly—because I know there is a great deal more business to be done—a little about the early history of the great problem with which we are faced. It is true that in the Royal Commission's Report they said that Lowestoft, in the East, should go into Norfolk, and Newmarket, and parts of the rural district of Clare and Haverhill, into Cambridgeshire. But to compensate for the loss of those areas they said that the whole of the North-East area of Essex—the Colchester/ Harwich area—was to go into Suffolk. As your Lordships know, that was in the Royal Commission's Report and in the White Paper. When we debated the White Paper there was great feeling by Essex County Council against the loss of that part of Essex. So when the Bill came out the Government altered their ideas on that and put back that part of Essex, largely because Essex had made Colchester a university town.
LORD ALPORT: May I interrupt my noble friend to say that when the Bill came out there was no change in Govern
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ment policy. Any change made was made subsequently.
LORD WOLVERTON: It was subsequently, in the House of Commons; I beg your Lordships' pardon. The change came for Lowestoft, and they put Lowestoft back again. They did not put back Newmarket, Haverhill and Clare. There was a great deal of feeling about breaking up the county. I spoke on the White Paper, and I said that I thought it a great pity to break up the county, and urged that we should keep a united county. In another place three honourable Members representing parts of Suffolk put down an Amendment to put back Haverhill, parts of Clare, and Newmarket into the new Suffolk, which is going to be the combined East Suffolk and West Suffolk and Ipswich County Borough. The Minister said he would give careful consideration to that suggestion but did not commit himself either way. When the Bill came to Report stage he said that they had decided that they would keep a united Suffolk and put that back. That has pleased enormously Haverhill and Clare, but it has not pleased the Urban District Council of Newmarket. My noble friend Lord Cranbrook has told me that. It has pleased a great many people in Newmarket itself; in almost all the letters I have read, except about one, the people in New-market said that they were relieved at this alteration back again and the decision to keep a united Suffolk. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not change their minds again. It is quite true that on geographical logic Newmarket looks to its regional city of Cambridge for shopping and such things, but I do not see why they should not go on doing that in the future.
In 1965 and 1966 there was a major Boundary Commission inquiry by the old Boundary Commission, and the whole of this matter was threshed out. I was a member of the West Suffolk County Council at the time and I attended all the meetings; it was a very costly inquiry, with all parties represented by learned counsel. They came to the decision that Newmarket should stay in Suffolk, but that there should be slight adjustment of the boundary because it stuck right out into Cambridgeshire. That recommendation was never implemented. Your Lordships will remember that there was a

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change of Government; and the new Government said that they would implement only recommendations of the old Boundary Commission which had been completed; and that area had not been completed. But in the Newmarket area they made a recommendation, which is set out in the memorandum prepared by the West Suffolk County Council. They came to the unanimous decision that, with only a slight boundary alteration, Newmarket should remain in the County of Suffolk, where it has always been. That alteration can easily be made by the new Boundary Commission, which has been set up to look at these matters in 1974 and make any slight adjustments considered necessary. They could make slight adjustments of the boundary, especially as it affects the built-up area of Newmarket and the racecourses. The Jockey Club have always said (it is in a memorandum prepared by the Newmarket Urban District Council) that whatever county they were in they would like the two racecourses to be in the same county. The two racecourses now are both in Cambridgeshire, although the Suffolk boundary runs right up to the racecourse. In fact I believe that the stands of the Rowley Mile are in Cambridgeshire and the paddock is in Suffolk; but that boundary can be altered by slight alteration.
There is one important thing that Lord Walston said that I must correct. He said that there is very little land in Cambridge for development but that there is plenty of land in Newmarket. I can assure your Lordships that there is not plenty of land in Newmarket. The West Suffolk County Council have released enough land for building, but it is quite difficult to get the building plots they want, because the planning authority have been trying to preserve as much of the land as possible for training and breeding of horses. So there is not a great deal of extra land available.
I must say one word about the police. The Suffolk police were an amalgamation of East Suffolk and the County Borough of Ipswich and they are organised as one division for the whole of West Suffolk. But Newmarket has a powerful subsub-division, which consists of a chief inspector, four sergeants, a detective sergeant, two detectives and 25 constables. That is a good force, and I should have
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thought quite adequate for protection—they do a wonderful job—for a town with a population of 10,000. I do not think there is any more I can tell your Lordships, but I hope that on the grounds I have mentioned this Amendment will be resisted.
4.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: At this relatively late hour in what has been the busiest week in your Lordships' House for a very long time, I shall speak as briefly as possible. This particular race at Newmarket has now been run, and it appears has been won by Suffolk. Now we have an objection from the owners of the horse that lost. In racing terms, some people could call it an objection based on bumping and boring, but in my submission it is ill-founded and should not be allowed to succeed. The stewards of the course, in this instance your Lordships, will have to decide the matter impartially and objectively and I shall do my best to support my noble friends Lord Cranbrook and Lord Wolverton and to convince your Lordships that the race has been run fairly and squarely under Jockey Club rules and that there is no reason whatever for overturning the decision which has been taken in another place.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for missing the first few sentences of his speech. He told me yesterday he would be speaking in a purely private capacity, and not as chairman of the East Anglia Economic Planning Council. I only say that because I also serve on that Council under his distinguished chairmanship and, as I am opposing this Amendment, I feel I must make it clear that I am speaking in a purely private capacity. The fact that he lives in Cambridgeshire and I live in what is still for another few months West Suffolk I suppose has some bearing on the fact that we take opposing views, but the fact that he speaks from those Benches and I speak from these Benches is not, I submit, particularly relevant.
It is my understanding that the Government have agreed to the transfer of areas into neighbouring counties under this Bill only where there is an overriding reason for doing so. This naturally has taken into account the views of all those who are affected by any such transfer. In

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the case of North-East Essex, which is the subject of another Amendment later, although in my view there are overriding reasons for its transfer into Suffolk on economic, geographical and planning grounds, and although certain local councils in that area are 100 per cent. in favour of the transfer, it appears that there was not a sufficient majority who favoured its transfer into Suffolk. The same logic surely applies to Newmarket, where the campaign for its transfer into Cambridgeshire is being led and has been led by a small and vocal majority, whereas the majority so far as I can ascertain wish to remain in Suffolk.
A letter in last Monday's East Anglian Daily Times reads as follows:
"I see that Newmarket has had 'news' in your paper for the past three days about the boundaries. I am very surprised to know that you have not published a letter from any of the townspeople.
"I share the view of a great number of my fellow townspeople who wish to abide by the decision of the Government and leave the town in the county of Suffolk."
And it goes on, my Lords, in (what shall I say?) terms which I think perhaps I ought not to repeat in your Lordships' House. As my noble friend Lord Cranbrook has already mentioned, the four county councils who represent that part of Suffolk are very keen for Newmarket to stay in Suffolk.
I cannot agree with the argument that Newmarket should go into Cambridgeshire in order to straighten out the county boundary. If you look at the map of the proposed county boundaries in England, you will see many examples of bits of one county sticking out into another. If you take this to its logical conclusion, the entire map would have to be redrawn, with a set square and ruler. Similarly, the map would have to be redrawn if one agreed with the argument that all small towns in a region had to be in the same local government area as the regional centre to which they look for shopping, leisure, and recreational purposes. For example, many people in Suffolk go to Norwich for these purposes—others go to Cambridge, and some, I have heard, even come so far as London.
I am not impressed by the argument that Newmarket should go into Cambridgeshire because it is only 12 miles from Cambridge where, it is said, the new
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headquarters of the new county council are likely to be. It is quite possible that the new headquarters might be at Huntingdon or even Peterborough. At the same time, the A.45 road to Ipswich (which will be the new Suffolk county headquarters) is about to be brought up to motorway standards, and there is anyway bound to be an area office of that county council in Bury St. Edmunds.
I cannot accept the argument that Newmarket should go into Cambridgeshire for educational or social services reasons. There are perfectly satisfactory existing "over the border" arrangements for the free movement of children for education, and of sick people for hospital treatment, and there is no reason to suppose that these arrangements should not continue to work as well in the future. There is no doubt a case for some modest boundary adjustments to be made in order to remove certain local boundary anomalies which noble Lords have already mentioned, which relate to the needs of the training establishments and the two racecourses to be in the area of the same local authority and within the same police authority—and also for the trunk roads in the area to be in the control of the same highway authority and the same police authority. But these are matters which can and should be resolved quite satisfactorily by the Boundary Commission.
But my main argument for Newmarket remaining in Suffolk is one of balance. I am not talking of political balance; I am talking of economic, geographical and planning balance and I am trying to look at it objectively from the point of view of both Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. I admit that I am also looking at it from a traditional point of view, and I freely admit that the most important consideration is the future welfare and prosperity of those who live and work in the Newmarket area. On all these counts, as I hope is by now fairly obvious to your Lordships, I cannot and do not favour the transfer of Newmarket into Cambridgeshire. Far from there being any one overriding reason for its transfer, there are many overriding reasons why it should remain in Suffolk.
I would therefore ask your Lordships to stand by the Government's decision, to ensure that this objection does not succeed, and to indicate a collective view,

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if this particular Amendment is taken to a Division, that it finishes up in the Lobbies, where it started, as an "also ran".
4.59 p.m.
LORD WIGG: I shall trouble your Lordships for but a few moments. My interest in the matter arises from the very simple fact that it seems to me that whether Newmarket goes into Cambridgeshire or into the new Suffolk is a matter that concerns those who know much more about the subject than I do. The one thing that I am certain about is that somebody—and I rather suspect the Minister—does not know quite so much about racing as perhaps he should. Newmarket is probably the most famous racing headquarters in the world, and long may it remain so. To indulge in a boundary revision, and then draw the boundary through the Rowley Mile—and indeed through the grandstand—is enough to make Charles II turn in his grave. I hope that, irrespective of the considerations of high policy which have been before your Lordships this afternoon, the Government will bring to bear their influence on the Boundary Commission to redraw the boundary in such a way that both racecourses, if it is possible, are brought within the area of the same authority.
I represented for a number of years in the House of Commons a constituency which I think was almost unique; it was a small bit of Worcestershire surrounded by Staffordshire. I know only too well the troubles that this caused. It affected every aspect of local government life. Those problems have now been forgotten and there is a greater Dudley. But these questions of boundaries touch on local patriotism and perhaps there are those who think that these kinds of feeling can be swept on one side. I think that is a political blunder of the first magnitude.
When one thinks of a great industry like racing—and I freely admit that the stud farms around Newmarket are associated directly with the prosperity of that industry—one has to remember the sales which take place and earn for this country very considerable sums in foreign currency. This is something worth bearing in mind. I am perhaps in a minority this afternoon in not pleading to your Lordships for this local authority or for
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that local authority, but I say to the Government, "Please have another look at these boundaries and, if you can, treat the racing industry with the seriousness with which it ought to be treated; please ensure that whatever decision is finally taken it is either all here or all there." For heaven's sake do not let a future second in one of our classics say, " I am sorry that I lost the race, I thought I was in Suffolk when I was in Cambridgeshire ", or vice versa.
LORD GREENWAY: I am sure we were all delighted to hear Lord Wigg. I did not know that he was behind me and was to speak on this Amendment, but I am glad that he has done so.
I support the noble Lord, Lord Walston, on this Amendment because although I have nothing to do with local government it horrifies me that a boundary should go through the sacred bit of turf known as the Rowley Mile. All our bloodstock which we export abroad is bred around there and bought by the Japanese or people from elsewhere. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, might even find the water-jump in the five-furlong race, and that is only four inches deep, I think. I rose only to say that I support the noble Lord, Lord Walston.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I heard such a devastating, logical argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Walston that I was interested in trying to find the answers. I am still interested in trying to find the answers from the Government. I do not wish to declare my vote either way because I listened to the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, to whom this House always listens with the greatest respect. Nevertheless, if we look at the "iron filings" attracted to the magnet of association with Newmarket for Cambridge and the examples that the noble Lord, Lord Walston gave of the economic, human and social interests of Newmarket with Cambridge, I think we shall find them overwhelming.
I should like to ask my noble friend, Lord Wigg, although he has never given me a winner in all his life—he might have done so once or twice when I "shacked" up with him—if there is any planning wanted for the racecourse at Newmarket, would the racecourse authorities have to apply to both local authorities and would both have to come

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to a decision? Could that not be lay planning for a first-class racecourse like this?
LORD WIGG: I am afraid that is a technical question I could not possibly answer, but I think there is enough good sense, whether Newmarket went into Cambridgeshire or Suffolk—they are not foreigners and both speak the same language and understand racing—to have such problems solved on the basis of common sense. I do not think my noble friend need worry about that. I am sorry that he has always backed losers.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I am grateful to my noble friend for that answer. I note that the noble Lord has to ride two horses at the same time. I am glad that he can do so.
5.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: I should like for a few minutes to support the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Walston. Although I am very fond of racing, I do not want to talk about racing because we have heard a lot about it. It is most important, but it is not the only thing that is important concerning Newmarket. I am very concerned, as are the Newmarket Rural District Council, about the planning problems which the proposal in the Bill will cause. The Newmarket Rural District Council surrounds the Urban District Council and they have a very good working arrangement, although they are in two separate counties. They were looking forward to having a closer arrangement, which both authorities felt would be of great value to their ratepayers. We must bear in mind that we are trying to do something which will last for a long time, and it is not sufficient to be told that the Boundary Commission can look into all these points later. I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who said that these matters should be decided on their merits now and should not be allowed to be done wrongly and then have to be done again. I feel that if this Bill is passed in its present form it will be wrong.
This matter has been gone into at great length by many experts: by the noble Lord. Lord Redcliffe-Maud, who spoke in the Second Reading debate; by the Boundary Commission under the 1958
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Act, which was operating in very different circumstances, and which came to the conclusion that changes were needed; and by the Government after very careful negotiation and consultation. As I said in my speech on Second Reading, the Government tried very hard to get agreement. I attended the meeting in that area at which the right honourable gentleman the Minister for Local Government and Development was present, and after that consultation the Bill was printed with Newmarket Urban District Council put into Cambridgeshire. A miracle seems to have happened and Amendment No. 58 got through at the last minute. It was a bit of a dark horse, if I may use racing language; and how it got into the stalls nobody knew. I believe that the leak that it had got in caused the Member for Bury St. Edmunds some embarrassment. He had previously said that he was in favour of Newmarket Urban District Council going into Cambridgeshire, as was stated by the noble Lord, Lord Walston.
I do not suppose we shall get another miracle and that the Government will accept this Amendment here, but I would ask them to have a look at this matter in the same way as they have undertaken to look at other matters which have been dealt with this afternoon. It seems to me, and to many other people, irrespective of Party, that to leave a boundary like this must be patently wrong. There must have been very compelling reasons for Government Amendment No. 58 in another place. Noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite have not yet had an opportunity of putting those reasons to your Lordships, and we shall naturally listen to them with great care. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, stick up for their county as I stick up for Rutland, where we achieved a complete miracle in 1966. There was no possible logical defence by our side. Suffolk also seemed to have achieved a miracle in getting Amendment No. 58 put into the Bill right at the end of the proceedings. I hope your Lordships will agree that miracles of this kind do not happen unless there is a very good reason, and unless the prayers of our right reverend colleagues on the Bishops' Bench are strong enough to bring them about.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I hesitate to speak again at this late hour, but I have some experience of working between district councils. Here we have two district councils in two different counties already working together, as every one of us works with his neighbours throughout local government. Indeed, the Government go a little further in this Bill. One clause—I believe it is around Clause 100—makes special provision for two district councils to combine in carrying out a part or the whole of their functions. This is common practice among local authorities and I should have thought the fact that two local authorities are already co-operating as any proper, well brought-up local authority does, was possibly a reason for not finding it necessary to put them together.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: If I might say just one more word: talking of miracles, does the noble Earl, Lord Gainsborough, suggest that God has in fact moved from Gloucestershire to Suffolk?
5.10 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD): In answering this Amendment I must also declare an interest, because I am a resident not of West but of East Suffolk. I hope that your Lordships will acquit me of partiality, because, although I am replying to this Amendment, by which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, is seeking to remove an area of West Suffolk into Cambridgeshire, I am also intending to reply to the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, which comes a little later on the Marshalled List, and which would carry North-East Essex into Suffolk. This, subject to the persuasive powers of the noble Lord and any other noble Lord, the Government have hitherto been resisting. Although the noble Lord who moved this Amendment did so in an entirely private capacity, the noble Lord, Lord Walston, none the less is currently Chairman of the East Anglian Planning Council, and all residents of East Anglia have good reason to be grateful to the noble Lord for the unstinting way in which he gives his services to us, the people who live in the Eastern Region.
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As we should all expect of the noble Lord, knowing his work, he has, I am afraid to say, prosecuted the case for this Amendment with his customary clarity. The noble Lord asked us to look at what he called the logic of the geography of Newmarket. I am a little surprised that he did not also remind not only the Committee, but particularly the noble Lord. Lord Maybray-King, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, of the conclusion which on not one occasion, but on two occasions, the Boundary Commission have drawn from their inspection of Newmarket on the map. For in 1961, and again in 1965, the Local Government Boundary Commission were impressed by the need to look on Newmarket and its surrounding parishes as a whole, taking Lord Wigg's point, and on both occasions the Commission recommended not that a number of surrounding parishes should be transferred into Cambridgeshire, but that they should join Newmarket in West Suffolk. And to be specific, in 1965 the Local Government Boundary Commission recommended adding to West Suffolk the parish of Kennett and parts of ten other parishes in Newmarket rural district, comprising just under 11,000 acres, with the objective of uniting in Suffolk, Newmarket, the racecourses, the training establishments and the stud farms. Going no further than that, in the light of that evidence from the Local Government Boundary Commission on two occasions, I am simply asking your Lordships on behalf of the Government this evening to agree that this historic town, which has always been part of Suffolk, should remain within its county boundary. May I assure the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that the details of the Suffolk boundary on this point will be referred (I give this as an undertaking) to the Local Government Boundary Commission to review the links between the urban district and its surroundings after 1974.
There are positive reasons locally for maintaining the historic link with Newmarket in Suffolk, which has been spoken about so eloquently by some of my noble friends, not least a former chairman of the East Suffolk County Council (this is not his territory), my noble friend Lord Cranbrook. First, as he said, the four county council representatives have made it clear that this is a view which they

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support. It is perfectly true that the urban district council take a diametrically opposite view. It would be wrong for me not to record this. But it would also be quite wrong for me not to record that I have listened carefully to the speeches this afternoon, and, as I understand from what noble Lords have said, the published letters which have appeared seem to have been enormously in favour of the same course. Then the parishes of Moulton and Kentford (and these are two parishes of which nothing has been mentioned in the debate this afternoon, but they are also the subject of the noble Lord's Amendment) have made it crystal clear that they wish to remain in Suffolk.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Walston, that it is most desirable for many services to be based, and to be seen to be clearly based, on one county—though I must say that, like my noble friend Lord Wolverton, I was a little startled to hear the noble Lord, Lord Walston, refer to housing needs in Cambridgeshire being assisted by development in Newmarket. I was not quite sure that that was something which Newmarket would take kindly to. But that is as it may be.
In this debate may I remind the Committee that the Boundary Commission has twice concluded that the way to see a logical approach to services is to retain the boundary and to remove a small area into Suffolk. Your Lordships should be aware that if this were done there would be no difficulty, as I understand it, with the highways immediately around the town coming under one authority; and there would be positive advantages in clarifying the jurisdiction of some services which hitherto, it is quite true, covered statutorily only part of the immediate area but which could—and I entirely agree with the noble Lord when he says "should"—serve the racing industry as a whole.
The noble Lord took the police as an example. It is as good an example as any to take. The Suffolk Police Authority recognises the special problems of Newmarket and a strong establishment is maintained in this subdivision. If it were transferred, I am advised that this would entail about 60 men moving across to a different police authority, and high though the standards are of all the East Anglian
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police, it would mean that a force which has had special experience of Newmarket urban district would no longer in fact serve the area. They say that the loyalties of police officers are, first, to the Service as a whole, and secondly, to the local authority responsible for policing; but I seriously submit that it would be both unnecessary and unwise in this case to prove the truth of this assertion.
Then the noble Lords, Lord Gains-borough and Lord Walston, raised, quite rightly, the additional argument about districts, and of course the specific matter of the withdrawal of Newmarket from the proposed Cambridgeshire District No. 4, which the Boundary Commission designate have given in their memorandum of draft proposals. The withdrawal of Newmarket would render that proposed Cambridgeshire district too small. In another place, the honourable Member for the Isle of Ely expressed his strong regret—as he would very probably be expected to do—about the move proposed by the Government. I think it would be right for me to record that the honourable Member also expressed the opinion (which was extremely constructive and helpful of him) that the proposed Cambridgeshire District 4 would work harmoniously without Newmarket urban district. Of course it will be for the Boundary Commission designate to make their final recommendations, after visiting districts with special problems, and these recommendations are going to be subject to Parliamentary approval. Your Lordships may wish to know that it was announced on Monday that the Commission will be visiting Cambridgeshire next month precisely for this purpose.
Your Lordships may ask whether I have left something out. Did not the Redcliffe-Maud Commission recommend that Newmarket should join a Cambridgeshire and South Fens unitary authority? Redcliffe-Maud did indeed make that recommendation and they made exactly the same recommendation about Royston. Your Lordships will know many examples in this area of border towns which have links across their county borders—I can think of Beccles, Bungay, Thetford, Royston, and perhaps one might add Saffron Walden. But I imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, takes the view that towns of this sort are very important parts of their county.

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Like the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, I must voice my perplexity as to why it is that this East Anglian town of Newmarket, with such historic links, has been chosen as just the one for this particular Amendment. I believe, and I submit, that Redcliffe-Maud is another example of scrutiny of this area and the conclusion that it must be treated as a whole, because I find it interesting that Newmarket was not included in the Cambridge catchment area for commuting flows for the Local Government Boundary Commission, and I understand that the Cambridgeshire development plan does not show Newmarket as being within the sphere of Cambridge influence. Among the points which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, made so ably about travel to work, the social services, shopping and so on, there were points (on which I must say I agreed with my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, that I felt I had heard bandied forwards and backwards many times, although rarely as ably as this afternoon.
Forgive me, as time is pressing, if I only pick the one which I know a little about at first hand—education. Since I went to work at the Department of Education and Science I have obviously been interested to see at first hand the way in which the West Suffolk County Council provides educational facilities for the surrounding villages in the Newmarket schools. In January of this year statutory proposals were approved for [5–9] first schools in this area south of Newmarket, and for middle schools based on Burwell village college. The effect of these proposals is to add about 30 pupils a year to the Newmarket middle school from the Cambridgeshire [5–9] schools, and 50 pupils, rising to 60, to the upper school from Burwell. The school population in both areas is rising steadily.
But this is not a significant factor in the way the schools are organised. The significant factor is that Newmarket has traditionally served the parts of Cambridgeshire to its South and that with reorganisation taking place elsewhere in the county the schools fit together. No longer are we considering the RedcliffeMaud concept of a unitary authority. It will be for the Boundary Commission, with Parliamentary approval, to desig-
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nate the new distriots. The Government appreciate the care and hard work which have been displayed by the Newmarket Urban District Council in exploratory plans with possible district neighbours in Cambridgeshire, and time will be given to authorities to give fresh thought to districts in the light of final decisions on the Bill. Whatever is decided, the presence of Newmarket in a Suffolk district will be much appreciated. We are also considering Moulton and Kentford, both of which lie on the Suffolk side of Newmarket.
Criticism has been levelled at the distance from Newmarket to Ipswich. We are considering a Bill with important functions allocated not only to the county but to the districts. As those who live in the region know, the A.45 main artery across Suffolk is a road which is now rapidly being improved by a by-pass at Bury St. Edmunds and another already under construction at Stowmarket. Any of your Lordships who live in East Anglia will readily understand the increasing pressure of accelerating population and industrialisation to which this once wholly rural region is now subject.
Nowhere is it more true than in parts of Suffolk, and nowhere is it more true than in the area in which I live in East Suffolk. Anyone visiting the whole county to-day would agree that the authority is handling its planning, its social services, education, all the things one wants for a rapidly expanding population, sensitively and well. For this to continue Suffolk must remain not just viable in terms of its size but healthy. This is why the speeches of my noble friends Lord Cranbrook, Lord Davidson and Lord Wolverton, were so important.
At the South-East end of the county it was proposed to add a very large part of North-East Essex, but it was finally understood to be unacceptable to the area to be transferred. At the moment of speaking, subject to the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Alport, the South-East boundary of Suffolk remains the same. The Government were then considering moving Haverhill and Newmarket into Cambridgeshire, but as there had been no addition to the South-East Suffolk boundary the Government accepted that any proposal to deprive the county's western boundary needed careful consideration. On Report stage in

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another place the Government therefore retained both Haverhill and Newmarket, and their environs, in Suffolk.
It is important to understand that Suffolk will still have, despite this move, the lowest rateable value of all the East Anglian counties. If the Amendment were agreed to over 14,000 more people would be transferred out of this important strategic, but less strong, county. If both Newmarket and Haverhill were to be part of Cambridgeshire the loss to Suffolk would be over 30,000 in population. The noble Lord accepts this argument for Haverhill, but apparently rejects it for Newmarket. I ask your Lordships to resist this Amendment and by so doing prevent this historic area of the county being transferred, with the undertaking that the Boundary Commission will examine the details of the boundary in this area.
LORD WALSTON: Suffolk undoubtedly must be grateful to its own noble Lords who have rallied so loyally to its defence. It is indeed a fortunate county to have spokesmen such as we have listened to to-day. I think I am right in saying—and there may be some significance in this—that the only noble Lord who spoke in favour of this Amendment also happens by chance to be resident in Suffolk. So I hope that the county expresses its thanks in an appropriate manner. I would express my thanks to the other noble Lords, none of whom happen to live in Cambridgeshire and therefore perhaps can look at this somewhat more objectively, who have supported what I have said. Obviously I shall not repeat any of the arguments and I shall deal only briefly with what I may, by courtesy, call the arguments which have been put forward on the other side. I do not wish to be in any way offensive to noble Lords, some of whom are my friends outside the Chamber, for what they have said.
First of all, I would take issue with the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson. I might have accused certain people in this race of bumping but never, surely, of boring your Lordships in this Chamber. The theme of these "arguments" has been that Newmarket has always been in Suffolk and that therefore there can be no other argument about it as things
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have been so they shall remain. That argument has many attractions, but that is not the way in which we should look at local government and at the modernisation of local government. The other argument put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook and of which I could not quite follow the logic, was that as a result of Newmarket being in Suffolk, Suffolk is now graced with His Grace of Grafton. Fortunately, your Lordships' Chamber is graced by him. I wish it were more so. But even that is not a telling argument in favour of rejecting this Amendment.
In view of the support that I have received I am strongly tempted to press this Amendment to a Division, but I am probably right in saying that this is the latest date in August that your Lordships have ever sat. I know that you have more business to get through and that many are getting somewhat impatient, apparently more on this side of the Committee than on the other side. Therefore, I shall not press this to a Division because it would detain your Lordships for another six or seven minutes. However, I should like to reserve the right to raise this matter again on Report stage, when I hope that there will be a more representative gathering of noble Lords so that, if it is thought fit, this can be dealt with in somewhat more detail. In the circumstances, I beg, leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.28 p.m.
LORD JACQUES LORD JACQUES moved Amendment No. 35:
Corrigendum, page 3, line 21, leave out ("Plymouth").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment seeks to apply all the principles laid down by the Government in the White Paper. Furthermore, it follows closely the proposals which the Government have made for solving a similar problem in other parts of the country, particularly at Humberside and Avonside. Indeed, my argument will closely follow the argument put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross when he defended Humberside in the debate on Amendment No. 20 this morning. I therefore feel that I should only have to outline the case for him to accept it warmly.
Devon is our largest administrative county. Its dominant geographical feature is the land mass of Dartmoor. The roads and railways have to go around Dartmoor rather than across it, and the development is around the Moor rather than on the Moor. In consequence, in the administration of the county there are long distances to be travelled by both councillors and officials. Furthermore, in the summer the roads are congested by tourist traffic. Put very briefly, the county council in its written evidence to the Royal Commission said much time was wasted in travelling; that it was a very real factor in increasing the costs of administration, and it was responsible for a great deal of inconvenience of councillors who had to travel frequently to Exeter for committee meetings. The Royal Commission took note of the county council's evidence and of the geography of the county, and they decided that there would be two units of local government in Devon, one based upon Plymouth and the other based upon Exeter.
This Bill ignores the evidence both of geography and of the county council. Indeed, it adds to the problem which the county council pointed out, for it increases the amount of travelling that would have to be done by the administrators. For example, for the first time 24 councillors will have to travel two or three times a week 43 miles from Plymouth to Exeter for committee meetings; and officials of the county council who are supervising the work of the council throughout the county will have additional miles to travel.
This Amendment, on the other hand, takes note both of the geographical features of the county and of the evidence of the county council. It seeks to create a separate South Devon County on the South-West edge of Dartmoor. This would not seriously affect the rest of the county. At the present time the administrative County of Devon has a population of 449,000. If this Amendment were accepted by the Government, the population would still increase to 578,000. Furthermore, at the present time the average rateable value per head for the administrative County of Devon is £33·5. If this Amendment were carried it would nevertheless increase from £40 to £42·6.
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So, even if there is a separate South Devon County it would not seriously impair the rest of the Devon County, which would be bigger than the administrative County of Devon at the moment.
This Amendment would leave as a separate county a population of 315,000 to the South-West of Dartmoor. The area concerned is not merely the main catchment area for employment, shopping and recreation, which is centred on Plymouth; it is also the regional sub-area of the South-West Economic Planning Council. It is also the intermediate areas under the Local Employment Acts for Plymouth and Tavistock. It is the area for the newly created crown courts which are centred on Plymouth, and it is the administrative areas of practically all the main public services and public utilities in that part of the country.
An independent survey by the Manchester University, completely independent of local authorities, conducted in April of 1972, showed that that part of the population of this area which was living outside the city of Plymouth had an overwhelming preference for Plymouth as the seat of county government, for the very obvious reason that it was more convenient for them.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: With great respect, they chose it as the administrative centre. They were not asked about county government.
LORD JACQUES: Well, it would then be the administrative centre.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS:There is a substantial difference in the questionnaire.
LORD JACQUES: I was informed it was chosen as the county centre.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Then the noble Lord was misinformed.
LORD JACQUES: But if it is the administrative centre, then I am quite happy because that is what I am asking for. I am asking that there should be a South Devon county with Plymouth as the administrative centre. The survey showed that there was an overwhelming majority of people living outside the city who preferred Plymouth as the administrative centre for local government. If this Amendment were accepted by the

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Government then, first, decisions would not only be taken locally but would be seen to be taken locally. The reorganisation of local government would be seen as sensible by the electors, by councillors and by the inhabitants. The community itself would be a cohesive community with a common interest through links of employment, shopping and social activities. According to the White Paper this is what the Government set out to do, and by accepting this Amendment they will put their own principles into practice. I beg to move.
5.36 p.m.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: The general case for Plymouth as a city which requires special consideration was admirably expressed in the Second Reading debate by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, himself, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud expressed his uneasiness about the position of Plymouth as he did about the position of Southampton and Portsmouth. We are fortunate now, at last, to have printed the OFFICIAL REPORT of the first day of the Second Reading debate, so I do not propose to rehearse any of those arguments. I will only say that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has presented in a nutshell the case for this Amendment which would seek to make Plymouth a new non-metropolitan county.
But to me, one of the best speeches in favour of Plymouth having some degree of independence of its own was the speech made by my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. His speech revealed the utter incompatibility of the shotgun marriage between Devon and Plymouth. In another place Dame Joan Vickers, the Conservative Member of Parliament and one of the ablest Members of Parliament in the country, fighting for Plymouth, which she has served with distinction over such a long period of time, had already spoken of the folly of handling over the progressive City of Plymouth to the control of what she called the "squirearchy" of Devon. I thought those were strong words, but they are gentle compared with the noble Lord's counter attack on Plymouth. He took us back to the Civil War, when Exeter was Royalist and Plymouth was Parliamentarian. For good measure he added the Cornishman's dis
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like, not only of Devon but especially of Plymouth—a dislike he seems to share, and enjoyed sharing. He spoke of the "machinations" (the word is his own) of Plymouth in its attempt to retain its status, and he said that Plymouth, and its paid public relations firm, were "bonkers (I seem to have heard the word before) or—and I quote again"—just plain uneducated".
In Hampshire we have long forgotten what parts of Hampshire were on the side of Cromwell and what were on the side of Charles. The noble Lord seemed to be determined to revive the Civil War in this part of Britain. He did his best to prove that Drake did not play bowls on Plymouth Hoe. Seriously, the fact that the noble Lord should be so eloquently opposed to Plymouth itself, and that in his opposition he no doubt represents the depths of feeling of Devon County, surely makes this a special case. We ought to leave these two parts of Devon each with its own domain. We should not seek to join what the noble Lord has put asunder. In the words of the noble Lord. Lord Clifford of Chudleigh," Never the twain shall meet I therefore support the Amendment so ably moved by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Jacques.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I am reminded of the story of, I think, the Paris Zoo, where there was a printed notice saying:
"This animal is dangerous—If he is attacked, he defends himself".
If I may be permitted to join issue with my noble friend Lord Maybray-King, I would point out that the reason why I took the line I did is because he and Plymouth did nothing other than attack a large portion of the County of Devon, and I like to think that I speak as a Devon nationalist. I am not anti-Plymouth. I joined up in Plymouth; during my career as a soldier, I have served three times in Plymouth; I know many people in Plymouth and I am very fond of Plymouth. But what I am against—and I say it again—is the machinations of Plymouth and its supporters in taking large portions of the County of Devon and putting them under city control. Therefore, I say that I am only defending myself. I also thank my noble friend for giving me notice that he was going to attack me in his speech.

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I think what the intentions of Plymouth were can be made clear by just looking at the First Marshalled List of Amendments. Your Lordships will see that the name of my noble friend Lord MaybrayKing, along with that of the noble Lord, Lord Jaques, is down to move the Amendment which is now No. 49. Before I go on to discuss the relevance of that, I should like to remind your Lordships that at the end of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, I asked, in effect—and I am sure the noble Lord will remember the occasion—whether she was concerned with just extra functions for Plymouth, which I was not against, or whether she wanted to add these large portions of the county to Plymouth. The answer was somewhat irrelevant, and I think that makes that point clear. I am not going to argue the question whether Plymouth should have extra functions or not, but I do say that if Plymouth wants to take large portions of Devon which, by any democratic test at all, do not want to go there, then that is what I am against. It is these territorial ambitions of Plymouth.
However, Amendment No. 49 still stands, and if I just point that out to your Lordships it should, I hope, make the case. By that Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, would insert, at the end of line 16 on page 6 of the Corrigendum,

"( South Devon.

The County Borough of Plymouth In the administrative county of Devon—

the urban districts of Kings bridge and Salcombe…'"

That is the first point. It is a pity that the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, is not here, because I know she often goes to near Kingsbridge for her holidays; in fact, she has visited me from there. For anyone with any knowledge of that part of the world to think that anyone in that part of the world would have any affinity with Plymouth at all is really——
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way?
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: Yes.
LORD JACQUES: These are the very people who told Manchester University that they wanted the administrative centre to be in Plymouth.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I think the answer to that one came from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. In all the areas—and I am coming on to the others in a minute—where they have had referendums since this matter first came up (and I quoted this in my speech on Second Reading: the noble Lord. Lord Jacques, can read it there, and I am not going to read it now) there has been a majority of over three to one against, even in places close to Plymouth, like Tavistock and Yelverton, and, of course, it goes even more so for places like Kingsbridge and Salcombe, the rural district of Tavistock and Plympton St. Mary. The noble Lord will remember the argument which took place a year ago when the Plympton and Plymstock Order was going through. That was a minor thing. It then goes on to the rural district of Totnes. Well. I happen to be in the Totnes Parliamentary constituency and so it shows how far away one is getting from Plymouth. Then the Amendment reads:
"… South Brent. Ugborough, North HUish …"
There is a whole list of them and they are miles from Plymouth and have nothing to do with it at all. The population has a great aversion to being brought into Plymouth. I do not see how, if you are going to have a democratically run system, any argument can be presented to prove that any of these people want to have anything to do with Plymouth. Plymouth first tried to get a part of Cornwall on the Tamar side. Such was the local outcry that they dropped that idea. They now say they will take South Devon and come up to Salcombe and Kingsbridge. This is not only completely unpopular but would not be workable.
There is one point that I should like to make about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques: that we are such a large county that we cannot get around it easily. I admit that at this time of the year travelling can be "hell". I have been trying for the last 10 years in this House to get successive Governments to do something about our roads and so on. But for three years I commanded the local Territorial Army battalion. I had 16 drill halls all over the country. I visited each company once a month and each drill hall once every six months. I found

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no difficulty in that: and if I could do that at that time I cannot see why there is any argument that a county council or a county official cannot get around. I hope that the Government will make certain that this Amendment is not accepted.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I briefly take a point of principle which I see in the total reform which the Government are trying to carry out, namely to re-draw and re-structure our local government on lines which will suit the needs of the day. The major factor, I should have thought, was to try to harmonise town and country. I should have thought that this Amendment goes exactly against that principle. The point that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh was making about the animosity of local villages with Plymouth is common to villages around all big towns in the country, big towns which naturally wish to push out their boundaries.
The whole idea of this particular major reform is to try to eliminate that animosity by merging the town and country together into new counties. I know the county very well. I was born there and lived a good many years in its Southern part. I am certain that the right solution is to merge Plymouth into the county as a whole and that the whole thing will then shake down and be all right; but it would not be advisable to try to set up a new county in the South around Plymouth. I hope that my noble friend will resist the Amendment, admirably though it was moved.
LORD HAWKE: Surely it would be a bad plan to put a boundary slap down the middle of Dartmoor. I cannot even see which side of the boundary that great monument to the Hounds of the Baskervilles will lie. But it is bad planning.
5.49 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am sorry but I am going to suggest to the Committee that this Amendment should be resisted. When we were discussing Amendment No. 2 the noble Lord, Lord Foot, who probably knows Plymouth better than anybody else in this House, said that that Amendment was not going all the way to re-create a whole county borough, that it was an Amendment which applied to a number of different parts of the country. But
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certainly Plymouth was mentioned in it. I am very much afraid, however, that this Amendment does create a thinly disguised but none the less very recognisable Plymouth county borough with a fairly substantial fringe of Devon attached to it.
It is therefore, in my submission to the Committee, not Lord Jacques's Amendment which is entirely in accord with the principles of this Bill but my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the new Devon county we propose in the Bill as it stands. We are, after all, seeking to build on the old loyalties and traditions of existing counties wherever we can and nobody can deny that Plymouth has always been a most important Devonian town. But the county that we build, in addition, will be particularly well balanced. It will have a population of just under 900,000 of which almost exactly half will be in the country areas and the other half in the three present county boroughs of Exeter, Torbay and Plymouth. So far as one can foretell, it looks as if this is going to be the pattern for some time to time.
I think practically every local authority in Devon is anxious to have Plymouth in with the new county, and if there has been a small minority in the few councils they have all been defeated. I suggest, again as did my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, that once this has settled down any resentment will soon be forgotten. I do not think this will prove to have been a "shot-gun marriage" and certainly it will not lead to divorce. I believe that Plymouth will find that in the new local authority they can take an important and leading part in the advance of local government in that part of the world. It is not quite like Humberside. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, sought to rely on my speech, but this new county that he seeks to form has a population, according to our calculation, of just under 300.000 people. I know that the figures of the Department of the Environment do not agree with the Plymouth figures. Plymouth seems to have slightly bigger figures for its own purposes all the way through; but let us take it as being about that. It makes it the second smallest county in the whole of England, being beaten for smallness only by Northumberland.
The other areas where we have dealt with the matter exceptionally and created

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metropolitan counties are obvious cases of very large conurbations and there are three other exceptions, Avon, Cleveland and Humberside. But the new South Devon county or Plymouth, as in effect I am afraid that it would be, is only half the size of Cleveland and a third of the size of Avon or Humberside. So that the marriage of town and country is something that one can lay claim to only in theory and not in fact at all. There is nothing like the scale that we have in those other three newly created counties. I think that the case stands or falls on whether this would be a viable and sensitive unit on its own.
I would say a word about how it might be sub-divided, because this is all so illustrative of the sort of difficulties. It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord said, that there have been occasions in the past when the Commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Silsoe, as he now is, and indeed the more recent one, suggested that Plymouth should be a separate unit. They were working under entirely different philosophies and principles from those in the Bill. Here to-day we have a complete set of opposition against the whole of this idea. We have Avon, Cleveland and Humberside. At least this new concept is something which is welcomed by the vast majority of local authorities in the area. I am afraid the Committee must know that not one of them, except Plymouth, wants South Devon. There is a total lack of support for this, whereas the other counties on which the noble Lord sought to rely are really very well backed as new concepts by their future component authorities.
The noble Lord mentioned the Manchester Study. I owe him an apology. I looked at the questionnaire again and it does say "county centres" so I withdraw what I said. But there was no mention in that survey of the question of a separate county to be hived off from Devon. What the university team was working out was a statistical study as to whether people's choice of administrative centre followed their patterns of work and shopping. The questionnaire was very carefully phrased for that purpose. The noble Lord will know very well that the way in which a questionnaire is phrased is vital to the reliability of the statistics it produces. There was
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no question of choosing whether to opt out of Devon. It was for that particular purpose that the study took place. Nevertheless, the noble Lord relied upon the view of those people in the outlying areas.
One has only to look at the matter to see the fairly cogent argument in support of my theory and claim that this is new Plymouth writ large. First look at the population. The population of Plymouth at the moment is 239,000. According to the calculations of the Department of the Environment they would add only 60,000 in the country areas. My noble friend Lord Hawke mentioned Dartmoor. Why do they want the parish of Lydford, the historic centre of Dartmoor to which, until the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter set up a Commission in about 1215, all the inhabitants of Dartmoor had to go for their church services, and where to this day the historic lych-way leads across the top of the moor to the parish church of Lydford'? Why does Plymouth say that the Western half of Dartmoor, the ancient parish of Lydford, belongs to Plymouth rather than to the rest of Dartmoor? I can see no possible argument for this. The only conceivable reason is that it happens to be in the rural district of Tavistock. But we are cutting free from these old boundaries. I am bound to say that I can see no affinity between Lydford and Plymouth. I take that only as one of the most obvious examples. I suppose it would be mischievous of me to mention reservoirs.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, put distance as his first point. I do not know when he was last driving along the A38, but I did so last Sunday and I noticed—indeed I have seen it many times before—the amount of roadworks which are going on. In a very few years the A38 will be dual carriageway the whole way from inside the present City boundary to the outskirts of Exeter. There are not many parts which have not been or are not being built, and the distance is 43 miles. I have just been looking at the A.A. book and I think that on the other side of the river it is 48 miles from Saltash to Truro. But if some noble Lords do not like Cornish examples in a Devon setting, let me say that it is 50 miles from Ilfracombe to Exeter, and the road is absolutely atrocious. There is no question of dual-carriageways there. Yet I have never known it impossible to get

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decent representatives on the Devon County Council to come from Ilfracombe or Barnstable. And very fine representatives they have been, as no doubt they will be from Plymouth, particularly if they drive down the dual carriageway, which I believe will be able to cope even with the summer holiday traffic!
LORD JACQUES: At 100 miles an hour.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Well, perhaps not at 100 miles an hour. It would do them very well to stick to the 70 miles an hour limit.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I did not know the noble Viscount's ears were so good.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Viscount seeks not to miss anything.
There was mention of intermediate area status. The Committee will forgive me if I am wrong, but this is an important point for that part of Devon. Let it be known that in the days before Plymouth took over Plympton St. Mary and Plymstock, Devon County Council were responsible for that area as well as for areas like Leemill, which they joined with Plymouth in saying that they should he intermediate areas. They fought very hard for this. The present Devon County Council are very well acquainted with the whole question of encouraging industry to come to the outlying parts of their county. They have not done at all badly at Barnstaple and they are familiar with these matters. But even if there were a lack of experience on that body, what would there be to stop the new Plymouth District Council from using all its experience and public relations—there has been much success on this front—to encourage industrialists to go there? Why should there be a conflict on this front if they were part of the new county?
What I might say on the question of services is much the same as I have already said about Humberside. Why there need be any worry about this I do not know, because I am certain that the county council and district services in that part of Devon will be handled from district centres.
LORD JACQUES indicated dissent.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It is all very well for the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, to shake his head in disagreement, but——
LORD JACQUES: The words I used were not mine. They came from the evidence given by the Devon County Council, who pointed out that members of that Council must frequently go to Exeter because of the all-important decisions that were taken at Exeter.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That is now. What we are talking about under the Bill is a totally different concept of local government. We are not working on the basis of the old days when people had to go to the centre. There will be areas and these powers will be delegated so that matters of this kind can he decided locally, including the county services. Indeed, if Plymouth cannot do something about that in relation to its own area, then I do not have the faith in the strength of character of the folk of Plymouth that other people have.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Is that laid down in the Bill or is it supposition of what may happen?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Some of the county functions can take place locally.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: They can take place locally. They do not have to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, but if there is such a terrible difficulty in getting from Plymouth to Exeter, I cannot see why the Plymouth contingent on the Devon County Council should not argue for some of these matters to be dealt with in Plymouth.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I——
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: Would the noble Viscount give way?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I cannot allow more than one noble Lord at a time to interrupt.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: Is the noble Viscount aware that one matter which expressly cannot be delegated by the new local authority under Clause 100 is education?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It is not delegated but it can take place locally.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: If noble Lords opposite think that this cannot happen——
LORD GARNSWORTHY: It is not in accordance with the Bill.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think it is, and it is in accordance with the philosophy underlying the Bill. We finally come to the flaw in the argument when we look at what the city of Plymouth have to say about their districts. It is not a conclusive answer because this is not necessarily the way in which it would be done. We have a proposition, which the City Council now prefer, whereby they would have two districts. One would consist of the whole of the city of Plymouth, except for those areas which were added in 1968, and the other would consist of those added areas and the whole of the fringe. This is what they have to say about the two added areas, being Plympton and Plyrnstock:
"The two centres of Plympton and Plymstock incorporated in the city in 1967 have naturally the strongest links with the city. Nevertheless they have retained their previous character and would I suggest associate well with the other communities within the proposed district in the context of a new South Devon County."
Leading up to the annexation of those two areas by the City Council was an argument to which the Government and this House acceded; that those areas were inextricably joined to and connected with the city of Plymouth—they should be part of it and they were so closely connected that they should fall within its very boundaries. And the county borough boundary was indeed extended so as to comprehend them. Now the city say that in order to produce a second city of a reasonable size we shall have to hive them off again and put them in with Kingsbridge, Salcombe, Tavistock and the areas to the North East. That is the only sensible way they can do it on the district basis, apart from splitting up Plymouth into four districts, which they do not themselves like and which would not follow any recognised divisions which have existed at any time within the city.
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I am sorry to suggest that this is a little contrived, but I am afraid it is. I am afraid it is a reincarnation of Plymouth, writ large, spreading up further than any proper boundary should go but not far enough to make anything like the sort of county to which we should give credence under this Bill.
6.6 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: The evidence in regard to travelling and the difficulties of administering the county because of its size and geography was not mine; that was the evidence given by the county council to the Royal Commission. It was they who said that the waste of time in travelling was a great addition to the cost of administration. It was the county council itself which said that it resulted in a great deal of inconvenience to county councilors, and it cannot be denied that this Amendment would considerably reduce the travelling and inconvenience.
We are told that we must harmonise town and country. The present basis is not harmonising it, and what the Government are doing is just as unlikely to harmonise it. Another difficulty put forward by the Devon County Council was that there was a lack of community interest between the seaside towns and the agricultural hinterland. I believe the only way of harmonising town and country is to associate the country around the town with the town. The people who live around the town use that town for shopping, for social activties and often for employment, and the only way you will be able to harmonise is to associate them with that town. You will never associate them with another town which is miles away.
The population of the new county, as I understand it—and it has never been contradicted before; it was not contradicted as I understand it in the other place when this was discussed—is 315,000. We were told that in the other cases such as Avon and Humberside the local authorities were in agreement, but here they were not in agreement except for Plymouth. But, this morning we were told that both Bristol and Somerset have withdrawn from the working parties and are not co-operating in the setting up of the new county of Avon. There is a good deal of contradiction going on. Then we were told that there could be

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delegation, that there could be area offices and area committees.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: If I said "delegation" I was wrong; I meant area organisations.
LORD JACQUES: The facts are that in regard to the service which costs the most money—education—divisional executives are abolished. There is no delegation. There are not even agency arrangements. So under what part of this Bill can there be done what the noble Viscount has said can be done? So far as I can see, none of what he said in that respect can be done.
Turning to the areas: I lived in Plymouth and I would say that there are three natural areas for local councils—one is Devonport, another is Plymouth and a third is the area outside Plymouth. I can say that the Plymouth City Council has resolved that they would accept any reasonable arrangement for the allocation of the county into districts for the purposes of local government. So that I do not think there would be any great practical difficulty in arranging the areas. I believe there is very considerab!e merit in this. Certainly it is a problem about which, if you leave it, there will continue to be unrest, and ultimately either this Government or some other Government will have to do something about it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD ABERDARE: Perhaps it would be convenient now to resume the House and adjourn the proceedings in Committee until September. I beg to move that the house do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Lord Aberdare.)
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION): I think this is the time when we should do that. I rather feel that, having been here so long since the last Recess—so many hours and so on—I ought to wish all Members a Happy Christmas. But I am sure that after one month we shall come back thoroughly reinvigorated, and I hope that by that time, when we get over all these boundary questions, my neutrality will cease and I shall do something more than just sit here.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.