SUNDAY THEATRE (No. 2) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 8 February 1972)

§ BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER
My Lords, before we give this Bill a Third Reading I should like to express a word of congratulation to the noble Baroness who has been responsible for its passage through the House. When I first heard of the Bill it was with some regret. I am not one of those people who think that Sunday should be a day on which you do not enjoy yourself, nor am I one of those people who believe that you necessarily make a holy day unholy by going to the theatre. But I saw in this Bill something that was going to erode further the character of a day which is, I believe, greatly valued by a great many people in this country.
However, as I thought more about the matter I appreciated the reason which lay behind the Bill. I examined my own conscience and realised that I have no misgivings about going to a concert on a Sunday afternoon or evening, and that a great many people have to work in order to provide me with that entertainment. I appreciated that I spend a good deal of Sunday evening, when I get home, watching the television. Although many of them are recorded programmes quite a number of them are live, and in any case it requires a great number of technicians to present the programme. I also appreciated that I am a privileged person, in that I have a home which attracts me on Sunday evening, where I am very happy and contented, and that is not something which is the privilege of everybody.
So I have come to appreciate the need for this Bill and am happy to see it pass through this House. My only regret is that I still believe the first version of the Bill was the better one, because it contained two provisions which I should have wished to be retained in the Bill. Despite the persuasive authority of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, I still believe that it would have been a good thing to retain some element of local option. The different areas of this country vary very much one from another, and I think it would have been a good thing to have retained the right. for certain areas of the country to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted the Sunday opening of theatres. However, I was defeated on that point.
1070 I am also sorry that it has not been possible to write into the Bill the safeguard that if a theatre is open on a Sunday then by law the performers cannot be expected to perform seven days a week. I have always held that an actor should be perfectly free to do what he likes on his seventh day, his free day. By this Bill we are taking away from the acting profession a safeguard which has meant that those who wanted a quiet Sunday have been able to have it by law. I am surprised that all the legal expertise available could not work out a clause which would in some way have retained that freedom. I have, however, read the speech of the noble Baroness on Report stage and I note the safeguards that she has given to the House. I am sure that those will be carefully observed. My only fear is that the social climate may change. Opinion can vary, and it may be that in the days to come the general pressure of public opinion will require a play to be performed in a theatre seven nights during the week. The acting profession may not then have the safeguards of which the noble Lady has spoken. However, voicing those two elements of apprehension about this Bill, I nevertheless wish to express my congratulations to the noble Baroness on the skill and charm with which she has negotiated this Bill through our House

§ LORD GOODMAN
My Lords, I shall keep you only a moment. I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, of whose skill and charm I have been aware for a very long time, and particularly her ability to persuade the unpersuadable—a further example of which is the candid and engaging admission by the right reverend Prelate that he has changed his mind. This is entirely attributable to the skill and charm of the noble Baroness.
There is a more serious purpose in my addressing your Lordships for a moment; namely, to ask particularly the Ministers here in your Lordships' House to use their best efforts to see that what we have done, and which is now very much wanted by the whole of the theatrical profession and I believe by the public, should not be wasted. It is not appropriate that one should say more than that; but I believe that Ministers here commune with their colleagues in another 1071 place, and I would venture to hope that they might indicate a wish that this highly desirable little measure gets a gentle propulsion elsewhere.

§ BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE
My Lords, may I just say how extremely interesting it has been to see how in your Lordships' House the great majority of Members have made a decision on this Bill which is not necessarily a reflection of their private tastes or their private needs. I would include myself; I like a quiet Sunday with my own family and friends. I can go to the theatre on other evenings. This Bi11 has been most remarkable in this respect. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, who has not spoken, has nevertheless given me his complete support and good will. I am particularly indebted to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, because he is a theatre man; he cares and knows about this profession, and he is particularly concerned that people working in the theatre should not be exploited. As he was not able to be present at the Report stage, I would say to him that I was caught in two different tides. I totally share with him the desire that it should be written into the Statute that it is impossible for people to be expected to work seven days in a week. I was very sceptical when I found that even with my noble friend Lord Gardiner, specialists in the Home Office and Lord Windlesham being most helpful. apparently it was impossible so to word the Statute as to reflect the fact that in one voice the theatre people say, "We do not want to be compelled to work seven days a week", and with the other voice say, "For goodness sake, do not make it impossible for us to work on a seventh day in any particular week".
I do not want to detain your Lordships, but the fact is that there are involved so many special sets of circumstances—charity performances, television performances, seaside theatre at the weekend. I want to assure the House in general and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester in particular, that we have not taken this point lightly. We have had a written exchange of letters with Mr. Emile Littler for the commercial theatre that there is no question of there being exploitation of the artiste. And the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, will give the same guarantees—I am taking his name in vain, 1072 but I know that is all right—controlling as he does public money.
It may seem strange to many people that at a time of very great strain, when we are all preoccupied with the miners' strike, when we have been preoccupied with Vietnam, Malta, and a thousand-and-one other areas of very serious contention, some of us should bother about this matter. But many of us remember the wonderful concerts in the National Gallery by Myra Hess and others when the bombs were raining down in London. I have been many times right at the heart of the industrial disputes, and I assure your Lordships that often the only time working men and women have had a chance to hear good music is when they have been on strike. So the idea that making fine music and entertainment available is irrelevant is one that I cannot subscribe to. Whatever decisions we make in various parts of this House on other matters, I hope that we accept the fact that in modern living conditions so many people, with the trouble of travelling home after a day's work, must depend on the weekend. I know that neither the Bishops nor anyone else in your Lordships' House wants Sunday to be a day of compulsory gloom, but want it, as I had it in my childhood, to be both a holiday and a holy day. So, in echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman has said, may I say that if your Lordships' House would be so kind as to agree to a Third Reading of this Bill I hope that favourable winds will carry it safely through the other place.