Lords Sitting of 26 June 1972

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

CONSUMER GOODS: MARKING OF ORIGIN
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: 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 why they have made no use of Sections 7 and 8 of the 1968 Trade Descriptions Act for making definition and marking orders on consumer goods.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY (THE EARL OF LIMERICK): My Lords, the proper bases on which we can make orders under Sections 7 and 8 of the Trade Descriptions Act are that to do so would be in the interest of consumers or, in the case of Section 7, of exporters. The great majority of the proposals so far made to us for such orders have not come from consumers but from organisations representing manufacturers or traders. Most have been rejected as unnecessary, unenforceable, outside the scope of the powers or unlikely to offer sufficient benefit to consumers to warrant compulsion. Some proposals are, however, still under consideration, and my right honourable friend intends to make very shortly an order requiring imported eggs to bear an indication of the country of origin.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him whether he realises that at least eight products have been recommended for marking orders, and these have been put forward by consumer organisations—some of them shortly after the introduction of the Bill? Secondly, may I ask the Minister whether
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he thinks that one reason why no marking orders have been produced is that there is an inadequate staff in his Department for taking on this work?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, I am indeed aware that some of these proposals have come from consumer organisations. Some of them are already under study, and if the noble Viscount has questions about any particular instance I shall be glad to go into details with him. As regards the staffing, this is a matter which is currently under investigation.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister how we can get educated consumers if we are not given the information and description asked for in this Act? If the Americans can have this information, why cannot we be as well informed as American consumers?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, the criteria on which the Secretary of State can make these orders were clearly laid down in the 1968 Act. It has been the case that, with the one exception I have mentioned, these criteria have not yet been fulfilled in any of the applications.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that after the Act had been introduced the policy of Her Majesty's then Government was to introduce compulsory marking orders where it was important for the consumer to have extra information and where voluntary means of producing it did not show results? Further, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that had some marking orders been introduced on some important items while the Teltag scheme was in being, it would have greatly helped that scheme and would no doubt have survived the demise of the Consumer Council?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, I can only repeat that the criteria as laid down in the 1968 Act have not yet been fulfilled in respect of any of these applications.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, can the Minister tell us when we shall be having some laws which will make life a little easier for the consumer, as was promised in the gracious Speech?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that there are several such matters under consideration, including the Crowther Report which we shall be debating on Wednesday.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the gracious Speech referred to legislation for this year. Could the noble Earl now answer the question put by my noble friend?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, I think that the question of specific dates for specific measures is really another Question.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the point was that the gracious Speech deals with legislation for this year, and therefore my noble friend asked that particular question. Clearly, from the noble Earl's reply there is to be no legislation this year to protect the consumer.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, would the Minister perhaps consider introducing a definition order to define what is meant by "soon" or "next year"?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, that may be considered.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he could confirm that since the negotiations or discussions on this subject took place the United States have introduced legislation requiring marking orders to be put on all imported goods, giving the country of origin? Secondly, could the noble Earl give some elucidation of how the interests of consumers are not substantially covered by the interests of manufacturers—or the other way round, if he prefers to put it that way? It would seem that the interests of both are very largely common, and yet emphasis is put on the consumer, disregarding the manufacturer.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, the United States' experience is certainly being looked at. As regards the second supplementary question, I think there may be, and indeed are, cases—perhaps the majority—where the interests of the consumer and the manufacturer are quite distinct from each other.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Govern-
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ment are very happy that they do not have to mark the content on pound notes?

LAND PRICES AND WAGE INCREASES
2.43 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords. I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there have been any increases in land prices during the past two years; and, if so, to what extent such increases have been due to increases in wages.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, information on the price of land for all purposes is not available, but it is estimated that the average price per plot of housing land in the private sector rose by about 35 per cent. between the second half of 1969 and the second half of 1971. Wage increases do not directly affect housing land prices, but they do enable people to pay more for houses and this in turn can affect land prices.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the profits that have been made on land are offensive? Is it not now time that the Government came forward with firm proposals to see that land is at a price which will enable young people, at least, now to have a chance of being able to buy their own property?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, we are all concerned with land prices and with measures that can be taken to reduce the rate of increase in land prices. But I ought to point out that in 1968 and 1969—a shorter period than the one we are speaking about—the increase in land prices was even greater: just under 40 per cent.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, when will the Government stop hiding behind percentages and rates of increase and give us round, oblong, square figures?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I will do my best to help the noble Baroness. Land prices are rising too fast under this Government, but they were rising faster under the previous Government.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, as the Government are fond of blaming inflation on increasing wages, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware that many sites that are now fetching enormous prices have not had a single pennyworth of wages paid on them for many years? Secondly, is he aware that some sites worth £300 to-day suddenly become worth £200,000 to-morrow? Furthermore, is he aware that during the last few weeks building sites have been sold at prices ranging from £45,000 an acre to £130,000 an acre, and that these are all outside the London area? Moreover, does not the noble Lord regard this inflation of land values as a symptom, or a cause, of the terrible economic mess into which the Government have got the country?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether I might just remind noble Lords of the steps that have been taken to deal with this situation. Over the last three years the National Coal Board sold 6,000 acres and the British Railways Board disposed of £36 million worth of land. We are proposing that in the New Towns another 5,000 acres should be made available in the next three years. And, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced recently, we are making another £80 million available to local authorities to make land available for house building over the next two years. All this is compared with a total of 300 acres disposed of and an expenditure of £8 million during the whole of the three years the Land Commission was in existence.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, will not the Government confess that the land speculator is behind this business? Has the noble Lord seen the Daily Mail this morning saying that six houses built for £6,000 each have been bought for £500,000 so that bulldozers can knock down the houses and allow fresh development to take place? Are the Government ever going to do something to deal with this terrible scandal?
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that there is all
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the difference in the world between a rise in prices which is a symptom and a rise in prices which is a cause? Would he not further agree that the owner of real property at this moment is at the mercy of forces which he has done nothing to create and which he can do very little to control? If the noble Lord would permit me to offer an illustration of the question I am asking: is he not aware that in 1930 I bought a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb for £3,300 and that if I were to dispose of it now it would be worth between £35,000 and £40,000? Is this due to reprehensible conduct on my part, or would the noble Lord not agree that it was simply the inevitable by-product of whatever has happened when there was an inflationary movement of the strength of that which takes place at the present time? Furthermore, would not the noble Lord agree that attempts to control the prices of houses and the prices of land run into greater administrative difficulties than any other form of price control one can think of?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will have been greatly helped by those questions from the noble Lord, Lord Robbins—
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: Including the Minister, my Lords.
LORD SANDFORD: —including the Minister. But the noble Lord is perfectly right. To succumb to temptation to control these prices in an administrative fashion would be disastrous. What has to be done is to ensure that more land is made available; and this is what we are doing by the measures I have outlined and by several other measures—notably the point which my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford made only last week when we were discussing a rather similar topic.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I want to thank the noble Lord for having replied to my question, and to ask him whether he will please look up the Conservative Manifesto issued at the last Election, which states on page 6:
"In implementing all our policies the need to curb inflation will come first."
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I agree.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY:My Lords, so far as houses are concerned would not the situation be improved if more local authorities sold council houses, as Birmingham have done, to get the spread more even?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords. As I mentioned last week, the trend is encouraging: 17,000 last year, and running at the rate of 28,000 this year.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I hardly see the logic in the noble Lord's reply. If a council house is sold it does not provide one additional house, whereas the reason why land is being purchased—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I hesitate to intervene, and it is, as it were, coming down to earth with a hump. But I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, first, that he was not asking a question, and, secondly, that it would be a mistake if we were to turn this question-and-answer period on this particular Question into a general debate on land and housing policy.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, of course I obey the noble Earl the Leader of the House immediately, and I congratulate him on rescuing his noble friend.

FAMILY ALLOWANCES AND INCOME TAX
2.52 p.m.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will give an assurance that no income tax proposals may be so drafted as to violate the principle that the family allowance should be paid direct to the mother.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I assume that the noble Baroness has in mind the proposals of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a tax-credit system which would replace the income tax child allowance and family allowances by a new form of child credit.
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The question as to whom this credit should normally be paid is one of the matters to be considered following the publication of the Green Paper on the scheme, and the noble Baroness will understand that I cannot anticipate what may be said on this matter in the Green Paper.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that when a Government Department puts its thoughts on paper—even a Green Paper—it tends to become addicted to those thoughts and has quite a built-in instinct against having them interfered with? Is the noble Earl further aware that the late Miss Rathbone, who was an astute Parliamentarian, used to warn women's organisations to find out what a Civil Service Department was going to do in order that it might not be put to the uncomfortable necessity of having to eat its words?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I confess that I find myself in considerable agreement with what the noble Baroness has said, but I suggest that it is easier for Government Departments to eat green words than it is for them to eat white words.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, before he encourages this form of digestion, to bear in mind that before family allowances were introduced the women's organisations throughout the country made the strongest representations on the subject, and if this position is reversed it will result in gross injustice?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am not altogether surprised that the noble Baroness rose to ask a supplementary question on this particular matter. I will certainly bear this point in mind, but I should like to say to her and to the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, that a Green Paper, which I think was a useful innovation on the part of the last Government, is in fact a Green Paper and that my right honourable friend and the Department for which he speaks will welcome representations on that Green Paper when it is published—on this as on any other matters.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER:My Lords, in preparing this Green Paper,

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will the Government bear in mind how far it is the custom for the minority sex in this country to control the expenditure of family allowances for the children in a family?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is aware that while in most two-parent families the family allowances are usually drawn by the wife, they can also be drawn by the husband. However I am quite certain that my right honourable friend will pay close attention to the words just uttered by the noble Baroness.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, can my noble friend the Leader of the House tell me what is the minority sex in a married couple?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, that is a question on which I will not allow myself to be drawn at this moment.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, before drafting the Green Paper, will the Government bear in mind that there are still in this country many areas of poverty; that many wives of working men have no idea what their husbands earn unless they happen to read in the papers what they are striking for, and they have to be content with what they have got? Will he keep in mind that one thing that often saves the children is the fact that it is the mother who has the family allowances?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I will certainly see that what the noble and learned Lord has just said is brought to the attention of my right honourable friend. I think the whole House will agree that the question of the residual and not unimportant pockets of poverty in this country is something which should be in the minds of any Government, whether or not they are drafting a Green Paper.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl to remember the last question about husbands drawing family allowances, and to bear in mind that under the present arrangements the husband is allowed to do so only if his wife has previously signed a form giving him authority to do so? That is a situation that we do not want altered.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Earl has said that the Government would be prepared to accept representations. Does that mean that we have to fight this battle all over again?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not know why there are these rather premature cries of "Hear, hear!" from the other side of the House. All I said was that when the Green Paper is published (and this is the point of a Green Paper) the Government very much hope to hear the advice and the representations of all those concerned. I was in no way prejudging the contents of that Green Paper.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his answer and his readiness to eat Green Papers as well as any other sort, may I point out that it is a great waste of time to have to eat any paper at all, and that the women's societies will let all hell loose if this proposal is put before the country, even in a Green Paper? It is such a pity not to avoid that.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Earl will have to give in, in the end.

THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL
2.57 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. There are two themes in the Bill to which I wish to draw the attention of your Lordships. We are widening the powers and facilities of the courts to deal with offenders in two main ways: we are strengthening their powers to deal with major criminals and we are giving new non-custodial remedies to them to deal with lesser offenders. At this stage—and this is no mere platitude—I wish to say how very much the Government are indebted to the Advisory Council on the Penal System under the Chairmanship of Mr. Kenneth Younger, and in particular

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the sub-committees chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice. There are other Members of this House who have served on the Council, including my noble friend Lord Sandford, the noble Baroness, Lady Scrota, the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, my co-Minister of State in another place, as well as many other distinguished people. The two sub-committees reported in July, 1970, and I am glad to say that it was only 15 months before the Government introduced legislation to implement a good deal of the contents of both those Reports.
Let me now deal with the first of my themes, the strengthening of the powers of the courts to deal with major criminals. Like a good deal else in the Bill, some of this is of an experimental nature, and this part of the matter is largely the result of the work of the committee under the Chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, as he now is. First, I will deal with the reparation by the offender to his victim, dealt with in Clauses 1 to 5 of the Bill. Powers exist in this field already although they are a trifle haphazard, and the 23rd paragraph of Lord Widgery's Report sets out some of the snags that have so far beset this subject. Perhaps for that reason they have not been as widely used as some people might hope, although perhaps more substantial use has been made of the powers than people think. At any rate, the existing powers were criticised by the noble and learned Lord in his Committee. For instance, he pointed out that sometimes an application had to be made by a claimant, and I confess that when I used to prosecute pleas at the quarter sessions I often wondered where the claimant was, because there was no question of him corning to the court. I wondered how an application could be made, although certainly it was no part of the prosecution's case to do it.
Secondly, personal injury was covered only by way of reparation where the court made a probation order or granted an absolute or conditional discharge. There were different financial limits under different Statutes and cases taken into consideration were not covered at all. Therefore, these first clauses of the Bill produce new provisions and a uni-
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fied code. We hope that the courts will find them easier to use although, of course, everyone must recognise that there are still problems. The offender's means may not be sufficient to allow reparation to be made and one has to note that the proceeds of crime manage to get dissipated very quickly. One may find also that the facts are too complicated for the matter to be dealt with in a simple way by a criminal court and that the case should go to the civil courts. One may find that the only solution is a long prison sentence which does not march easily with reparation. Nevertheless, here in the Bill are powers which we hope will substantially improve this matter.
There is also provision for appeal, for the review of reparation orders, and for marrying the scheme in with civil damages and, incidentally, with the Criminal Injury Compensation Board so that nobody gets double money out of the same incident. In Clause 5 there is provision to give priority to the claimant over all other possible people to whom the money may be paid when it comes into court. If I pass over these matters a little quickly, it is because I know I have an opportunity at the end of the debate to reply to specific questions. The House will be aware that there is a good deal in this Bill and I must try not to outdo my welcome at the beginning. Again on the subject of reparation, we take the opportunity in Clause 6 to simplify, perhaps, the whole process of making restitution orders which largely occur under the Theft Act 1968; and here, too, some anomalies and difficulties have been removed.
Next in the Bill one comes to the provisions on criminal bankruptcy. Here indeed is a major area of experiment. It started with some ideas from the Law Society, was taken up by Lord Widgery's Committee and after some consideration it now appears in the Bill in Clauses 7, 8 and 9, and in the First Schedule which contains the nuts and bolts of the machinery. We thought that, to start with, it was proper to limit the cases to those where the amount of money concerned was £15,000, although this can be altered by order later. That provision appears in Clause 7(1)(b). The reason is that there is at the moment considerable pressure on the bankruptcy machinery. Indeed, we are very grateful to the Department of Trade

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and Industry and their bankruptcy officers for being prepared to take on this new work. We are also very grateful to the Director of Public Prosecutions because it is he who under Clause 9 is to be the Official Petitioner under the machinery we are here setting up.
My Lords, we think that this limitation will, to start with, produce something of the order of 100 cases a year susceptible of being dealt with under this procedure, and I will tell your Lordships in very much a thumbnail sketch about the method whereby it will work. The court will convict an offender of an offence or offences where the money or property concerned in their judgment, and according to the information they have, amounts to £15,000 or more, and when passing sentence they will be able to take into account other cases. The court must know who the victims are and be able to name them and the amount of loss, at any rate in a preliminary fashion, according to the statements and other calculations that have been made. In those circumstances they can make a criminal bankruptcy order. As this is a formal act of bankruptcy there will in future in such cases be no need for a civil judgment as at the present moment occurs. Once the court has done that, it is primarily up to the Official Petitioner to decide whether he should present a petition in bankruptcy and set the machinery going. We think that he is eminently capable of deciding on the cases where he should so proceed because this is not dissimilar to some of his other jurisdictions in the criminal field. If he decides not to present a petition, the victim or any of the victims nevertheless are not estopped from proceeding with a petition; it will be a perfectly ordinary petition in bankruptcy arising out of the order. Thereafter the ordinary bankruptcy procedure will follow; but there are in the Bill additional powers to unravel previous transactions back to the date either when the offender was first brought to court or, as the case of a summons, when the summons was first issued.
The offender is not without remedies because he can appeal against the criminal bankruptcy order and he can also take part at a later stage in the bankruptcy proceedings, to say that the loss was not so great as is claimed or
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other matters of that sort. We hope that this will be a new and useful—although at the moment slightly limited—weapon in the armoury of the courts and will enable them to deprive criminals of some of the spoils of their crime.
From this topic I would pass on to Clause 22 of the Bill where we come to the forfeiture of property. Again there exist somewhat limited powers in the law relating, for instance, to firearms or apparatus used for poaching, and things of that sort, but no universal and general principle. Here we take powers to allow the courts a universal and general power of forfeiture which they can use on property of any sort used or intended to be used for the commission of any offence. That is covered by Clause 22(1). I suppose one could be fanciful about this power, but I do not suppose the courts would use it in a silly way. Nevertheless, one could think that on occasion they might even forfeit a car or something of that sort. It is open to them to use their common sense on such matters, and I am very happy to make that approach to powers being given to courts.
By Clause 23 we provide a general power to disqualify criminals from driving. This power is available to the Court where a motor vehicle is used to commit or facilitate the commission of an offence for which the offender is convicted. The offender need not have been the driver of the car, because on many occasions in gang expeditions it does not very much matter who happened to be the driver and it is as well to give the courts powers to disqualify any or all of those who take part.
Finally under this heading, in Clause 24 we increase the maximum penalty for firearms offences. They are fairly high now, but perhaps not altogether proportionate with the maximum penalties which courts have to deal with in other very serious offences and although a maximum penalty does not mean that the courts will ever or always use it, what we hope is that by increasing the penalties in the Bill we will show the seriousness with which Parliament views the offences of using firearms—which I am afraid are rather prevalent to-day.
My Lords, I then come to the second main theme in this Bill: that of non-custodial treatment. Here I turn and

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bow to the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, because so much of this depends upon her most valuable, fascinating Report. I am afraid there are some gaps in the Bill where her suggestions have not been implemented, but nevertheless we are deeply indebted to her; I am sure she sees reflected much of her thought in the phrasing of the Bill. This is a very important subject. For some, prison cannot be avoided, but certainly as the Minister who has to deal day to day with the prisons I could not be more grateful for any measure which takes my clients away from me, even potentially. There is far too much overcrowding; there is far too much difficulty in getting people to the training prisons where they may properly be trained to take a useful place in life when they are released. I am delighted to be able to commend these measures to the House, particularly as they chime in so well with the voices of so many others in the community who say that that is where the offender should be treated: in the community rather than in prisons. We go some distance along that road in this Part of the Bill.
The philosophy of this subject is, I think, very plainly set out in Lady Wootton's Report, in paragraphs 7 to 10 at the beginning where she speaks of the need for innovation in this field, and I would commend those paragraphs to your Lordships. First, I would deal with Clause 10, where we touch upon the subject of suspended sentence, a creature of the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, not of this Bill. The mandatory requirement whereby, except in the specified circumstances, a court had to suspend sentence has been under criticism for long from many sources; indeed I think it was originally criticised when the Bill was before Parliament, and some of those criticisms have turned out to be not unfounded.
In Clause 10 we restore to the courts the discretion that those mandatory provisions took away. That, I think, is good in itself, because I feel that the courts deserve discretion and reflect the wisdom of Parliament in giving them discretion. It is also good in that it appears that the use of probation orders and fines has quite remarkably decreased since the suspended sentence was brought in. Nor has the original object of the suspended sentence, which was to prevent people
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from going to prison at all, had the effect that was supposed, because, alas, in too many cases the suspended sentence has had to be activated after all, and so in those cases the people are in prison. We think this procedure has not been flexible enough in practice, and the courts and others will welcome Clause 10 which allows a great deal more appreciation of the situation and a great deal more use of judgment and experience by those concerned.
What does matter—and I think I should draw all this to the House's attention—is what appears in subsection (3) of Clause 10, because here we emphasise that a sentence of suspended imprisonment should never be imposed unless, if it were not for the power to suspend sentence, imprisonment would be the right answer for that offence and that offender. This is what underlies, and we hope will underlie, the use of the suspended sentence in future, and it reflects the judgment of the Court of Appeal given very recently in the case of O'Keefe.
In Clauses 11 and 12 we come back to the noble Baroness's Report, because here she had something to say about the suspended sentence. In these clauses we are adding the power to assist an offender by a supervision order running during his suspended sentence. I am afraid that, for the moment, although there is power in the Bill to change this, this facility will have to be restricted to the higher courts, because there simply is not the staff in the Probation and Aftercare Service to go round—I will say a word about that in a moment, if I may. But there is the power to extend the facility to the other courts when the situation is more satisfactory. There are various machinery provisions in those two clauses which I hope are fairly self-explanatory. I come to Clause 13, which is also, although short, quite a substantial and important provision. This restates the proposition that the first offender—that is to say, the offender who has not previously been to prison as defined in Clause 13(3)—shall not prima facie go to prison, and it is only where the courts have no option, in their view, that they shall send him to prison on that first occasion; and if it is a magistrates' court they have to give the reasons why they are doing so as well. We are therefore

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able to repeal the First Offenders Act 1958, which is now totally encompassed in this new provision.
Perhaps under this general heading the most remarkable and experimental Part of the Bill is in Clauses 14 to 18, which deal with community service—and here again this comes from the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton. It is, I am afraid, inevitably going to be very experimental to start with. What we are proposing to do is to try it out—and this is already under tentative arrangement—in London, Durham, Kent, South-West Lancashire and the City and County of Nottingham. The whole of this idea and project is argued out in Chapter III of Lady Wootton's Report. We gladly accept this principle, not least, at any rate, because of the concept of running this idea of community service in conjunction with volunteers from every walk of life, a matter in which I am exceedingly interested in my ministerial capacity as well. We agree, and provide in Clause 43, that the community service arrangements shall be administered and looked after in general by the Probation and Aftercare Service. But this does not by any means involve their total commitment to it, and we hope very much that many voluntary organisations and individual volunteers can be brought in to assist in this matter. Nevertheless, it is another burden on the Probation Service. They have agreed to co-operate, and we are grateful to them for that.
What I hope is that if this power is judiciously used it will be a power which will not only allow the courts to keep people out of prison and indeed get useful jobs done, but also impress upon the offender that there are other needs in society than his own selfish requirements; and perhaps by the example of the volunteers and others with whom he works he will learn the satisfaction of giving to others rather than exploiting them. That may sound a little high flown, but I have been talking to some of those in the voluntary movement who have been trying to achieve this, and I do not think I am exaggerating, providing the person is chosen aright. He will have to be chosen aright because the courts will have to judge, and he will have to consent to an order of this sort being imposed on him. I am sure that that is right. We
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have also taken the opportunity to allow community service to be used under Clause 20 for breach of probation order, and under Clause 40 for default in paying a fine or an order for reparation, where again we think it can be useful.
I pass then to deferred sentences, and here in Clause 21 we vary slightly the suggestion in the Report of the noble Baroness, but I think stick to the main principle of it. The deferment here is in order that the offender can, for instance, pay reparation, or see if a promised change of circumstances—new job, change of place to live, perhaps he is getting married—will bring about the complete reformation he promises. Again this can only be done with his consent, and at the moment, according, at any rate, to the Court of Criminal Appeal in the case of West in 1959, it is not within the powers of the court to do it. We think that it is a useful addition to their armoury.
There is no provision in the Bill for a deferred sentence to be supervised, but one would expect that the courts would want to have a terminal report. This would probably come from the Probation Service, because otherwise the courts will hardly know what sentence to pass when the man comes back to them at the end of the deferred period. We have not further officially involved the Probation and Aftercare Service because we think that if what is really needed is a full-blown supervision or probation order it should be that which the court awards rather than a deferred sentence.
Next in this line is the fairly small provision to be found in Clause 28, dealing with habitual drunkards. There is the most revolting word for the centres that are to be set up. They are to be called de-toxification centres. I apologise for this repellent piece of English, but it seems that that is what they are to be called. There is no lack of power to set up one of these centres, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is at the moment actively preparing to do so. What is needed is the power in Clause 28 for a policeman to take the would-be candidate to the detoxification centre, although, as your Lordships will see, he cannot there be detained, nor does it preclude a charge being made against

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him in relation to the incident. It at any rate gives an opportunity, which we hope some people will take, of undergoing a course of treatment to be cured of this major problem.
I pass on to the question of probation and bail hostels. They are not to be provided in the Bill as such because they have been going on for some years in the hands of volunteers. There have been probation hostels for people under 21 for quite a long time, and recently for people under 30. The results are very encouraging and that is the reason the Government hope to provide a further 1,700 places by 1976. But because at the moment only the voluntary organisations can provide them, we take powers in Clause 44 to allow the probation and after-care committees to do it themselves if they wish, or, I suppose, in conjunction with the voluntary organisations, and, under subsection (2), to grant aid them in so doing.
The same clause gives the same powers on bail hostels. This is a much more modern innovation. There is only one at the moment, run by a voluntary organisation, but again its results have been encouraging. The chief object of it is to keep those with no fixed address out of prison while they are awaiting trial, and it seems to provide an opportunity of giving them somewhere to live so that they may safely be let out on bail during that period. Again, the probation and aftercare committees will be empowered to provide such hostels and to be grant-aided.
Your Lordships may have thought that I missed Clause 19 and day training centres, but that is not so. It comes under the same powers in Clause 44 whereby the Probation and Aftercare Services can provide such centres, but here we are on much less well-tried ground. We have some experience from America and some work done in this country on trying to evaluate the usefulness of such institutions. It would be done, as your Lordships will see, as part of and as a condition of the probation order under Clause 19. We think that it is likely to be most useful for the inadequate offender—the person who cannot cope with the complications of life and who for the statutory maximum in this clause of 60 hours can be given intensive training and care by officers with a small case load to
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try to understand how better to live his life in the outside world. Those are the people who really cannot go to prison because the whole point of the operation is to teach them how to live in the world, and therefore the day training centre would seem to be a most useful addition to our powers in this respect. We are going to start, we hope, with a selected number of centres in London, Liverpool, Sheffield and Glamorgan.
I should say a word about the effect of all this on the Probation Service. Your Lordships will appreciate that a number of new and novel tasks are being placed upon them, but we are attempting to introduce these gradually to ease the impact. The Government accepted at the end of 1970 that the strength of the Probation Service would have to be increased from what was then 3,400 officers to 4,700 by the end of 1975, and that was taking account of the need for treatment within the community such as is in this Bill. Training places have now been increased at two or three polytechnics and we believe we can produce 530 probation officers next year compared to 350 last year. Of course, pay is very important in relation to recruitment, and we had this aspect very much in mind in the settlement which was reached running from April, 1971. I have no doubt, too, that the Committee under the Vice-Chancellor of Warwick University, Mr. Butterworth, will have it in mind. We are expecting his report, as I think I told the House before, some time in August. Meanwhile, I hope that Inner London as a whole has been satisfactorily sorted out with probation officers. I see the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, nod, which is a very welcome sign.
I have touched upon some of the things in Part II of the Bill, which not unwisely calls itself "Miscellaneous Provisions". It results, of course, from study and research into gaps in our legislative provisions as they exist, and your Lordships will see how miscellaneous some of these are. Nevertheless, we think it right that they should be sorted out and the proper and correct powers given to the courts. Perhaps it is a reflection upon the state of the Statute Book that these are so complicated and difficult to follow. I must confine myself to a word upon two of the other points in Part II. First

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of all, I want to mention Clause 29, where we are dealing with parole. I hope your Lordships will agree that parole has worked well, but, as I well know, looking at the papers in individual cases, it is a time-consuming and laborious process, and rightly so. The Parole Board examines each case with enormous care, but we cannot expand the Parole Board too far without its losing that vital consistency between cases which is so terribly important in the administration of a scheme like this.
On the other hand, the local review committees at every prison are thorough and to my mind deserving of the highest commendation. They look at all the reports which otherwise go to the Parole Board, and the proposition in this clause is that they should be allowed to recommend direct to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in certain categories of less difficult cases, leaving the Parole Board itself to concentrate its energy on the really difficult and judgment-consuming and time-consuming ones. I think that perhaps they wish to experiment gently a little further even than they are going at the moment. I hope your Lordships will consider this is a valuable innovation as well.
Clause 30 may look a little strange. It has been subject to some discussion. It relates to a point of law which arises on an acquittal in a criminal trial. This can come up quite by chance in any case, and often one may have to wait for years before, again more or less by chance, the similar point comes up to the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords for a decision. Meanwhile, there may be conflicting judgments or dubiety about the state of the law. The provision, therefore, is that the Attorney General can refer one of these cases to the Court of Appeal, but—and this is what is important—if he does so it will be without any cost to the person who has been acquitted. Though that person may be represented, his costs will be paid. He will not stand the slightest chance of conviction or retrial, because that is specifically provided against, and so far as I can see there is no danger to him of any detriment in civil proceedings arising out of the same incident. I therefore think that it is safe for the person acquitted, both in criminal and in civil law, and at the same time an
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opportune way of clearing up difficulties of law.
One thing is not in the Bill which should be, and I refer to those provisions of the Committee on Juries, chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. My honourable friend Mr. Carlisle gave an undertaking in another place that clauses dealing with eligibility for jury service would be introduced in this House. They will be introduced, and I think that by then we shall have incorporated in the law practically all the Morris Committee Report—because some of it, of course, appeared in the Courts Act 1971.
My Lords, this Bill was welcomed in another place. It was exhaustively discussed. It was amended; several clauses were added, and I think it was greatly improved. We have to-day a star-studded list of noble Lords and noble Baronesses who wish to speak on Second Reading. I hope that the House and those speakers will approve the two main threads, and the hole-plugging in the Bill that I have attempted to describe to your Lordships. We know that this is experimental in places, but I hope that it will not be under-estimated as a Bill. It is one which I think takes a fairly large step forward in the right direction of our penal policy machinery. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
3.32 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, the whole House will be indebted to the noble Viscount for his lucid explanation of this Bill. Once more we have to consider the difficult problem of crime and punishment. I remember that the first speech of any length that I ever made in your Lordships' House was in June, 1964; and it was of course from the Back Benches. The views that I then expressed did not markedly differ from those which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has recently expressed—though I thought that one observation he made which received a good deal of criticism was taken very much out of context. The first thing I said was that I thought the community as a whole did not appreciate just how much harm crime does in the community, and that obviously to reduce crime we must first find out what is its cause. Here I have to agree with the

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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor; we do not know. Research work is still going on in this field. Everybody has his own pet theory: that is the decline in religious belief; it is the fact that we have "gone soft" and do not punish people like we used to; it is the Welfare State, or, if you like to put it the other way, the affluent society; it is broken homes; it is mothers going out to work instead of staying at home and looking after the children, or it is "the bomb". We all have our pet theories; but, as I say, we do not know.
One or two observations might be made on some of these theories. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that more severe punishment is not the answer. Mr. Mark has recently pointed out that there was never more crime in this country than when we had capital punishment for 200 different offences. That did not stop crime, or begin to stop it. As to the Welfare State, I think to-day it is too generally thought that whereas it used to be said that a considerable cause of crime was the apalling conditions in which at least some of our people were brought up, now that everybody has "never had it so good" and the Welfare State has cured all that, crime still goes on—and indeed increases—so that bad conditions cannot be a cause. But I think it is overlooked that we still have children brought up in slums; we still have children brought up in poverty. Your Lordships may have seen an article (I think in the Guardian) last week on a small place in a park in a Northern town, where those of 15 and upwards tended to meet in the evenings. All these are young men and women who have never had a job because they cannot get a job; the local unemployment rate is over 10 per cent. and there is no work for them. I should have thought that these things cannot be left out of account as among those likely to cause crime.
As to broken homes, while of course, I have always taken the view that no good is done by the law's pretending that a marriage which is over is not over, this does not alter the fact that almost every broken home is something of a tragedy to the children. On the other hand, we have I suppose to bear in mind that there is a section of our community which is responsible for 90 per cent. of our crime, and the remaining 10 per cent. of crime belongs to the rest. These are
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brought up by the same parents or parent, and in the same homes, broken or not; and they go to the same schools—because the only difference between them is that the highly criminal group is called "male" and the others are "female". Ninety per cent. and more of all crime is committed by men. If only men behaved as well as women do, the whole crime problem would be solved overnight. However, there it is.
The noble and learned Lord has said that he has no panacea, and I have no panacea, except that there was one factor which I thought, if I may respectfully say so, he dismissed too lightly; and this was the clear-up rate. When I had a long discussion about crime and its problems—indeed, many more than one—with Mr. Roy Jenkins long before our Criminal Justice Bill, I pointed out that the biggest change since the war had been in the simple fact that before the war the clear-up rate for indictable offences was over 50 per cent., so that the probability was that a man who committed such an offence would at least be caught and tried, but that ever since the war this rate had fallen. At the time of which I was speaking, if a man committed a robbery with violence in London it was three to one that he would not be caught or punished; if he did a housebreaking job it was six to one that he would not be caught or tried; it he stole something from a stationary motor car it was 12 to one that he would not be caught or tried. And we used to have young housebreakers coming up at quarter sessions and asking for 35 previous cases to be taken into account.
When one considered the reason for this state of affairs it seemed to me that the reason was a very simple one. Preceding Governments had talked with horror of the increasing crime rate, but I do not know of anything that was done in the 1950s, or up to 1964, to stop it. The cause seemed to me obvious enough: that we had never increased the police force to deal with the increase in crime; and on the day the Government of the Party to which I belong took office there were fewer policemen in the Metropolitan Police than there were when the war broke out. We were in great difficulty, because the existing police were so overburdened that recruitment was extremely difficult. There were C.I.D. officers doing

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a 70-hour week; the average policeman got only one weekend off in seven. Obviously, recruitment was difficult, and the question was how was that to be changed.
It seemed to us that we could change that in only two ways; first, by stopping policemen from doing everything which somebody else could do in order to let them get on with their real job of catching the criminals. So with the agreement of the then Lord Chief Justice, we stopped them standing around with halberds to greet the judge of assize; we stopped policemen carrying the mace for the mayor, acting as mortuary attendants, going around collecting maintenance money, acting as Shop Acts inspectors and Market Acts inspectors, and we greatly increased the number of traffic wardens. Secondly, we gave them modern equipment, particularly "walkie-talkies" and panda cars. The result of that was that during the subsequent years of our Government, while crime did not go down, the rate of increase steadily fell. I am delighted to see that the clear-up rate, which was then so deplorably low, has—at least, up to the last published figures—steadily gone up, and in 1970 was 45 per cent. for indictable cases. So we are getting back towards our pre-war figures.
This Bill is something of a rag-bag, if I may respectfully say so. It partakes of some of the qualities of the curate's egg. Of course we welcome in general Clauses 1 to 9, based on the Report of the Advisory Committee on the Penal System, covering reparation by the offender. I have always thought that the best punishments are the natural punishments, and if A steals something from B the natural punishment is that he should have to work hard and pay the money back. We also welcome the clauses on compensation orders and restitution orders. We would not for a moment oppose the provisions on criminal bankruptcy, but I regard them as in the nature of window dressing. I should have thought that the cases to which they will in practice apply are almost minimal, and probably a good deal less than the noble Viscount has forecast.
Clauses 10 to 13, covering sentences of imprisonment and supervision orders,
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perhaps belong rather to the next head. The principal head here is, of course, suspended sentences. I do not propose to inflict upon the House today a speech on suspended sentences, though I am sure it is one of the matters which we shall have to consider during the Committee stage of the Bill. It is curious how there have been changes of mind. I was always very doubtful at the time about the wisdom of mandatory suspended sentences, and about a year ago I thought that they probably ought to go. But the strange thing is that nearly everybody I know, who a year ago thought that mandatory suspended sentences should remain, now think that they should go; while nearly everybody I know who a year ago thought that they should go, now thinks that they should stay. However, we can consider that on the Committee stage of the Bill.
We then come to Clauses 14 to 18 and 21 to 23, for all of which we are so much indebted to my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and her colleagues. Here indeed are the first real intelligible proposals alternative to imprisonment which have been made, and it is that of which we stand so much in need at the present time. I shall not say much about this subject to-day, because the whole House will wait to hear what my noble friend has to say about it, and about how far she thinks that the provision made for community service orders, day training centres, deferred sentences and power covering property used or intended for crime implements what she and her Committee had intended.
The only comment I would make is that, while these day hostels and so on are admirable, many of them call for further work by probation officers. Here many of us are not at all happy. We are not happy with the present rates of pay, ask the noble Viscount whether it is not a fact that at the present time in London, for example, there are more probation officers leaving the service every month simply because they cannot live on what they earn, than are being accepted for training. What some of us find so difficult to understand is that, with the cost of prison now being about £24 a week, and the cost of a man on probation being about £1 a week, it seems such a very false economy to stint matters for probation officers.

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Part II contains 18 clauses of miscellaneous provisions. This, again, is ragbag stuff and partly window dressing. I suppose that increased penalties for firearms offences is the sort of thing a Party which made so much of law and order at its election has to do. But if my information is right, the average sentence imposed for firearms offences is about 4½ per cent. of the sentence which could in law already be imposed, and, if that is so, what good it will be to increase still further maxima which are practically never employed, I do not know. I am glad that the noble Viscount mentioned Clause 30, because I think that that is an odd one. A man is acquitted on a very serious charge, which I suppose might include murder. The man having been acquitted, the Attorney General then says, "There is a point of law about this, and I am going to the Court of Appeal to ask them to say that you ought to have been convicted. You can come along, old chap, if you want to". If they find that he ought to have been convicted it will not mean his conviction, but nobody seems to have given very much thought to the reputation of the unfortunate person concerned.
We then come to Parts III and IV, containing administrative and supplementary provisions, and I make half a dozen comments on them. I have suggested that the Bill has something of a rag-bag character, and we have read in the Press that there are other proposals coming along at some time for altering some part of our criminal process. As I understand it, these will be largely directed towards getting convicted some 6,000 people who are acquitted by juries, because the police say that they are much better judges of guilt or innocence than juries. This is out of a total of 1,500,000, and if you alter the process you have to think of the effect it will have on the rest of the 1,500,000. I question whether the time has now come when, instead of a rag-bag process, we ought to have a Royal Commission on the whole of the criminal process.
Secondly, I have already stressed the importance, in my opinion, at least of trying to get the proportion of police to criminal offences committed back to what it was before the war. I shall be grateful to know anything the noble Viscount can tell us as to when, if ever, he thinks we
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shall have as many police in relation to the crimes being committed as we had when the war broke out.
As regards method of treatment, as I have said we are immensely indebted to my noble friend Lady Wootton and her Committee; but this, I hope, is only a start. We still have about 14,000 living three in a cell meant for one. It would, I suppose, be administratively impracticable, but I should have thought that the difference between being one of three with a pail to share at night, and having a cell of your own, would almost merit a shorter sentence in the first case or a longer one in the second.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the figure is 12,000.
LORD GARDINER: But why is it that we have a so much higher proportion of our citizens in prison than I understand is the case in almost every other Common Market country? It was that very experienced judge, Lord Justice Lawton—I do not know whether he was born in prison, but he is the son of a prison governor—who recently said:
"Loss of liberty is an inappropriate, useless and expensive sanction for about three-quarters of those who now find themselves in custody."
I do not know whether the Government agree with that view. Have we discovered why Holland decided to make a rule that from a certain date sentences were to be halved, and has not found as a result that crime has gone up? I hope that this Bill will do something to reduce prison numbers, but, as I understand it, the abolition of mandatory suspended sentences will increase the prison population by about 2,000. I ask the noble Viscount whether he agrees with that view. May I also seek what further steps are being taken in relation to probation officers?
There are two notable omissions—perhaps three—from the Bill. The first is about bail; and, of course, a large proportion of those now in prison are there only because they are awaiting trial and have been denied bail. This is something which we shall have to consider at Committee stage. The textbooks tell us what considerations ought to be taken into account when deciding whether to grant or refuse bail. There is something to be said for these being codified, where judges and magistrates alike can see them.

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We are equally disappointed that there are no real provisions in relation to legal aid. Mr. Justice Widgery (as he then was) and his Committee laid down the criteria. We all know what a lot of work successive Lord Chancellors have done, in the way of holding sentencing conferences and so on, to try to make sentences between the thousands of magistrates' courts that sit every day more consistent. But while there are some magistrates' courts which regularly grant legal aid, there are one or two stipendary magistrates' courts which think that their first duty is to think of the public purse and they take a different view. Perhaps we ought to consider on the Committee stage of the Bill whether we ought to put something into the Bill, where everybody can read it, what I have referred to as the Widgery criteria for granting or refusing legal aid.
I regret that the Bill does not contain anything about complaints against the police. There is no doubt that among sections of the public, if not the public as a whole, confidence in the police is not as great to-day as it used to be. If one wants to make a complaint against the police it is decided by policemen, and only by policemen. When I raised this matter after we took office I was told that it was only six months since we had had a new statutory provision whereby the Home Secretary could call in a senior officer of an outside police force, and that this was so recent that I ought not to raise this old question again so soon. That was eight years ago, and we are still in the position that any complaint made by the public against a policeman is decided only by the police. I have felt for a long time that the police will not have the credit, which I have no doubt they deserve in this country, so long as this situation continues.
There are a few questions which I would pose. First of all there is the matter of time spent in custody. This is the sort of thing about which lawyers are ignorant. We do not know what happens to our clients after they leave the dock. Many months ago a man wrote to me from prison. He had been sentenced to eight years for forgery from which he gained nothing. It seemed rather a heavy sentence. When he wrote to me he pointed out not merely the
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number of factual mistakes made by the Court of Appeal but the fact that he had been kept waiting to be sentenced so that somebody else could be sentenced at the same time. While his time in custody counted towards his sentence, it did not count either towards his one-third remission for good conduct or his eligibility for parole.
On going into the case I felt that this was wrong. So I put down a Question for Written Answer in your Lordships' House inquiring:
"Whether time spent in custody as a remand prisoner counts towards (a) sentence, (b) remission and (c) eligibility for parole; and if not why not."
The Answer I received was:
"Under Section 67(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 the time which a prisoner in England or Wales spends in custody on remand before sentence counts towards his sentence. Under the Prison Rules the time spent in custody after conviction but before sentence attracts remission. Time spent in custody before conviction does not. The period spent on remand does not count towards a prisoner's eligibility for parole. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 provides that a prisoner may be released on licence after he has served not less than one-third of a sentence or twelve months, whichever expires the later, and that the period of one-third of sentence is to be calculated from the date of conviction. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is reviewing the provisions about remission."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20/1/72, cols. 261–2.]
It will be observed that the last part of my Question—that is, "if not why not?", was not answered. There was a good reason for not answering it, and that was that there was no answer.
I asked honourable friends of mine in another place to put down an Amendment on this point. The Government said they could not suggest any reasons to support this anomaly. They thought that in all cases it should count. While that relating to eligibility for parole would have required legislation the other could have been dealt with by a prison rule. The cause of the difficulty would appear to have been an ultra vires prison rule which had been in force for a long time. The Government, having given an undertaking on the Committee stage of the Bill, moved an Amendment at the Report stage to rectify the position so far as eligibility for parole was concerned. What I should now like to ask is, "Are we sure that the position in regard to remission is going to be dealt with by a change in prison rules and, if so, when

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it is anticipated that the change will be made?"
A point was raised by Miss Shirley Williams, the shadow Home Secretary in another place, as to the position of third parties on deprivation of property used for crime; and encouraging noises were made by the Minister dealing with the Bill. May I ask whether the Government have had any further thoughts about that? Another point, which was raised on the same day, was whether or not there ought to be a social inquiry report before a supervision order was made. The Minister said:
"I am prepared to consider whether it is suitable that similar notice should be given to the courts with regard to suspended sentence supervision orders. I accept that, if we draw to the attention of the courts the appropriateness of their considering a social inquiry report before making a probation order, it would be right to do so with regard to the making of a suspended sentence supervision order.… I am prepared to consider whether I can meet the hon. Lady's point in any other way".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 15/6/72; col. 1963.]
Perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, can tell us something about that. I welcome his news that we are to receive Government Amendments to implement the Report of the Morris Committee on jury qualifications.
The last point I should like to raise—and I should like to hear the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest—is this. Is it right that it should be impossible to appeal against an interlocutory order in a criminal case? I have no doubt that such appeals should be strictly limited and discretionary. The point I have in mind is this. Like most lawyers, I cannot approve of the increasing tendency of those who prosecute to prosecute somebody not for what he has done but for conspiracy to do it. This is because our law of evidence makes the prosecution easier. But if there are to be these grave charges then a man so charged ought to be given proper particulars of what the prosecution are going to allege he has done. The House of Lords has said this two or three times. I am told that there is an agreement among the Judges of the Central Criminal Court that, however poor the particulars given may be, they simply will not order further particulars. There is no right of appeal and therefore no way in which the
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declared intention of your Lordships' House can be carried out. Might it not therefore be wise to provide a right of appeal, however limited, to the Court of Appeal or the Divisional Court against a refusal by a judge to order further particulars?
My Lords, I have mentioned the Committee stage. This Bill was in Committee in the other place for, I think, 25 or 26 days, and it took four days for the Report stage and Third Reading. From what I have said, it may sound as though the Bill is qualifying for a place as another Bill like the Industrial Relations Bill or the Housing Finance Bill. Of course, any noble Lord can put down any Amendment he likes, but may I say that it is my intention, from this Bench, to try to limit my Amendments to a dozen, or a few more, and I see no reason why the Committee stage should take more than two or, at the most, I think, three days. But there are some points of substance which we shall obviously wish to raise. I give a welcome to the Bill as a whole, and in particular those parts which implement the Report of the Committee presided over by my noble friend Lady Wootton; I hope that it will not occupy your Lordships a great deal of time in Committee.
4.1 p.m.
LORD MORRIS OF BORTH-Y-GEST: My Lords, I also should like to express a general welcome to this Bill, and in doing so would join with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in expressing our gratitude to the noble Viscount for the clarity of his most helpful exposition of this Bill. I propose to make only a few observations on just one or two of the provisions of the Bill. In particular, I welcome all the early provisions in regard to the powers of the court to make compensation orders. In times past there was a great reluctance—and an understandable one—to permit any kind of stifling of a prosecution by means of the making of a money payment. The result of that was that courts set themselves against allowing a position under which a willingness to pay compensation could be regarded as an answer to a criminal charge. Courts made it clear, for example, that a man could have an intent to defraud even though he might have had an intention to make compensation to his victim in the

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future. Compounding a felony could be committed if someone accepted money for helping a person to recover his stolen goods without prosecuting, or giving evidence against, the felon. But, my Lords, none of the proper considerations which led to the rules against compounding felony are in any way compromised by endowing the courts with an ability to make compensation orders.
Many of your Lordships have had experience of sitting as magistrates; many of your Lordships will have had experience, as I had for many years, of sitting in what we used to call the courts of quarter session. If your Lordships' experience accords with mine, over and over again, when we retired to consider what was the right order to make in the case of somebody who had been found guilty, one magistrate would say, "But what about the poor person whose property was damaged?", or "What about the person whose goods were stolen?", or, "What about the person who suffered injury? Can we not make an order requiring some reparation from the accused in favour of the person who really is the victim of the crime?". I think we should all feel that that should be so. There is a desire to achieve the right result; there is a desire to vindicate the law, to preserve order; but linked with those there must be a desire to help, if possible, the person who has been injured without imposing upon him the necessity to bring a civil action.
As magistrates, again if your Lordships' experience accords with mine, we found over and over again that the provisions were inadequate. The word used by the noble Viscount was, I think, a happy one: he said they were "haphazard"—and so they were. The powers under the Criminal Justice Act of 1948 were incomplete. There were powers under the Forfeiture Act; and under that Act the powers would be execised upon the application of any person aggrieved immediately after the conviction. My Lords, we found over and again—and the noble Viscount referred to this—that the person aggrieved might not be present. There would be no occasion, often, for him to be present. The court might feel eager to make some compensation order in his favour, but feel thwarted in their desire to do so. So I
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submit that it is wholly sensible that, in addition to dealing with the offender in such way as the circumstances warrant, a court should have the power to order compensation. That, of course, would not preclude the bringing by a victim of the crime of a civil action should he feel that necessary or should he feel able to bring it.
I would further express my welcome of the provision in Clause 10 of the Bill which ends the mandatory requirement that sentences up to a period of six months must be suspended. There has been much discussion whether, if this clause is passed, there will be an increase or not in the prison population. I do not think that any consideration of statistics can give any positive answer. We all desire a reduction in the prison population, but primarily we desire it for the reason that we hope there will be a diminution in crime. But as regards a prison sentence—again if your Lordships' experience as magistrates and on the Bench accords with my experience in quarter sessions over many years, my past experience as a judge and my knowledge of the way in which judges' minds work—I am sure that, when considering sentence, it is always the wish of a judge or a court to avoid sending someone to prison if it can possibly be avoided. We have in this Bill Clause 13, to which the noble Viscount referred, which says:
"A court shall not pass sentence of imprisonment on a person who has attained the age of twenty-one and has not previously been sentenced to imprisonment unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate; …"
That is all very good: I entirely accept it. But here is no startling new pronouncement. That, in my view, merely sets out what has been the recognised principle for years of, I think, every judge and every magistrate. Judges struggle to avoid sending people to prison.
But when I use that expression, it is not the judge, it is not the magistrates, who send somebody to prison: it is the community. If somebody has been found by magistrates or by a jury to be guilty of an offence, it is for the magistrates or the judge, in the name of the community, to decide what is right. It is not the personal wish of the judge or of the magistrates; it is their solemn and, generally, their unenviable duty to decide in

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all the circumstances what is the right thing to do. Therefore, if your Lordships agree with me that that is the attitude of all magistrates and all judges, surely there is no need any longer to have a provision which cramps and curbs the discretion of magistrates or judges. My Lords, magistrates are chosen because it is thought that they have great and useful experience of affairs and that they are fairminded and rational. If there are some cases where a short sentence is desirable, is it right to curb the magistrates' powers and say that they shall not pass that sentence? We are told that short sentences are undesirable. Probably they are, but can we say that never is there a case in which a short sentence is right and ought to be imposed? If that is so, I suggest to your Lordships that there is no longer any need to keep this provision of mandatory suspension of a sentence. We must trust the magistrates and the judges.
My Lords, I wish only to add a word in regard to the provision in Clause 30. Here is indeed a very interesting provision. In the past we have been accustomed to a system under which if somebody is acquitted in a magistrates' court there may be an appeal by the prosecution to the Divisional Court; and although the man has been acquitted by the magistrates the Divisional Court may send the case back with a direction to convict. We have had the situation whereon indictment someone is convicted by a jury, the case goes to the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Appeal decides to quash the conviction. There may then be an appeal to your Lordships' House. But until now we have regarded a verdict of acquittal by a jury as something possessing finality, and here I must confess to sharing the anxiety that was expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. Somebody is acquitted by a jury; then there may be a point of law taken on the initiative of the Attorney General to the Court of Appeal, and there may afterwards be a reference to this House to express an opinion on a point of law.
This House now possessing a freedom that it did not formerly possess in regard to its decisions, there have been cases recently where we have felt that a case had been decided on the basis of the existing law but we have decided that
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in fact the law was otherwise. We have wondered, could there be some system of declaration in regard to the law having prospective operation? So far there exists no such power. Here is a very interesting proposal to introduce that in the criminal field. Somebody is acquitted by a jury. A point of law goes to the Court of Appeal. The acquitted person may appear if he so wishes, and I think that there are provisions in the Bill that all his costs will be paid.
It may be said that if the point of law is decided against that person that shows that he should have been convicted; and what hardship is there if that is shown, even though he will be free for the future? On the other hand, we have always regarded a verdict by a jury of "Not guilty" as being sacrosanct. I confess that here I find a balance of advantages, and I find it very difficult to know where the real balance comes down. Will it be possible for the noble Viscount in his reply to tell us whether there could be some safeguards for an accused person, in order that if in a case that has achieved great prominence someone has been acquitted, the result finally will not be that the public will say "Well, he is very lucky. He was acquitted, but it is now shown that really he was guilty."? My Lords, in regard to the proposals in this Bill which owe their origin to the thought and work of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, I express my warm approval. Like others of your Lordships I look forward to her speech. These are experiments. They are interesting experiments, and I am sure they are worth making. I wish them well.
4.17 p.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, in addressing your Lordships' House for the first time, may I beg your Lordships' traditional indulgence which is shown on these occasions. I may say that this is no formal request on my part. Having been concerned with the criminal courts for the last 14 years or so as a member of the Bar, it is not altogether easy for me to adopt the traditional maidenly posture suitable for this occasion. And it is impossible to consort with criminals, and, on the other side of the fence, with the police who get them to the courts, and persons such as probation officers who deal with them after

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they have been convicted, and on an occasion such as this to disguise one's well-held opinions.
I am also very conscious that there are in your Lordships' House a number of noble Lords, and indeed noble Baronesses, who have made long and deep studies into the whole question of penology. If I single out the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, it is because this Bill owes so much to her sub-committee and indeed to the noble Baroness herself. On a more personal note, I remember that the first time I ever went to the Bow Street Magistrate's Court to defend an errant motorist the noble Baroness was presiding in Court 3 upstairs. On the first occasion that I ever prosecuted a juvenile in a juvenile court she was presiding there, too. My Lords, her treatment of my clients, the motorist and the juvenile, and counsel, was a model for our deliberations—kind, but firm.
As a practitioner I welcome this Bill. No one will pretend that it will clear the gaols or reform the criminals overnight; but on the basis that a few offenders are evil and selfish, rather more plain stupid, and the vast majority of inadequate personality, the Bill will add considerably to the choices open to a court when it comes to decide how best to deal with them. It will, as it were, add several more strings to the bow. Until now the alternatives open to a court when dealing with an offender were but few: discharge, probation, a fine, or imprisonment, until recently immediate but now immediate or suspended. In addition, under this Bill the courts may now impose probation plus attendance at a day centre, a suspended sentence accompanied by a supervision order, a community service order, a compensation order or a plain deferment of sentence.
In passing, I venture to suggest that a great deal of the success or failure of these new and radical provisions will depend in no small measure on the Probation Service. I have met a great many probation officers in the course of my professional career at the Bar and I yield to no one in my admiration for that body of men and women. Not only will the Service have to be expanded, but it
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will have to employ persons of the highest calibre that this nation can afford. Most of these alternatives to prison will become useless "soft options" of doubtful value or even of no value at all unless the individual officers are competent enough and have enough time to devote to the offenders who are placed in their care.
If I may, I will now turn to some of the provisions of the Bill and the remarks I make will come from a lower plane than was the case with those noble Lords who have spoken before me. It is because I come from a lower plane myself. First, to deal with the compensation orders, not only is there something which is essentially appropriate in the concept of the criminal compensating his victim, but I feel that the payment of compensation by instalments as provided for in this Bill may be much more reformative in its effect than the payment of a fine by the same person and by the same method. However, this power to award compensation has been held by the courts in one way or another for many years. Up till now, in my experience—and I bear in mind what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, has said—the courts have been sparing in its exercise. The report of the Widgery sub-committee discusses the matter in paragraph 24 and figures are given in Appendix E.
Taking the matter shortly, in respect of indictable offences in 1969, only 23,800 compensation orders were made and only 138 of such were in respect of the offence of malicious wounding. Even on these incomplete figures, it is plain that the courts are reluctant to make such orders. I myself have had experience of such reluctance, particularly when prosecuting in forged currency cases initiated by the Bank of England. In these cases, most commonly an individual or a gang descends on an area or a town and passes off forged bank notes, usually £5 notes, by buying some items in such crowded places as shops, supermarkets, public houses or betting offices, pocketing the change in valuable and valid currency. If, as frequently happens, the gang is eventually caught and found to be in possession of considerable sums of cash, it then falls to the court to allocate such cash by way of compensation. In my experience, the police seldom help by establishing exactly the identity of the companies who are the losers and equally

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the police do not inform the individuals of their rights under Section 4 of the Forfeiture Act to which reference has already been made. The courts are usually keen to start the next case and are unlikely to intervene in the matter unless they are asked to do so.
This is really the nub of my argument. Compensation orders are unlikely to become any more frequent unless it is either the duty of somebody to determine whether the conditions exist under which an order should be made and if they do to ask the court to make it; or, alternatively, if it is in somebody's interest that an order should be made. For that reason, I regret that the Committee recommended in effect in paragraph 79 that an application by or on behalf of the victim should no longer be necessary except in certain case. But, if I may say so, even worse, Clause 1 of the Bill excludes the victim from playing any part in the proceedings so far as compensation is concerned. There will be a situation, therefore, where the victim will have no right of application to the court, let alone audience, over the matter of compensation or how much may be awarded to him; and, more important, the defendant will have no right to challenge by normal methods any claim put forward on behalf of the victim by the prosecution or the court of its own volition. I do not consider that the courts will become any more enthusiastic about making such orders than they are now, merely by repeating the old law substantially in the same form but written differently. However, this is something which your Lordships may consider when the Bill is discussed in Committee.
While on the theme of reparation, I should also mention Clause 7 of the Bill which provides for criminal bankruptcy orders. Where by means of one large or a number of smaller, frequently complicated offences, the offender has pocketed a large sum of money, under this clause it will be made easier for the assets to be recovered (from wherever they may have been concealed) and redistributed among the victims. At the same time, there is much to he said for imposing the order at the conclusion of the criminal trial when the matter is still fresh in the minds of those who can best throw light on the situation, such as the police officer who has been in charge of the prosecution. At such a moment—that is to say,
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at, or immediately after, conviction—it is often the fact that the morale of the individual prisoner is at its lowest and he is less in a position to be able to take avoiding action than he will be if at a later stage the victims take the more normal action through the civil court.
My only doubt is as regards the thresh-hold figure of £15,000. I was interested to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, say that the figures suggest that there will be 100 such cases in a year. While one appreciates that the authorities are anxious not to overload the resources of the bankruptcy service, I should have thought that to lower the threshhold to, say, £10,000 and if necessary to expand the bankruptcy service as quickly as possible, would make for a much more worthwhile experiment. Nevertheless, even at this figure it is going to be a good and worthwhile experiment and I wish it success. The Bill contains a number of excellent provisions which I should like very much to discuss but time does not allow.
I welcome Clause 10 which abolishes the mandatory suspension in certain circumstances of short-term imprisonment. This mandatory suspension has led to anomalies and injustices, and I should have thought that if the proper people are appointed as judges or magistrates and properly trained, they should then be entrusted to get on with the job for which they are appointed unless and until they go wrong when the situation can be rectified by a court of appeal. But while on this matter of fetters on the discretion of the court, may I express regret that opportunity has not been seized to repeal Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961. This is the provision which in general prohibits a court from passing a sentence of imprisonment on a person aged between 17 and 21 and who is thus eligible for borstal training unless the sentence is one of six months or less or three years or more.
Over the last ten years, this one measure has been one of the most frequent sources of complaint by the courts, not least because it leads to so much injustice. One can think of many examples; but the prime example is where there are two offenders, one perhaps aged 23 and one, perhaps the ringleader, aged 20. There is a fetter upon the discretion of the court and it may be that,

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taking all the circumstances of this particular case into account, a sentence of two years would be proper to pass on each. In the case of the 20-year-old, if the judge is of the opinion that he is unsuitable for, or is not in need of, borstal training, the only sentence that can be awarded is either the derisory one of six months or the over-severe one of three years. Again and again I have heard judges complaining of this fetter upon what they consider to be the right course to adopt. Incidentally, the injustice is reflected in the sentence which is passed on the older boy who would normally have, say, two years but who, because of parity, has to be given whatever sentence the 20-year-old receives. I regret that the opportunity to abolish this particular clause in the 1961 Act has not been seized upon. It may be that when the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has time to reflect upon matters he will include it in the Bill at a later stage.
I refer lastly to Clauses 14 to 18 which provide for community service orders. The idea of these is brave and novel, at least in this country, and it is attractive to reflect that the subject of such an order may be treated in the most comprehensive manner provided by any penal system. The punitive element is provided by deprivation of leisure and the obligation to work for the community. Work or reparation within the community may produce a different outlook on the part of the offender so that he becomes an honest citizen. However, the scheme bristles with difficulties. On a practical note, much will depend upon the probation officer or whoever assigns the tasks or supervises the work. It will not always be easy to keep somebody up to the task of working for free if he is disinclined to work for gain. The allocation of work in itself will require finesse. I foresee difficulties, for instance, if a burglar is assigned to the Meals-on-Wheels service and takes the opportunity of "casing" a number of "joints" for future reference. Will householders or organisations be told that some of the volunteers upon their premises are in fact criminals? If they are not, and the so-called volunteers help themselves rather than the persons they are supposed to help, I can imagine irritation on the part of the losers and their insurance companies. I do not wish to be accused of
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undue levity. These clauses bristle with difficulties and I very much hope they will be overcome.
My Lords, I do not think it inappropriate to end—particularly in view of the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner—by pointing out that most of the innovations contained in this Bill take effect only on the conviction of the offender. The fact remains that less than half of the offences committed are cleared up in the sense that someone is arrested, and of those tried on indictment less than half are convicted. These reforms therefore concern only a small proportion of the criminal element at large. In a sense, therefore, it can be said that the discussions before your Lordships' House are putting the cart before the horse. I mention this because unease over our criminal procedures both in and out of court is mounting, and has recently got to the stage where responsible people feel bound to voice their disquiet. I hope that the Government will see to it that the momentum of criminal law reform is kept up. These reforms are welcome, but the best deterrent to crime is the certainty of detection and conviction. We must continue therefore to press ahead to ensure that such detection and conviction is more the norm than it is now.
4.34 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER:
My Lords, my first and very pleasant duty is to congratulate the noble Earl Lord Mansfield, on his maiden speech. It would be easy enough to do this if I were to confine myself to what he has described as his maidenly posture and to his elegant phrases, but I find myself fully supporting so much of what he has said that my task is made doubly easy. I hope that we shall hear him very often in the future; indeed, in view of the large measure of agreement between us I am almost tempted to express the hope that we shall some day hear him from another part of your Lordships' House.
My second and very pleasant duty is to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and a number of other noble Lords who have made extremely generous references to the work of the Penal Advisory Council in the preparation of this Bill, and in particular to the reports prepared by the two subcommittees presided over respectively by the Lord Chief Justice and myself. While

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the noble Viscount made frequent use of my name, I hope that your Lordships will understand that this was only a shorthand to refer to the whole of my committee without whose devoted skill and service no such Report could possibly have appeared.
If I make rather scant reference to the first part of the Bill this is simply because there are others very much more competent than I to discuss these provisions, and because others—notably the Lord Chief Justice himself—have been more closely associated with the drafting of the Report on which they are very largely based. I will therefore only say that I welcome, as I think all of your Lordships will, the provisions relating to compensation and restitution. They will be invaluable in clearing up much confusion in the courts and in doing away with a number of injustices. So far as the criminal bankruptcy provisions are concerned, I think the authors would agree that these are fraught with considerable difficulties; that they are highly imaginative provisions which may equally be fraught with considerable potentialities for fruitful use.
I turn now particularly to the clauses which are based on the report of my subcommittee. On December 2, 1970, in the course of a debate on overcrowding in prisons, the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, on behalf of the Government, discussed fairly briefly—time was short—the contents of the report on non-custodial penalties. At that time, on behalf of the Government, he gave unqualified acceptance to two of our less important provisions and a rather halfhearted acceptance of the third. Our score at that time, I therefore reckoned, was something between two and three; but it is fair to say that a number of our recommendations were not discussed, either because time was short or because, as the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, said, they were to be the subject of further examination. I now find that our score has gone up from something under three to six. The Government have in principle, though often with modifications, accepted our recommendations on community service, on supervision orders for people who are under suspended sentence orders, on deferred sentences, on the forfeiture of property used in connection with crime, on disqualification from driving for persons using motor
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vehicles in connection with crime and, of course, what we fully expected, on the extension of the probation hostel system.
My colleagues and I feel greatly rewarded for the many hours that we spent, in the recognition that has been given to the product of our labours. Speaking only for myself, I must say that when one gives advice and that advice is accepted I always find it a rather alarming experience. Fortunately, in that sense, it does not occur very often. I should like to say a few words about the most important of our recommendations which is written into the Bill, the one which deals with community service orders. I am very anxious that your Lordships should not misunderstand at least what was our intention and, from what the noble Viscount said, is the intention of the Government in including this provision. I can perhaps illustrate the possibility of misunderstanding by recording that on the date our Report was published the B.B.C. asked for an interview with myself. The interviewer, unfortunately, was not very happily at home in this kind of topic, and the opening question was: "You are not proposing, are you, to put convicts to work upon the roads?" This immediately called up an image of men with broad arrows on their clothing working in chain gangs on the highways. The interview, which was very short, as they always are, was a disaster because I had to spend the whole time explaining that this was not what we were proposing, but that we were hoping that the work provided would not be punitive or humiliating in its own nature. The penalty involved is the deprivation of leisure, and nothing else. I was particularly glad to hear the noble Viscount say that it is proposed that people who are subject to these orders should work side by side with volunteers. I think it is possibly one of the most important aspects of the whole proposal that people who are doing this kind of work, whatever it may be, find that other people are doing it because they think it worth while. They may make friendships with these other people, and they may possibly in consequence—this is our most optimistic hope—get a rather different outlook on their role in society.
I think it also needs to be made clear that it is not proposed that the probation officer should be supervising the work on

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the job. This is somebody else's business. This is the business of the person who, in any case, would be supervising the volunteers. If the person who is acting under a community service order sits down under a tree and smokes a cigarette all the time he is supposed to be doing something in the hospital gardens, then it is for the supervisor on the job in due course to report the matter back to the probation officer, and for the probation officer to take what action he thinks fit. We do not propose to make probation officers into foremen. I hope that this will he widely understood.
I should like also to say that something of this kind on a voluntary basis is already being done with offenders. Some probationers are doing it at the instigation of their probation officers, and doing it quite happily and successfully. And in some open borstals, young men are going out to give service to the community, as, for instance, in Cheshire Homes, where they help to bath totally disabled people. It is found that the sight of persons far more disadvantaged than they are themselves, and the opportunity of helping such people, has a very beneficial effect on their attitudes. It is that kind of thing that we are thinking of in making these proposals.
The Government are proposing to extend the maximum length of the community service order—I think they are doubling the maximum number of hours that we suggested. I do not myself have any strong views about that. But I want to say that we made a few references, in passing, to the New Zealand experiment of week-end residences, where young men engage from these centres in various forms of community service at the same time as having educational discussions, particularly on social topics. Conditions in New Zealand are of course very different from those in this country because of the smaller population and the large rural element in the economy, but we were impressed with what we heard: we did not see it at first hand. I hope that if the number of hours of community service is going to be extended, perhaps some of it may be done at week-ends in institutions of this kind.
We particularly welcome the possibility of using a community service order for
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fine defaulters. In another context, we were much concerned about fine defaulters going to prison, and this might be an opportunity for keeping a class of persons out of prison who ought not to be there, who gain nothing by being there, who might alternatively get some real constructive benefit and, in a way, repay their debt to the community by engaging in community service. We do not think that the service need necessarily be related to the offence. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, that none of us wants the burglar who burgled our house to come and put things straight again; and none of us wants somebody coming into our homes to help decorate, when perhaps we are unable to do it ourselves or to get somebody to do it for us, who "cases the joint". But I think that most of the people who take round meals-on-wheels will not find the "joints" they visit worth "casing". So that particular fear is perhaps unnecessary.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, I am extremely interested in what the noble Baroness is saying, and I think this is a most imaginative attitude. I wonder whether she would agree with me that one of the attractive things about this proposal—I personally think there is a limit to the good one can do by simply sitting around and talking together—is that here people are doing things together. I think that may create a much more helpful attitude. I agree with the noble Baroness that the punishment element should be satisfied by the deprivation of leisure. After that there is no reason to pick out work which in itself is particularly unattractive.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I am obliged to the noble Viscount for his support. This is an original provision in this country, but it is not without parallel abroad. I always recall right in the centre of Australia in a juvenile court two young boys who had noticed that the collecting box for the Flying Doctor Service had a rather fragile front—and a glass front so that everybody could see when they were intending to put in 5s. that everybody else had put in £1. They noticed this, and took the opportunity, when it offered, to break the glass and steal the contents. The juvenile court at Alice Springs, after long deliberation (how greatly I envied this when I

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thought of our metropolitan lists of 40 cases! decided that these boys should pay for what they had done by spending their Saturday afternoons doing chores for the Flying Doctor Service. So there are these parallels abroad. But in the majority of cases I do not think there would be this close connection between the nature of the offence and the nature of the work undertaken. The last thing I want to say about this subject is that I am delighted to hear that plans are already afoot to put these experiments into operation in five areas. They are not likely therefore, like so many provisions on our Statute Book, to be monuments engraved in stone and left there.
I should like now to say a word or two about those provisions which were not based on the Report that I have mentioned but which were thought up by the Government all by themselves. The most interesting one is that for day centres. In principle, I think we should welcome this; but I hope that a great deal more thought will be given to what is to be done in the centres, who is to go to them and who is to conduct the programmes there. I notice that in the Committee stage in another place (I am referring to the OFFICIAL REPORT for the thirteenth day at columns 530 to 533) the Minister of State referred to remedial education in reading and writing—which is obviously very desirable—and to the ability to live a normal life in society, get a job and hold it down. He also referred to education in the use of simple tools and the basic maintenance of electrical appliances. I did not find any reference to social responsibility or crime. I should like to add here that in my many recent visits to penal institutions in this country and abroad I have begun to form the conclusion that the one unmentionable subject is criminal behaviour.
I come now to one or two other provisions. First of all, there is the firearms provision. As your Lordships know, perhaps to your cost, from the many Questions that I have put down in this House, no one is more anxious than I am to stop the illicit acquisition and the dangerous use of firearms. I do not know that this increase in penalties will have any great effect, but I have no particular views about it either way. I should much rather see more stringent regulations more effectively enforced. I see that
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the increase in penalties was referred to in another place as a "cosmetic provision". This struck me as a rather odd adjective in this connection. I had not thought before that the use of cosmetics Was a phoney deterrent; but, come to think of it, as other noble Lords to-day have used the term "window dressing" as an alternative to "cosmetics", there might he something in it.
As to the abolition of the mandatory suspended sentence, I think I am almost the only one who has so far spoken in this debate who is sorry to see the mandatory provision go. The courts, and particularly the magistrates' courts, have been rather unjustly accused of abusing this provision, and very superficial inferences have been drawn from the fact that since suspended sentences have been introduced the proportion of fines and probation orders has gone down. To judge the effect of the suspended sentence is a very complicated operation. You have to know how many of these sentences were eventually activated; how much longer they added to the period spent in prison; what would have happened to people who would have been put on probation or fined had the suspended sentence not existed; how many of these would have committed further offences and been imprisoned, and so on. I think that it was a good provision because it prevented a number of people from being put into prison when there was at least a chance, and in some cases a very good chance, that prison was not necessary.
I am completely foxed by the proviso which is attached to the abolition of the mandatory order. Clause 10(3) of the Bill seems to me to say: "You shall not put off until to-morrow something that you would not do to-day if you could not put it off until to-morrow. I find it very difficult to work out how one would carry out this proviso, even in one's ordinary life, and still less in a court when passing sentence. But, with due respect to my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, I must say that I have been absolutely consistent in upholding the mandatory suspension from the beginning.
This Bill will, we hope, keep a certain number out of prison. It will not empty the prisons: and may I say that putting people in prison is a very poor way of keeping people out of prison. I hope

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that remark is not as silly as it sounds. So far as the prisoners themselves are concerned, it is true that a very high proportion—perhaps nearly 80 per cent.—of those who go to prison for the first time do not go back; but it is also true that every time a prisoner goes back to prison this increases progressively up to a very high level his chances of going to prison yet again. It is also true, if you think not of prisoners themselves but of the public outside, that undoubtedly the fear of a prison sentence is a deterrent to people who calculate rationally, usually about not very serious offences. I have no doubt, for example, that many of your Lordships would be a little more careful than perhaps you normally are about your parking and speeding if you were convinced that should you be detected in an offence of that nature you would lose your licence for life and be incarcerated for five years. I am sure that in that kind of offence a prison sentence is a deterrent; but there are many cases where it is not. It is not a effective deterrent to the professional, who takes it as an occupational risk and thinks that he will get away with it anyway; it is not a deterrent to the inadequate who cannot really calculate his actions at all; and it is not a deterrent to a person who commits a crime (and often a very serious crime) on impulse. So putting people into prison is really a very poor way of keeping people out of prison.
I suppose that what we have to say, summing the matter up, is that we must not pitch our hopes on the penal system as a whole too high. By definition, the penal system locks the door after the horse has bolted. Occasionally subsequently it catches the horse and then has to decide what to do with him. But the roots of crime—the things that make the horse bolt in the first place—lie within the whole structure of our society and cannot be touched by the penal system itself. In the penal system we have tried many theories and a "hangover" of a good many of them still lingers on. I am thinking now of those persons whom we are not able to keep out of some kind of custodial institution. The Victorians in their day, if I may use their own language, used to think that they would reform criminals by "inculcating
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habits of industry into the labouring classes". They were not particularly successful. The Edwardians thought that rebellious and lawless working-class youths could be reformed by exposure to an imitation of the English public school system. They, alas! have not been very much more successful. Now I am not sure whether we are at all clear what we are trying to do with people who are in custody. We are changing the language certainly. As I learned when I went to the United States on behalf of the Penal Advisory Council last autumn, there what we used to call a punishment cell is referred to as a "therapeutic tool", and the system on which most of your Lordships, as well as myself, were brought up, whereby we were rewarded for good behaviour and punished for disobeying the rules, is now called "behaviour modification by operant conditioning". We may be changing the language, but I do not think we are very certain of what we are trying to do.
May I say, in conclusion, that when we have people in custody our best aim is to do no harm. That is not quite as pessimistic as it may sound. A large proportion of people who commit crimes and are put into custody are young people. The peak age for indictable offences is now 17, I think, although many serious offences are committed at higher ages, but not that much higher. Surely what we are really trying to do is to deal with people who have not matured to the level of civilised behaviour which is tolerable in our society. If we can keep them out of harm's way and keep ourselves, particularly, from doing them any harm for a period, in a good many cases Nature and the natural processes of human development will do the job for us, provided we have done no harm in the meantime. Evidence of that is of course written into the Criminal Statistics, notably in the spectacular decline in the number of offences which take place after about the middle twenties. This is obviously connected with the maturing of people whom we must regard, in social terms, as late developers, and also connected, in the case of a great majority of offenders who belong to "the minority sex", with the fact that they later form a stable relationship with a member of the opposite sex.
4.59 p.m.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I should like to follow the noble Baroness in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, on his thoughtful and comprehensive maiden speech. He showed a wide-ranging understanding of the subject of this Bill, and I particularly appreciated what he had to say about the work of the Probation and After-Care Service. I think the noble Earl has appeared on only one occasion before the bench on which I sit. I wish it had been more frequently, but I hope that we shall hear him many times in your Lordships' House.
In common, I believe, with all others who have spoken, I welcome this Bill, and particularly those clauses that make a start in the direction for which all those who work in the field of delinquency have been asking. As was pointed out by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, until now courts have had just three possible courses of action in dealing with offenders: a probation order, a fine, or a custodial sentence of some sort. For years many of us have been complaining that time and again one meets a situation where none of these courses is appropriate, and we have been begging for other forms of treatment to be provided. But until the introduction of this Bill nothing has been given to us except the power to suspend sentences of imprisonment; and that tan hardly be called treatment, especially as supervision was excluded. Now, at last, wet have had a thorough investigation by the Committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, leading to their admirable Report, and in this Bill we are offered community service orders, day training centres, power to defer sentence and the possibility of combining supervision with a suspended sentence. The last of these proposals has had a rather mixed reception but, generally speaking, all of them have been welcomed in principle by magistrates and probation officers alike.
However, the Probation Service have been extremely concerned about the possibility that they may be asked to take on a whole range of new duties before they have the strength to make a proper job of them. I know that this point has been very much in the mind of the Government, and the noble Viscount said so
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very clearly; and in fact specific precautions have been taken in the case of each of the new treatments. The power to combine supervision with a suspended sentence is initially to be confined to the higher courts in order not to overload the Probation Service. Community service and day training centres are to be started on an experimental basis only in selected areas, chosen in consultation with the Service, and they will not be extended until the expansion of the Service allows.
I understand that it is also intended that deferment of sentence shall be used only very sparingly. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has told us that there is to be no supervision for those whose sentence is deferred, although, so far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent it. The Probation Service feel that they ought to be involved, and there is no doubt that deferment could be used by the courts with advantage in a far wider range of cases than is now envisaged if the strength of the Service made it possible to call them in to help. But they are also quite clear that they could not cope with this either at the present time; and I shall be grateful if we may be told how the use of deferment will be controlled.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, referred to the subject of the pay of probation officers. In the twenty years I have been a Member of your Lordships' House, whenever a debate of this sort has made it possible, noble Lords in all parts of the House have joined in saying that the pay of probation officers is too low and should be higher. The only people who have always sat looking rather glum and reproachful are the Government Front Bench, whoever they may have been at the time. Now, at last, we have the inquiry, which is being conducted by Mr. Butterworth, designed to establish what should be the proper relationship between the salaries of the Probation Service and those of the other social services. For my part, I am content to wait for the results of that Inquiry even though the report is delayed very much beyond the date at which we had hoped to receive it.
There are those who say that it is a mistake to embark on these wide-ranging reforms at a time when the Probation

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Service are hard put to cope even with their basic work of probation, apart from all the other functions that have been added in the past few years, while at the same time the volume of delinquency continues to grow. I do not agree with this view: I believe that it would be foolish and irresponsible to turn down now reforms for which we have been waiting and asking for so long. But I am glad that the noble Viscount has confirmed today in general terms that the new measures will be brought into operation only to the extent and at the time which the expansion of the Probation Service makes possible. I hope that as the Bill progresses he will be able to explain in detail how each of these new schemes will be operated in practice. For example, in spite of a careful study of the Report of the Committee stage in the Commons, which ran to 25 Sittings, and in spite of having listened to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, I am still not entirely clear about how community service will be organised, and, in particular, who will be responsible for bringing an offender before the court for a breach of a community service order. These are perhaps more properly Committee points, but I should like to make one final point of a general nature.
As I have already said, all of us who work in the courts have for years been asking for reforms which will give us a wider range oil alternatives. Now we are to get them, and I have referred to the anxieties of the Probation Service. But have we who have to do the sentencing realised yet what it is also going to mean to us? The old three-way choice—fine, probation, prison—has often left us with no satisfactory solution; but at least with the aid of a social inquiry report it was relatively easy to decide which was the least unsatisfactory. Now we shall have several more possible solutions to choose from, and the task will be that much more difficult. I have the greatest admiration for the high quality of the social inquiry reports which we receive and which now provide the basis on which we make our choice. Our dependence on these reports will now be all the greater, and it will be more necessary than ever that there should be a clear understanding between those who make the reports and those who use them to make their decisions. It seems to me
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that joint conferences between magistrates arid probation officers will be needed, and possibly also joint sentencing exercises. It may be that even judges will feel the need for some help in understanding the different sorts of case for which these different treatments will be suitable.
Probation committees, too, are going to have a whole range of new duties thrust upon them: the arrangements for community service; providing and carrying on day training centres, bail hostels, probation hostels, probation homes and other establishments—all quite new functions with which these committees have never previously been involved. I think that this is right. It is important that the community should participate in its own problems and should not imagine that they can be dealt with successfully by professional agencies alone. Bodies constituted as probation committees, with magistrates and co-opted members working with the Probation Service, are well suited to this task and should be able to provide good links between the statutory services and the community, who must be increasingly involved. But the new responsibilities of probation committees will be much greater than anything they have known hitherto.
My Lords, it is true that all these new measures will come into operation gradually, and we should therefore be able to adapt ourselves to them as they arise. But while the Probation Service has carefully studied the implications of the Bill, I doubt whether the generality of magistrates have really woken up to what it is going to mean to us. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, hoped that the Bill would not be underestimated. I believe that when it has become possible for all the proposals in the Bill to come into operation it will be seen to have produced greater changes than anything that has happened since the introduction of the probation order—and, my Lords, not a moment too soon!
5.8 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, any measure, however limited it may be—and I am not for one moment suggesting that the Bill before us is limited in the sense in which we normally use that word—that is designed to keep people out of prison and to deal with them within the community is to be encouraged. I wonder how many Members of your

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Lordships' House, and how many members of the public generally, realise the futility of a prison sentence. I am the first to acknowledge that prison is the only place in our society at this particular time that can meet the needs of certain individuals. But, like my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger, I should like to emphasise that prison has very serious limitations when it comes to reforming the individual. I do not think we can claim that our prisons to-day—if ever they had in our history—have any remedial value at all. I doubt whether they have any deterrent value. Their only value in our society is that of punishment. While accepting the need for that particular contribution in our society, one has to bear in mind that an abnormally high number of people who are committed to our prisons every year ought not to be there.
It is not so very long ago that we discussed in your Lordships' House the report of the Working Party on the treatment of offenders, led by the late Lady Reading. I think on that occasion we were told that something like 50,000 people are discharged from prison every year and that about 10 per cent.—at least 10 per cent.—of the 50,000 are found to be homeless; and not only homeless but friendless. They are found to be feckless, socially inadequate and, many of them, alcoholic. I think I am right in saying that it has been estimated that something like 60 per cent. of our prison population have an alcohol problem. I am not saying that they are alcoholics, but they have an alcohol problem, and something like 15 per cent. of them are regarded as alcoholics. I do not think we realise that a good many people who go to prison are in need of that kind of help which we cannot give in our prison institutions at the present moment.
Schitzophrenia, which is the most socially disruptive of the common mental illnesses and is characterised by a pattern of bouts of acute disturbance interspersed by periods of complete normality, is to be found in the alcoholic, and it has been suggested that nearly half the alcoholics and those who have an alcohol problem are in fact schitzophrenic. If that is true, prison, with the greatest respect, is the last place where they should be. We should be trying to treat them on the

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outside. I welcome this Bill, if for no other reason, because I believe it to be a sincere effort to face this problem, perhaps for the very first time. I am particularly pleased that so many of the recommendations of the Committee which was chaired by my noble friend Lady Wootton are to be found in this Bill.
I always feel a little diffident about following my noble friend Lady Wootton, and it may be the student-teacher relationship that still is uppermost in my mind. I know she will not mind my saying that it is nearly forty years ago, when I decided to enter the field of the study of delinquency and the treatment of the offender, that she was, I might say, my tutor—or at least I attended a large number of lectures given by her. I think that relationship to some extent still inhibits me when I follow her.
My Lords, I welcome this Bill. There are just three clauses that I should like to mention because they are important and, not surprisingly, are concerned more with the offender than some of the other parts of the Bill. I notice that Clause 11—and I seek the guidance of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross—deals with suspended sentence supervision orders. As I read it, it would appear to apply now only to the Crown Court because it says:
"Where a court sentences an offender for a single offence to imprisonment for a term of more than six months …".
I can only think of one offence which enables magistrates to sentence a person for a single offence to more than six months' imprisonment. It therefore suggests that Clause 11 will apply to the Crown Court. If that is so, I find it difficult to understand subsection (9) of Clause 11. The subsection speaks about discharging the supervision order, and the last line on page 9 says:
"… except that, where the order was made by the Crown Court …
As I understand the situation, no other court will be able to make an order, and therefore I should have thought that the wording there needs to be revised. I know the noble Viscount feels that this is explained by the first line on the next page, but I do not think it is. The subsection says "except. … where the order". Surely it should say, "except where the Crown Court so directs" that it wishes to discharge the order itself.

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I should like to refer to subsection (4) of Clause 11, where it lays down that it will be necessary for the offender to notify the supervising officer from time to time of his change of address and to carry out such instructions as he may be given. Bearing in mind that this is a supervision order under a suspended sentence where certain conditions will be laid down, two of which I have mentioned—and I recognise that it is not a probation order—I should have thought that it would have been desirable to include in the supervision order something about leading an honest and industrious life. I know it is not a probation order, but there is going to be an order and in that order there will be conditions, and I should have thought that it would be of supreme importance that the offender should be reminded of the fact that while he is under supervision for that period he is required to lead an honest and industrious life.
I should like to refer now to Clause 19, which deals with probation orders requiring attendance at day training centres. My noble friend Lord Hamilton of Dalzell has referred to this and my noble friend Lady Wootton has also asked what is in the mind of the Government with regard to the organisation of these day training centres. It may be felt that perhaps one is being unduly concerned at this stage as to what kind of day training centres there are, but as I read the clause anybody, both male and female, of any age can be sent to a day training centre.
I do not know whether it was the intention of the Committee in making this recommendation or the intention of the Government when they put it in the Bill that it should be for young people who had missed out and were socially inadequate; whether the first priority should be young people or whether it is meant for any offender appearing before the court. I should have thought there was something to be said for clearly indicating the kind of day training centres that will be available, and that it would be desirable to indicate the sort of people, apart from just generally referring to the socially inadequate, who should be attending the day training centres. I do not think enough is known on this matter, and I want to stress how important it is that this operation should
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be thought out very clearly before the centres are put into operation.
I say to the noble Viscount that there is a real risk at the present time that the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 is breaking down. I realise that it has been in operation for only one year, but the noble Viscount will recognise that that Act was designed to take away from the court and the Probation Service the care and treatment of young people. To-day, we find courts making court orders and local authorities having nowhere to send the boy or girl because the community homes that were originally known to us as approved schools have become so choosy that they are now in a position to say that they will take this person or that they will not take that person, whereas before the operation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, if a juvenile court made an order committing a child or young person to an approved school, it had to take them. But to-day, as I say, they are becoming so choosy that many of them will take only the youngsters that are going to give the least trouble. If this question had been dealt with before the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 came into being I believe that it would have worked far more effectively than it is working at the present moment. I do not ask the noble Viscount to attempt to deal with this point. I merely say that I hope that the organisation of these day training centres is carefully thought out before they are put into operation.
The only other clause that I want to refer to is Clause 21, dealing with the deferment of sentence. I have read the various speeches that were made in another place by the noble Viscount's right honourable friend and by other Members who expressed opinions about the deferment of sentence. I recognise that in the main courts wishing to encourage somebody to get a job may perhaps defer sentence while that person makes recompense or restitution. I feel that it is desirable that the Government should consider whether this is not a case where, when the court defers a sentence, the person whose sentence is being deferred ought to be subject to supervision. I believe that some probation officers would welcome this step. It will not be for long. It cannot be for more than six months, as I understand

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the clause. It appears that the court is going to defer sentence on a person for a period up to six months in order to see how he or she is getting on.
I would remind the noble Viscount of the wording of subsection (1) of Clause 21. That says that the court may
"defer passing sentence on an offender for the purpose of enabling the court to have regard, in determining his sentence, to his conduct after conviction … or to any change in his circumstances."
I do not see how the court can possibly obtain that information, unless of course they get it from the police. But does one want the police to operate at that period? Would it not be far better for the court to make a supervision order? I appreciate that it has to be done with the consent of the offender, but in my view there would be no difficulty in getting the offender's consent to being supervised during that period, particularly when the whole object of the exercise would be to give him skilled and expert help in the form of a supervisory or probation officer.
As a number of people have said, the success of this Bill will depend to a very large extent on the Probation Service. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, has explained that this Bill is going to impose a very serious strain on the Probation Service. I know that the noble Lord's right honourable friend in another place has said that he is determined to increase the Probation Service to 4,700 in 1975; but I do not think he is going to get 4,700 probation officers by 1975 unless there is a very substantial change in the salary and career structure of the Service. In 1975 I may be proved wrong, but no Government have succeeded in recent years in reaching the desired level of recruitment into the Probation Service. I feel that this Service does need strengthening. As a case in point, the London Probation Service which have a total establishment at the present moment of 402 probation officers, have 353. They are 56 probation officers short in an establishment of 402, which is 14 per cent. below strength. That may not accord with the rest of the country or with other big towns; but that is the situation in London, and I venture to suggest that the impact of this Bill when it becomes an
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Act will be felt perhaps more strongly in Inner London than anywhere else.
The noble Viscount referred to probation officers during his opening speech, and he was good enough to indicate as a result of a nod from me that the Inner London probation officers were satisfied as a result of recent action taken by his right honourable friend. I should like to take the opportunity, because I have not had an opportunity before, of thanking him and his predecessor. If I may say so, the mantle of his predecessor fits so well on the noble Viscount's shoulders. We are delighted to know that he is handling these matters together with his right honourable friend, and we thank them for treating the Inner London Probation Service as a unit (for it is a unit) and for seeing that all in that Service received the London weighting allowance of £144. It has been well received in the Inner London Probation Service and has been the means of easing the situation there very considerably.
5.28 p.m.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, before I come to what I want to say this afternoon I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. on what I thought was a brilliant speech. From what we have heard since, he seems to have got around quite a bit, because I think he has also appeared before me. That makes at least three of us—and probably there are more. Always I enjoyed having such expert company on both sides of the bench. I congratulate him on his contribution this afternoon.
I rise to welcome this Bill very warmly. It is a Bill that is not likely to arouse much passion in your Lordships' House, but I venture to predict that by the time it has gone through all the usual stages it will have aroused interest and perhaps even enthusiasm here. Much of it is the work of dedicated people, like the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and her colleagues. I notice that she is just leaving, but I should like to say how much I enjoyed reading her Reports. I think I have read everything she has written, and I have learned a very great deal from it. I am one of 20,539 magistrates who form the lowest strata of the judicial system, and I shall confine my remarks to-day to some of those parts

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of the Bill which are directly applicable to the magistrates' courts. I imagine that all your Lordships know that the magistrates' courts, although they are the lowest courts, deal with 98 per cent. of all the crime in the country. It is therefore not surprising that there is a great deal of interest, outside this House and outside the other place, in this Bill, which will have widespread repercussions on what we all do in our courts.
The first clause to which I should like to refer is Clause 10, dealing with suspended sentences. I sit two days a week at a very busy North London court which is on the road from the docks to the M.1 and the A.1, and it also has within its divisional boundaries several large factories dealing in metals. The amount of stealing from both those sources continues to grow. And this is done not by petty thieves, petty pilferers, but usually by hardened professional planners who have at last been caught—though from the look of injured innocence they wear in the dock we presume they are trying to make us believe that this is the first time they have ever done such a thing and that they will never do such a thing again.
Since 1967 our hands have been tied, in that the suspended sentence is mandatory. That is why I warmly welcome the alteration in our powers that this Bill proposes to give us. In 1970 there were 33,709 suspended sentences. They were passed for indictable offences committed by people of either sex over the age of 17. The nearest figure I have been able to obtain for offenders who have committed further crimes during the period of their suspended sentence, and therefore have had to serve their terms of imprisonment, is 12,729. These are not taken for the same year, but it seems that the figures have varied little during the years since this was introduced. This I suggest shows, at least on the face of it, that the suspended sentence has had a deterrent effect. But I doubt whether I shall be accused of being outrageously cynical if I venture to say that many of the other 21,000 have been too clever to get caught again. If that is so, the offender gets off scot-free, while sometimes his friend, who perhaps helps him unload the goods, is fined, very often heavily. My own
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view, for what it is worth, is that a heavy fine, accompanied by the threat of a term of imprisonment if the fine is not paid, is the best deterrent in these cases.
In this Bill there are many ideas which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has told us are in the nature of experiments. The first of these, which has been referred to by every speaker this afternoon, is the community service. It is intended that this should be offered to an offender as an alternative to prison. While welcoming this idea in principle, I can foresee enormous, though not insurmountable, difficulties, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, dealt with this aspect, which I have also found in my dealings in the juvenile court. We hear that there will be experimental areas—1 think the Minister mentioned five. From my experience in trying to implement the Children and Young Persons Act, may I urge the Minister to be very certain that the groundwork is thoroughly done by experienced local people, probation staff, paid staff and voluntary people, before the community scheme is put into operation.
Our present problems in the juvenile court, as Lord Wells-Pestell has so rightly said, stem from the totally inadequate preparation on the ground which was made before the Bill became law. The detention centres rarely have a vacancy, and we are forced either to put the child into care or to make a supervision order. Frequently the placings available to the local authority are insufficient to meet the demand, and a child who desperately needs to be away from home for a period is returned to that home by the children's department. I mention this only because if the community scheme is to work, as I sincerely hope it will, a great deal of planning will be necessary.
Clause 28 deals with "drying out" the habitual drunkard. I have read the Bill and that part of it dealing with drunkards, because we have quite a number of them in my court, but I cannot see the word "habitual" in the Bill. This was used by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, and has also been used by the Minister here this afternoon. If none of the drunks is to be taken on arrest to the local police station, I can envisage an outcry from the local hospital if it is to be used as a

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detoxification centre, if that is the word. The noble Viscount shakes his head. I hope that he will be able to tell us how the centres are to be run; this is going to be very interesting. But since the word "habitual" was used by the noble Viscount, I wonder if he could tell us who is going to decide—and where—whether or not an offender is an habitual drunkard. Would it be the arresting officer in the street, where normally an arrest is made? Presumably the offender will be past caring, or at any rate incapable of giving an accurate account of himself. Or would it be the sergeant at the station; or would it perhaps be en route to the detoxification centre, or, at his discretion, in the cells? Who would be the judge of whether or not a man is an habitual drunkard? Even so, if all the people, male and female, who get drunk on our streets on Saturday nights are to be taken to detoxification centres, I can foresee that they will be very busy indeed. Perhaps the Minister would like to start the experiment in my part of North London.
Since I have been a Member of your Lordships' House I have not had an opportunity of saying anything about the great debt we owe to the members of the Probation Service. The work they do, both for the courts who rely on them, and for the clients we entrust to their care, is a very real service indeed. I was especially pleased to hear the Minisster tell us of the increase in full-time probation officers that he hopes to enlist before the end of 1972. One noble Lord (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner) mentioned that he did not know why so many probation officers were leaving the service, or perhaps he was querying whether as many were leaving as were coming in. From my knowledge, which perhaps is only local, I have found that the probation officers are leaving to join the child care officers as members of the local authority: first of all, because the pay of the probation staff is not good enough, but, secondly, they want initially to deal with children, and, unfortunately, with the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, the care of children was almost entirely taken away from the Probation Service. This, I think, is one of the reasons why we are losing so many wonderful people from this service. I add my hopes that the
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Committee will very soon find substantially in favour of a very high reward being given to the Probation Service. The future proposals of the community service will depend upon them, as many other speakers have said this afternoon.
My Lords, I commend this Bill; I wish it a swift journey through the House. It is an important piece of legislation both to the law-breaker and to those who have the arduous duty of trying to make the punishment fit the crime.
5.40 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER: My Lords, as the first lay voice to be heard in this debate I should like to add a word of general welcome from these Benches for this Bill, although I say that with great hesitation after the speeches from so many noble and learned Lords and distinguished justices of the peace. The young taxi-driver who brought me here to-day asked me, in the best New York style, what we should be debating. When I told him it would be the Criminal Justice Bill he made, as we waited at the traffic lights, the interesting comment, "That's an unfortunate title; surely 'Fair Justice' would be better". I took his point. This Bill includes among its varied provisions several features of great importance to all those who are concerned with the prevention of crime, with effective penalties for law-breakers and with their aftercare and rehabilitation in society. Although I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, said a bout the position of judges and magistrates, none the less I personally welcome the clear directions in Clause 13 to those who administer justice that they shall not sentence to imprisonment young people who have not previously served a prison sentence, unless they are satisfied that there is no other method of dealing with them. Although the Bill sets 21 as the upper age limit for such a restriction on sentencing, I hope it will prove to be an important step in the direction of sentences to imprisonment being, in general, a last resort. The increase in the range of penalties available to the courts should greatly facilitate this, always provided that the availability of such alternatives to imprisonment are fairly quickly available in all parts of the country.

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Reference was made in the debate in another place to the sentencing policy in the State of California, where grants are awarded to the counties for every convicted person who could be given a prison sentence but who is kept out of prison. This subsidy goes to the enlargement of the probation service run by the county and can be used only in this way. I understand that the effect has been a marked reduction in the number sent to State prisons, and, of course, a marked increase in the numbers on probation and in the number of probation officers and their staff. In addition to keeping people out of prison this arrangement has proved less costly to the State and to its counties. We may not wish to emulate such a scheme in this country but at least it is a reminder to us that adequate investment in the essential staff and centres for alternatives to imprisonment must precede any long-term saving in the heavy cost of keeping offenders in custody.
My Lords, I notice that the clauses which refer to community service orders speak of convicted persons being required to perform "unpaid work", while on Clause 19, the clause which makes provision for attendance at day training centres, the Explanatory Memorandum refers to such centres as providing social education in conjunction with intensive probation supervision. I cannot believe that the objectives of these two alternatives to imprisonment can really be so very different. I should have thought that a certain amount of unpaid work for the community would be an essential feature of what is described as social education, which I take to mean education for responsible citizenship and in most cases for responsible parenthood. At the same time, I should be sceptical of any community service order which required unpaid work that was either unsupervised or socially unprofitable.
The Minister told us that it is proposed that community service orders will be experimented with in five areas. I was naturally interested to hear that Kent is to be one of these areas. He also said that initially four day training centres will be provided on an experimental footing. I am sure both these experiments will be watched with close attention by all those who are concerned
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to see that these alternatives to imprisonment shall not for too long be available only to those who are fortunate enough to live in one of the areas for such experiments. I trust, therefore, that there will be a strict time limit for both these experiments. I hope that the experience of a number of the national voluntary youth organisations will be sought in the planning of the types of unpaid work to be suggested and in the social education to be provided. I am thinking of what may be learned from the experience of failure every bit as much as from the experience of success. Unpaid work that improves rather than impairs morale may not always be as easy to arrange as at first sight may seem to be the case, as I think the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, rather suggested in his maiden speech, upon which I should like to add my own congratulations. I may be wrong, but I suspect that social education at a day centre for those whom the Minister described as inadequate offenders may call for rather special gifts of imaginative planning and dynamic leadership.
I welcome the provision in Clause 40 which would allow a magistrates' court to make a community service order against an offender instead of committing him to prison for non-payment of a fine, but surely in such cases the nature of the unpaid work to be done and the effectiveness of the supervision provided would be particularly important, if the risk of this alternative deteriorating into far too soft an option is to be avoided. In the Command Paper on Probation and Aftercare presented by the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for Scotland last month the observations of the Government on aftercare hostels included the very significant comment that the inhibiting factors in the rate of growth of such hostels are not primarily financial but include, for instance, the problem of finding suitable staff. I should doubt whether anyone would wish to quarrel with that comment; and while, therefore, I welcome the possibility of aftercare hostels being set up by probation and aftercare committees, I do not think we should underestimate the difficulties that they will have in recruiting the necessary staff. Surely this must remain a field where both statutory and voluntary provision continue side by side. My own very limited experience suggests that the voluntary hostel has a

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special part to play in the rehabilitation of young offenders in comparatively small, home-like houses very different in ethos from any kind of official institution. I hope we may be assured that it is the Government's intention to maintain this present flexible position, and indeed to make more money available in England as well as in Scotland—which has been promised—to assist the voluntary agencies to provide additional hostel accommodation.
The new provisions for community service orders, day training centres, bail hostels, probation hostels and the like, as has been made very clear by a number of other noble Lords, all impose additional responsibilities upon the Probation Service. I speak for no one but myself, but being married to a lay magistrate, associated with the administration of two prisons and two hostels, who has worked as a probation officer, I have been left in no doubt that it will be absolutely essential for the number of probation officers to be increased to match the extended duties which this Bill will bring upon them. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, I welcome the Minister's assurance that he expects an increased number of probation officers next year. I am sure that there will be many noble Lords in all parts of the House who will await with interest the recommendations of the Butterworth Committee on the conditions of work and the salaries of these men and women who are going to bear so large a part of the burden of providing possible alternatives to imprisonment.
Paragraph 57 of the first report of the Expenditure Committee for this Session called for a concerted national campaign to explain the probation system, to help improve the public attitude to probation officers, and to create a favourable climate of opinion for the extension of non-custodial treatment of offenders. The Government, in their comments on that report, merely said that this would be considered. They quite rightly rebutted the view that the Probation Service is held in low public esteem, but made no reference whatever to the need to create a favourable climate of opinion for some of the important developments envisaged in this Bill. I should have thought that the experience of getting the work of the Parole Board properly understood by the public in the last four years would
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have shown just how important it is to prepare the way for changes and reforms of this kind.
I very much hope that the Government will not treat this suggestion of the Expenditure Committee too casually. If the alternatives to imprisonment provided in this Bill should prove to be the important developments that some of us think they are, then it will be important that strong positive steps are taken to prepare public opinion for their introduction. With this important proviso, I warmly support this Bill and hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
5.54 p.m.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I cannot let the right reverend Prelate get away with the claim that he is the first layman to speak in this debate. No right reverend Prelate has ever been a layman. He has admitted that his wife is a lay magistrate. I claim to be speaking as the first layman to-night. My wife is not a lay magistrate and nor am I. I am not a lawyer, nor is she; I am not even a learned judge Therefore, coming in my rightful play, bringing up the end of this very we informed debate, there is very little for me to say because, on the whole, the Bill has been discussed in the most knowledgable way by the people responsible for thinking it out and doing it. What I am going to say will essentially sound rather bitty, but I am going very quickly to try to give a lay view of some of the clauses that we have discussed.
I should like to begin by associating myself with my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner and my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell in their remarks—I think they are the only people who made them—deprecating the use of prison at all for anything except the protection of the public. That is not the general view of the public; it is not the general view of the judges; it is not the general view of the magistrates, and I doubt very much whether it is the general view of your Lordships, but it is my general view and I do not hesitate to put it forward. People who are sent to prison under our present prison arrangements, if they have committed anything except a very serious crime, have a very bad time indeed. If they have committed a very serious crime they get, in my opinion, very useful treatment indeed. I am not for one moment

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talking about the central prisons, which are not overcrowded and where dangerous criminals are kept away from the public and properly looked after. But so long as you send people to prison for absolutely inadequate reasons, except that you want to give an impression of punishment, you will fill your local prisons so that the prisoners suffer not only pain but deterioration. This is a common view which is held by nearly everybody. I do not want to say too much about it, but I start from that basis in looking at the Bill. I am far more interested in the second half than the first half, though I welcome the first half. I am all for doing anything we can—though I do not think we have in fact done very much—to provide compensation and to prevent the criminal enjoying the fruits of his labour.
May I once again say how proud I am to be my noble friend Lady Wootton's colleague. Nobody else could have chaired this Committee with the same imaginative and satisfactory results, ariving at a unanimous point of view. It was appointed by a Labour Government and accepted by a Conservative Government. Incidentally, I think I am the only other living person who has been through that experience, which is not in its way disagreeable. Anyway, I am very glad indeed to be associated with my noble friend. But the danger of her recommendation is that if they are applied wrongly, or applied without the very greatest care, they are going to be alternative to probation and not alternative to prison. As the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said in his excellent, informed and stimulating maiden speech, it is a very good thing for magistrates to have a number of alternatives in front of them; but variations on the probation theme, though useful, are not fundamental. What is fundamental is to give the wretched magistrates something to do with the man rather than send him to prison, which I think most magistrates and most judges genuinely do not want to do. What we want to do is to give the magistrates an alternative which will enable them to keep a man out of prison. The danger in the whole of the legislation, including the last Government's suspended sentence plan (which has gone rather wrong) is that this will not have that effect.
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Information which has come out recently from the Home Office (which I think is not yet generally published but is obtainable through the Printed Paper Office), contains two studies of suspended sentences which show, so far as I can see at a quick reading, that half the suspended sentences have gone to reduce probation and fines, and the other half to reduce imprisonment in the first round—though of course all failures go to increase imprisonment in the second round. At any rate, it is a very obscure subject about which we know very little.
I should like to make one philosophical objection to suspended sentences, and I do so on the same ground on which I opened. I do not believe that there can be any situation where a person must be sent to prison except that it is for the protection of the public. If that is the case, there can never be a case for suspending a sentence of imprisonment. This is a fairly extreme view; and I am quite prepared for the noble Viscount to shoot it down. But it is the view which I think in 10 years' time will be held by everybody, so we may as well begin to think about it now. On the abolition of mandatory suspended sentences, the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Carlisle (I think on Report stage in the other place), accused my right honourable friend Mr. Edmund Dell of conjuring figures out of the air. But the figures have now materialised and are available. I hope that in Committee we can discuss the details, and that the noble Viscount will accept the figures which the Home Office—his own Department—have put out.
My noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner suggested that a figure of 2,000 extra people in the prison population might be involved by abolishing the mandatory sentence. That was a slip of my noble and learned friend's tongue. It is not the population, but the receptions which would be increased by a figure which has been credibly estimated at 2,000. It may be too high; it is certainly quite a lot. Obviously, I am anxious to maintain anything, however much it might frustrate magistrates, which stops them sending people to prison, so I am absolutely unrepentant in asking that this mandatory law should be continued.

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There are certain matters about which I do not quite agree with what other people have said. My own view is that one should not have suspended sentences at all but it is too early, after such a short time, to abolish them. But if you do not abolish suspended sentences, which I should like to see done, then there is a case for having a supervision order available to the court, as well as the suspended sentence. But the Probation Service, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, told us, is in a bit of a tizzy over this, and they are not all happy about it. I believe their main objection is that they think they will not be given the extra assistance to do the work which is required, though they give as a reason that the work is too penal in that they are having to report changes of address and are generally behaving in ways other than befriending, which is their main business. But, for the moment, I would accept the right of a court to impose a supervision order.
Clause 13 is fine. It adequately replaces the First Offenders Act, and I welcome it. Clause 14 has been discussed so fully that I will say no more than this. I should like to follow the right reverend Prelate in saying that there is a great deal of information in the voluntary movement about how to separate this sort of procedure, and I hope it will not be neglected. It is certainly anxious to help. The compulsory service order is designed for people who are in work and, presumably, living at home or in a satisfactory hostel. We must not forget that it is meant to be not only rehabilitative but also a little punitive; otherwise, the public will want to send these people to prison. One has to look at it in the same way as getting 500 lines rather than being beaten. But it is quite a nasty, tiresome punishment and we have to get the public to take that kind of view of the compulsory service order. However, it is mainly rehabilitative and whether it will do any good depends entirely on how it is operated. All I can say to the noble Viscount is that the voluntary movement on the penal side has ideas; the voluntary movement on the social side is offering its assistance in all directions, and there is every hope that this will work.
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Day training centres are part of the same game, except that they are part of a probation order and are meant for unemployed people who are presumably living in hostels—because, as a rule, most of these people are not living at home. Again, success entirely depends on how it is operated. I hope that the ages will be mixed and that there will be group therapy, which really only means sitting around and talking, but which does more good to isolated people in trouble than anything else in the world. I am sure that the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger, of studying what is going on in New Zealand, is already being done.
I should like to state a view on deferment. I believe that the virtue of deferment is that it is not a sentence, and as it is not a sentence it should not carry a stigma. The position is that if you do what you say you will do, the slate will be wiped clean. If you do that, you cannot give a chap a probation supervision order; it must be kept apart from probation. It is the kind of thing that every mother does with every child. She says, "If you do this I will not punish you." Therefore, it cannot be involved with the faintly penal aspect of supervision by the Probation Service. There is one point which has not been made clear in the Bill. As my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell asked: Who will find out whether a chap does what he says he will do? I should be interested to know.
Clause 44 has worried me a little. I am deeply involved and very much interested in the penal voluntary movement, not because I think voluntary movements are any better than any others, but because things must be done by any means and the voluntary way is one method. Subsection (1) of Clause 44 gives the probation and after-care committee, with the approval of the Secretary of State, the right to provide and carry on day training centres, bail hostels, probation hostels and other establishments. But the next subsection—and we know that the Home Office is infinitely careful—covering payment for them excludes other establishments. As the other establishments are the establishments in which I am interested, and in none of which is the State interested, I naturally take a poor view of this and should like it expanded.

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Finally, the right reverend Prelate referred to the probation subsidy scheme in California. Is it not possible to bend our minds to this? I keep saying that I can run a voluntary hostel for £9 a week for each person, the probation hostel costs £19 a week and prison costs £24 a week. What the people in the Treasury say is that it is all on paper, and they do nothing about it. I think we should be offered money to keep people out of prison. One cannot develop the point now, but the fact that that has been done in California and that the City of Los Angeles saved over 50 million dollars, or 4,000 dollars a head, from keeping people out of prison is very significant, and we ought to look at it.
Having said all this as a layman—and I still claim to be the only one—I welcome this Bill. It is the second attempt to keep people out of prison. We had a bit of a shot at it in 1967, but the most important part—the drunken offenders' legislation—has never been carried out. It has taken five years to report on it and it is still not implemented to the extent of more than one-twentieth of what is required. What is rather encouraging is that the compulsory service orders and the day training centres are to have specific experiments on a small field scale. That is the right way to do it, and I hope that it does not take five years before we see anything.
6.8 p.m.
LORD DIGBY: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I rush in among so many noble and learned Lords who have forgotten more about criminal justice than I shall ever know. But I wish to say a few words, because this Bill attempts to provide some answers to questions which I have discussed over and over again with fellow magistrates. I say "attempts" deliberately, because this is an experimental Bill and, as such, should be subjected to special scrutiny in this House where there is such a unique wealth of experience. We have been groping for many years for ways in which to make more effective the deterrents which public opinion allows us to inflict upon offenders, and to combine with those deterrents rehabilitation to induce in offenders a mental attitude which will enable them to take a normal place in society after their punishment is completed.
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The Advisory Council has provided us with some light to make progress, and with some excellent ideas to put into practice. To me, the most important new concept is the community service order, and I should particularly like to commend its flexibility. One of the most hopeful forms of treatment is that where an offender works with volunteers. These volunteers inevitably have a social conscience and sense of duty which the offender is unlikely ever to have encountered in his home environment, and the close contact and comradeship of working side by side can have a profound effect on many to whom a sense of duty is not only alien but completely unknown. This type of community service will not be easy to organise and will be suitable for only a limited number of offenders. Another small but important point is that community service will not make the offender into a hero among his mates, as a sentence to a period in borstal or prison can often do. I note that the Government intend to set up pilot schemes in five areas. I am sure that these will be very necessary, but it may be many years before a complete assessment can be made. I hope that the Government will press on with that expansion of the scheme as soon as any lessons are learned.
I believe that the difficulties of organising community service are so vast that it will not be successful unless the Government appoint a controller of some stature, vision and determination, who can inspire the workers in the field and bully the Government Department into providing the finance and the facilities that the service will require. I urge this because of the very slow progress of the experiment with attendance centres. These were set up under the Criminal Justice Act 1948, but it was ten years before the first senior attendance centre for the 17 to 21 age group was formed. Even to-day there are still only two senior attendance centres. These centres have had considerable success, and I would urge the Government to expand this experiment, notwithstanding the new concept of community service. The two services may well prove to be complementary. We know that the community service concept must be experimental and we must try all possibilities open to us to achieve our end. In this connection, I hope to move an Amendment

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at the Committee stage to empower the Crown Courts to make attendance centre, orders. This is to give effect to the proposal by a working party of the London branch of the Magistrates' Association which studied senior attendance centres in detail. At present only magistrates' courts can make these orders, except on appeal; and although I appreciate that the more serious offences are dealt with by the Crown Courts, it is anomalous that the power of the higher court should be limited in this way.
Another minor point is that I notice that one in four offenders sent to senior attendance centres claim they are unfit. There could be a similar problem in regard to community service orders. I wonder whether there ought to be any provision for medical examinations, or whether offenders ought to be made responsible for providing medical certificates from their family doctors in cases of doubtful fitness. It would help us, too, if the Minister could tell us a little more about day training centres. Is this training to be of the moral type, aimed at helping the offender to avoid future conflict with the law, or of the practical type, to help him obtain and retain employment? Also, will there be any connection or co-operation with existing attendance centres?
Another new concept in the Bill is the deferment of sentence. I welcome this proposal. We all know the difficulty of judging the genuine will behind the remorse and offers of restitution that sometimes emanate from the dock. We are considering not only cases where the court is deliberately misled but also cases where the remorse is genuine at the time but fades quickly under the stress of freedom and economic pressures. I am glad that the Government have rejected the recommendation that the court should lay down conditions. Magistrates will have to be careful not to imply promises and to choose their words carefully, so that no suspicion of "horse-trading" arises. Any idea of the court making a deal with the accused would be most undesirable. Lastly, in Clause 11, which deals with supervision orders during a suspended sentence, I can find no provision requiring the offender's consent to the supervision order such as is required for an ordinary probation order. Will
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this consent be required; and, if so, what happens if it is not forthcoming?
My Lords, I wish the Bill and the experiments contained in it well. But to succeed it will need superhuman efforts on the part of those who must implement it. The Government and the courts must do all in their power to support the Probation Service and all others involved. On their dedication and hard work will depend the future not only of many offenders but of the whole fabric of a law-abiding society.
6.16 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I rise to deputise for the noble Baroness, Lady Serota. May I express the wish that she will soon be back in her place? We miss her contributions to our debates, especially debates such as we are having to-day. This fact will become even more obvious in the course of the next few minutes. I should like also to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, on his maiden speech. It was informed; it was well delivered, and it had a professional touch.
In the last two decades the increase in crime, particularly violent crime, has been world-wide, not only in countries which have liberal Constitutions but even in countries which have illiberal Constitutions. All the evidence available shows that we in this country have done rather better than many other countries. It is quite clear that there is no easy solution. We on this side of the House believe that our ability to contain the increase in crime will depend very largely upon our willingness to undertake research into the causes, to consider ideas, to experiment and, above all, to apply our resources to the prevention and detection of crime and the rehabilitation of the criminal. The Bill before us is in keeping with the trend in our criminal legislation over the postwar period. It tends to concentrate existing resources and to increase the penalties for the dangerous criminal while providing new ways of offering opportunities for rehabilitation to those who are likely to respond to them. The backbone of the Bill derives from the reports of the Widgery and Wootton Committees of the Advisory Council. I would join with noble Lords who have spoken in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Widgery, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton

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of Abinger, who were the Chairmen of the respective Committees, and to all others who put so much time and thought into this work. I would also remind the House that the Advisory Council was appointed by my right honourable friend Mr. Roy Jenkins in 1966.
My Lords, if I looked at this Bill purely and simply as a magistrate and asked myself which of the provisions here are the most urgent, I should have no doubt at all: the provision which is most urgent is the provision of bail and probation hostels and centres for alcoholics—assuming that we shall not merely provide for the constable to take a drunk to the centre but will in fact provide the centres. Each year about 40,000 people are remanded in custody, and more than half are ultimately either acquitted or receive a non-custodial sentence. I believe that by the use of the bail hostel we can reduce the demand on our prison accommodation by about 5 per cent. Furthermore, there are many people in prison who would not be there had they had a fixed place of abode. The provision of the probation hostel may encourage the court to put them on probation. Many offenders have to stay in prison awaiting a medical examination. The vast majority of them do not receive custodial sentences after the examination has been conducted and the report has been made. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that, parallel with the provision of these hostels, we should make better arrangements for medical examinations and reports.
Our probation officers have to spend a great deal of time searching for accommodation for their clients. Sometimes the only accommodation they can find is unsatisfactory: more often, they cannot find any accommodation at all. These lostels, if we provide sufficient of them, will meet an urgent need in our penal system. I should have liked the Bill to go a little further. For example, why should it not have provided for centres for drug addicts? This is the best way to treat the drug addict, in the same way as the other kind of centre is the best way to treat the drunk. I believe that in due course we shall have to go much further. We shall have to devise institutions which are somewhat short of prison but which have for their purpose the disciplining and
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training of the work-shy. That, I believe, is something which is likely to occur in the future.
We are pleased to see the codification of compensation under the criminal law. It is of course an addition to the victim's rights under the civil law, and to his right to apply to the Compensation Board. There is a fair amount of public concern that the victim should be compensated by the offender. It is very likely that compensation will be regarded by the offender as a much stiffer punishment than a fine of the same amount, but perhaps for the same reason it will be harder to collect. The experience of the Compensation Board shows that there were extremely few offenders who could have been usefully sued. Therefore I do not think we should attach too much importance to compensation. Nevertheless, I hope that the courts will use this power, and I am pleased to see that compensation has a priority when it comes to the allocation of monies received.
I hope that attention will be given to the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. I believe that in trying to look after the victim we should not be unfair to the offender—and I gather from the point that he made that we are likely to be acting in that way. Criminal bankruptcy will have limited value, for the simple reason that professional criminals are seldom caught with assets which can be seized. Nevertheless, it is the right kind of measure that should come forward, and we hope that it will meet with some success.
I come now to suspended sentences; and I would join with my noble friend Lady Wootton in defending the magistrate. I believe that if there were inquiry it would be shown that many of the suspended sentences which have taken the place of probation and fines were imposed in courts where the probation service was overworked and where the fines arrears were piling up. I also believe that it would be found that the people who had received suspended sentences were people on whom probation had been tried and people from whom the court felt it was extremely unlikely that it would ever see the money if it fined. I think the magistrate has been up against the situation that the Probation Service is overworked, and he would

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see that if a person was put on probation it would be an additional burden to the Probation Service; if he fined, it would be a clear addition to the fine arrears; but if he gave a suspended sentence, then the fellow might be good for the year or two years, as the case may be, and there would be no pressure upon the Prison Service—and, after all, I think that, in something which was experimental, that was fair reasoning.
If it has been the practice of courts to give suspended sentences without requiring a probation officer's report, then I believe that the obtaining of such a report should become mandatory. It is the probation officer who is able to say, better than the magistrate—because he can spend more time on the question—whether the offender concerned could, with advantage, be placed on probation; and if suspended sentences have been given without any request to the Probation Service for a report, this is wrong, and I think the time has come for making mandatory the obtaining of a social inquiry report before imposing a suspended sentence.
The question of whether the suspension of a sentence should be mandatory or not is, I believe, one of the most controversial points in the Bill. We are glad to see the protection for the person who has not served a prison sentence. I believe it is possible to compromise between those who would like to see the suspension mandatory and those who are opposed to it. We do not wish to fill our prisons with poor, inadequate people who are serving short prison sentences. Why should it not be mandatory upon magistrates, before sending anybody to prison for a short sentence, to make sure that there is no other way to deal with him, and if, eventually, they find there is no other way, then registering their reason in the same way as they would for a person who had not served a prison sentence? I believe that that is a fair and reasonable compromise between a mandatory and a non-mandatory provision, and I hope it will receive consideration.
As to the reduction of the period of suspensions from three to two years, that is welcome; but it reminds me that only a few years ago in the court in which I sat we had brought before us a Cana-
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dian who had committed an offence in this country. When it came to producing his record, it was shown that he had committed a similar offence in Canada for which he had received a suspended sentence—and a suspended sentence in Canada lasts for life. He was wanted in Canada for another offence and was trying to avoid going back to Canada. There is a big difference between life and two years or three years; but it shows how many-sided opinion can be.
I would say that in general we agree that a supervision order connected with a suspended sentence is a good idea; but, of course, there will be a tendency to give a suspended sentence with supervision in place of probation. We think that the Bill is right in allowing us a supervision order only where the penalty is six months or more. But even in the Crown Court there could be a temptation to give nine months so as to get a supervision order. We welcome the community service order as an imaginative and positive idea. So many penalties are negative; this is a positive one. It emphasises reparation to the community and it could give the offender a feeling of being needed. Very often that is what he requires. The success of the community service order will depend upon three things: first, the choice of the right offenders for their particular sentences; secondly, the choice of the right kind of projects; and, thirdly, expert supervision. We therefore welcome the mandatory provision that there should be a probation report before anyone is subjected to a community service order. We look forward to seeing the rules which the Minister will make in regard to such orders.
On training centres, I think the Minister will find that there are going to be lots of questions in Committee. The possible candidates vary so much that we are bound to ask for whom it is intended. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill says that those who go will get a social education. I think that that conflicts a little with the reply given by the Minister in Committee in another place; so we shall be probing into the question of what the offender is going to do at the centre. I think that the Minister can expect lots of probing and questions when we come to that subject in Committee. Deferment of sentence has worked well

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in Scotland and, perhaps unofficially, has worked well in England. There are courts which have used adjournment for the purpose of deferring their final conclusions; but it is just as well that it should be put on a formal basis by this provision in the Bill. I would join with my noble friend, Lord Wells-Pestell, in hoping that the magistrates, or the Crown Court as the case may be, could have a temporary supervision order if they wished it, but it should not be mandatory.
The only other clause upon which I think I need comment is that relating to the release on licence without the recommendation of the Parole Board. I think everybody would agree that it is completely indefensible to keep a person in prison merely because the Parole Board is under pressure. We welcome this provision in the Bill which would enable action to be taken on the advice of the local committee. Then there is a reference to the Court of Appeal where a person has been acquitted. We shall certainly have some questions on this matter in Committee. It is not sufficient to say that the acquittal will stand and that the person acquitted will have his costs paid; he requires far greater protection than that. He requires protection against the aspersions on his character that may be made by the publicity arising out of the appeal. We shall certainly ask in Committee how that can be done. Then there are omissions, particularly those relating to bail, to legal aid and to complaints against the police, mentioned by my noble and learned friend, Lord Gardiner. Those too will be followed up in Committee. We wish the Bill well in its progress through the House, but we hope that the Minister will be willing to be influenced by reasoned argument on details in Committee. I think it should be said that the real success of the Bill will depend upon the resources that are made available to carry out its provisions.
6.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I have two congratulations to start with; because not only is there the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Mansfield, which I enjoyed as much as other noble Lords who have already congratulated him on it—and from which, incidentally, I benefited in my education—but there is the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who I think for the first time
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has spoken from the Opposition Dispatch Box in winding up a debate. I think that this is an achievement which deserves a word of congratulation. I remember the first time that I did it; and I do not think that I was as calm as was the noble Lord. The noble Lord was very good, as other speakers have been, in welcoming this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said a great deal to underline and expand upon some of the things that I had to try to deal with, albeit sketchily, on the infrastructure of the Bill and I am grateful to him for that.
I have to curb my desire to go into the wider field of penal philosophy. It would be easy to be seduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and others into attempting to consider what is happening in Holland, or to consider some of Lord Donaldson's more far-reaching views and whether we should have a Royal Commission or wait for Edmund Davies, or both. But this debate is about a fairly detailed Bill and if ever there was a large number of questions that noble Lords have asked on matters that require to be explained, I think it was on this occasion. I suppose therefore I should not be altogether out of order or failing to respond to the House if I tried to get on with the details although we shall have many opportunities to discuss them at later stages.
Perhaps I may deal with one or two subjects touched on by more than one noble Lord before coming to individual points raised in the course of speeches. I have listened with interest to the argument about the mandatory suspended sentence. I have been keeping the scoreboard as we have gone along and I think that I have three in favour of Clause 10 and three against; and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, who I think changed his mind, so that I am not quite sure of his present opinion. It may therefore be that he tips the balance in this debate; though I think that if I add myself I would then arrive at a completely all-square situation. I do not think I can accept the statistic the noble and learned Lord gave of 2,000 people. I think it was the one that the right honourable Member for Birkenhead produced in another place. But I think it was a guess on his part, and I would not

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place any more weight upon statistics in this matter than I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, thought one could place on them. I hope the total may not be as large as that, but I doubt whether it is possible, for the sort of reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger—that it is very difficult—to work out the details of a matter like suspended sentences and to follow through and see what would or would not have happened if slightly different circumstances had prevailed at the time. My Lords, there the clause is, and it looks to me as though we shall have the opportunity to discuss it in a considerably wider fashion in Committee, because we have here many magistrates with personal experience and fairly strong points of view.
What I think needs a word of mention is the provision in Clause 10(3) about which the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, asked. Although the drafting may perhaps appear to her not to be as clear as it might be, there is no doubt about the meaning of it; that is, that the court shall not sentence somebody to a suspended sentence unless they would have thought that imprisonment was right anyway. This, my Lords, is cardinal because it is this which has been in the forefront of our minds when we have been considering the statistics—however unreliable they may be—which have shown that the number of fines imposed has dropped as have the number of probation orders since suspended sentences have come in. Therefore there is some reason to suppose that courts have been using suspended sentences in cases where otherwise fines or probation orders would have been proper. It is to prevent this that we have put in Clause 10(3). I think that this goes some way to meet the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. It may not go far enough but I think it is the same subject. We must see that courts use suspended sentences only when otherwise they would have thought imprisonment the only answer. That goes for first offenders as well as for subsequent offenders. Clause 13 is relevant but Clause 10(3) is valid right across the board for everybody; and for what it is worth we are only reinforcing, by making statutory, what the Court of Appeal said in the case of O'Keefe not very long ago.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER:
My Lords, I think I fully understand what the clause requires magistrates to do, but I wonder whether the noble Viscount can explain why, if imprisonment is the only answer, it should be imprisonment only on the hypothetical condition that something else happens in the future.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the hypothesis is that nothing will happen in the future; in other words, that the person will commit no further offence during the period of suspension. That is the philosophy behind suspended sentences which I thought was applicable. If the noble Baroness shakes her head it may be that we shall have to go into this matter further, but I always understood the principle to be that it was a matter for imprisonment now, save for the fact that the court has power to suspend, and would do so as long as nothing happened to re-activate that sentence. However, my Lords, perhaps I had better leave it there for the moment, and see what happens on Committee stage, if we have one, which I trust that we shall.
Three noble Lords mentioned Clause 30: the noble and learned Lords, Lord Gardiner, and Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, and the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. It appears that, as in another place, this House would like to discuss this matter. I think the message that I detected from the speeches on it was that there is some desire for anonymity on the part of the person whose case happens to be the source of this appeal, rather than that we should abandon this power to clear up the law. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said that the Government would be pressed on this clause in Committee. May I say that I am only too happy to look at constructive suggestions about how we may maintain anonymity and not involve a reputation, while at the same time clearing up these points of law? I look forward to suggestions, and I shall also do my own thinking on it, and we will see whether anything can be done.

Several noble Lords touched on the question of criminal bankruptcy but I think that the consensus of opinion was against the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that this was just "window dressing". It may be that it is not going to be used very often. On the other hand, I doubt that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, would lend

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his signature, with that of his Committee, to such a suggestion were it only "window dressing". I believe that a noble and learned Lord of that stature and experience would think that there was rather more to it. It was at this point that I welcomed for the first time the intervention of my noble friend Lord Mansfield. He, too, saw the possibility of some use of this and—dare I say it?—my noble friend is the one who has most recently been practising in the criminal courts—though I appreciate that many other noble Lords have been sitting in judgment in them—and so he has a certain amount of practical experience which he may bring to bear on this matter. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, also thought well of it and that it should be tried out.
I think perhaps that in my opening speech I may have given an indication that there was an appeal in the Bill against the criminal bankruptcy order itself. This is not so. The appeal is against the sentence to which it was attached and that right is open to the offender, the convicted offender, and he may subsequently take part in the proceedings.
My Lords, we then came on to the point where the analogy with the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 first reared its head. I am not really sure that I want to go into the difficulties which attended and followed on the passing of that Act. I certainly do not want to attribute blame, though I know full well from my own experience whit extraordinarily difficult problems it has raised. Even in my Ministerial capacity I find that this, together with junior detention centres and other cognate matters, has left a dreadful vacuum—together, of course, with the impending Report of the Advisory Council on Young Offenders, which does not add to the general clarity of thought on this subject. But I take the point: if the country was not prepared for the introduction of the practical side of that Act, then we have seen the result of that lack of preparation; and we must not allow the same thing to happen again with community service, with day centres, or, indeed, with some of the other experimental aspects of this Bill. My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve and the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, both stressed
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this point, speaking, as I know, with a great deal of personal knowledge.
As for the community service orders, I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester that this needs most careful and imaginative preparation; and with that I hope it will be a good investment, even in pure money terms as he suggested. This is the point of starting on the specific centres, the specific areas, with I hope the advice of all who will be helpfully concerned, so that we may be quite sure that we have got a viable method of progress before we start to spread it. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, asked for speed in spreading it, as did, I think, my noble friend Lord Digby. Within the experience that we gain, and within the resources and the people—because people and their quality are very important in this matter, as so many noble Lords have stressed—I hope we will be able to spread it. But as with all experiments, one has to face the possibility that problems will crop up and that they will have to be cured. I cannot give any assurance to the House that by any given date every county in England and Wales will have schemes of this sort suitable for those offenders who could be helped by them; but if the enthusiasm that has been expressed, not only in another place but in this House this afternoon and outside, for community service orders is reciprocated by co-operation and help on the ground, then I believe we shall be going in the right direction.
To some extent, the same thing applies to day centres—certainly, to the whole idea of conducting them on an experimental basis first. Noble Lords wanted to know some more about day training centres and I can perhaps help a little on this. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, my noble friend Lord Digby, the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, all asked for details of them. I am in a little danger here of giving details which would perhaps be thought to apply to all day training centres forever wherever they might be. I do not believe that the operation would be as inflexible as that, and the noble Lord who tried to get me to incorporate in the Bill the type of centre by description and the type of offender for whom it should be intended, is, I would suggest to the House, wide

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of the mark. This would be a disastrous lack of flexibility. We should leave the matter as it is and try these experiments to see for what sort of offender these day training centres are suitable. So fat as we can see, with the four areas who have agreed to experiment the centres will be designed to cater for offenders who have served a previous sentence of imprisonment and who have poor work records; to some extent, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said, work-shy people who come from socially deprived backgrounds; the sort of people about whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, was talking—the seedbed of crime. They are likely to be men with chronic social problems and not, mostly, young people, unless all other training methods have been tried first and have failed.
What also seems to be agreed among those who are preparing these schemes is that the Probation Service would be very much involved. They would, as is usually the case, prepare a social inquiry report in any person appearing before a court who might be likely to be sent to a centre of this sort, and that report would advise the court on the training centre, the staff and the suitability of the person the court has before it. Indeed, after a little while courts will begin to know their day training centres and the sort of people who are suitable for them. There will also be the possibility that the probation officer can say whether the particular offender is not fitting in, or if the system is not working out to his benefit. There is a discretion under Clause 19(4)(a) whereby the probation officer can direct the offender not to attend the centre any more. So there is a certain amount of flexibility there. So far as I can tell the House at present, the sort of people likely to go to the centres are those with a poor work record and those who are socially deprived. It may be that it is a good thing that young people do not fall into that category, but I fear that it will not be so much a mixture of ages as I think one noble Lord rather hoped for.
There were some comments about deferred sentences. Here I have a score of two all: two noble Lords would like supervision orders and two would not. I am afraid I must be quite firm about
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this question of supervision orders. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, talked about the extra pressure that would be put above all the others on the Probation Service, supposing this were not written into the Bill. It is probable that those who appear to have taken sides on this are not, in practice, so far apart as all that. The courts are going to know their own probation officers' case loads and their availability to advise. They will know whether they dare add to the job of the probation officer by asking for something like a terminal report. I have little doubt that they will listen to the probation officer when deciding whether to defer a sentence in the first place. It is in the cases where the court feel that supervision, care and the other qualities of probation are really needed that I would have thought that they would be more likely to make a firm probation order rather than just deferring the sentence. After all, they can perfectly easily do that and attach some conditions to it as well. In practice, when one thinks about it, I doubt whether there is much in dispute on this point at all. There again, if noble Lords wish to deal with it later then I shall be happy to consider it again.
I come now to some individual points raised in the course of the debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, who was good enough to give me notice, as were other noble Lords, raised a number of them. He reminded us about the position of the police. I am not sure that the Government of which he was an ornament did a very wise or a helpful thing. It may have been necessary to stop recruitment. All police cannot have assisted in the direction that he would have liked them to go. Fortunately it has now been possible to lift this ban on recruitment. There are a few figures that I could give the noble Lord. I do not think they go exactly to the point of restoring the balance of the proportion of police to indictable offences, but they are not unhelpful; they go to the end of April this year and they are the latest available. There were then 98,200 police officers on strength against an authorised establishment of 110,100; 21,500 were in the Metropolitan Police against an authorised establishment of just over 26,000. So the national deficiency was 10·8 per cent. and in London 17·7 per

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cent. Nobody is pleased about this situation but I think it is not so bad. The net gain for England and Wales, including London, for 1971 was just over 3,000, which compares with 1,900 in 1970 and 980 in 1969; so the figure is rising. For the first four months of this year the net gain was 1,356 compared with 854 for the corresponding period in 1971 and 784 in 1970—all signs of progress. The pay award, which with the police, just as with the probation officers, is very important, was designed to improve recruitment and to reduce wastage. Perhaps this is not too despairing a situation, though I share the concern of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, about it.
The Probation Service was also a matter on which he wanted some information. The noble Lord is perfectly right that in the first four and a half months of this year four more people resigned from the London Service than were appointed; but nearly 450 officers will be coming out of probation training courses during this year, and they will be available for appointments, compared with 350 last year. It is to be hoped the Butterworth Inquiry will be reporting in August and that there will be a favourable reaction as regards the career structure and the terms. The position in Inner London is, I think, accepted in the Service as not being typical of what is happening elsewhere.
The position overall is that at the end of May there were 3,653 established probation officers; that is 500 more than at the end of December, 1969 and over 1,000 more than at the end of December, 1966. So the figure is coming up. Noble Lords may be right in saying that we should be disappointed in this; but I hope not. I hope that with the perhaps better pay recommended by Butterworth, and the greater interest created by the sort of tasks that this Bill will give to the Probation Service, we may be able to attract a few people back from the local authority social service sphere, even though they are particularly keen on dealing with children.
The noble and learned Lord and some other noble Lords mentioned two points: one concerned bail—a question on which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, touched—and the other legal aid. On these matters
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there are fairly complicated answers which I do not particularly want to deploy in full this evening, because it may be that noble Lords will want to put down new clauses or something of that sort. But perhaps I can just outline the answer that I have on these two points. First of all, as to bail, I doubt whether the criteria for the grant of bail should be laid down in the Bill. A good deal of it appears in the noble and learned Lord's own Criminal Justice Act 1967 in the case of magistrates' courts. I do not think any further statutory limits on the court's discretion would be very wise; and I do not think they would improve the present situation, bearing in mind that the proportion of remands on bail has increased both in the cases covered by the 1967 Act citeria and in the cases not so covered. So I doubt whether this aspect is susceptible of much more Statute Law. Rather, I should like to see more help being given to magistrates in the carrying out of the difficult forecasting exercise as to what sort of people can safely be let out on bail. There is a Working Party on Bail Procedure operating at the moment. It is a very experienced Working Party, and they will be reporting in due course, when we can consider what they have to say.
Then there is the administrative measure, and to some extent financial measure, which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques was keen on—things like bail hostels. I have already made a speech about those. We have also introduced recently a method by which medical examinations can take place on an outpatient basis so that people do not have to be remanded in custody from medical hospitals. This innovation is working in London at the moment—I believe at Pentonville and Holloway, although I may be wrong in saying that—and we are hoping to extend it.
Then it is most important to reduce the length of time between arrest and trial, or between committal and sentence and that sort of thing. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is, I know, always engaged in trying to reduce that time: and that was one of the reasons for introducing the Courts Act. There is provision in Section 13 of the Courts Act which helps a little by allowing an appeal against a refusal of bail to the Crown Court from the magistrates, in addition to

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the ordinary appeal to a judge in chambers. That Act has not been operating very long yet, and it may be that people do not know much about it. Those are the sort of things that I think we should be concentrating on at the moment rather than changing the Statute Law.
Coming on now to legal aid, the noble and learned Lord suggested that the Widgery criteria should be made statutory. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice is always coming into this matter, which is natural since that Report was his other great report in recent times. Since he reported, more than three times as many people are getting legal aid as were at that time, and individual courts are, I think, following the Widgery criteria. But my honourable friend the other Minister of State agreed on the Report stage in another place to have a circular drafted to remind courts of these criteria. This circular will be issued. The other difficulty about these criteria is their nature: for instance, whether the charge is a grave one, in the sense that the accused is in real jeopardy of losing his liberty or livelihood or of suffering serious damage to his reputation. That is easy enough to state, but I do not think it would look very well on the Statute Book; it does not seem to be very precise. It is the sort of thing that a court can entertain, but I am not sure that our sysem of drafting Statutes would lend itself readily to putting that in a Bill. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord might like to consider those points before he decides whether or not to put down a new clause on this subject.
The noble and learned Lord went on to refer to time spent in custody. As he mentioned, the parole side of it is dealt with in Schedule 2 by an amendment to Section 60(2) of the 1967 Act. The Prison Rules are in the process of being amended, and they will come into force in December, but retrospectively. The point of this is that it takes a long time to recalculate enormous numbers of sentences. It is no use bringing them into force too soon, or there will be total chaos. What is proposed is that these two matters will come into force at the same time. That, I think, deals with both limbs of the noble and learned
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Lord's point. If it was he who started this particular proposal in Parliament, we are grateful to him, and I imagine that many a prisoner will be, too. The noble and learned Lord asked about Clause 22, Mrs. William's point about how to claim back goods in police custody. I am afraid that this point has been a little more thorny than some, and we are still considering it, but the initial view I have formed is that the machinery here is about right, and if you relax it any further there is the greatest danger of letting the criminal, by one ruse or another, get his property back, which is the last thing that we want. But again, constructive suggestions from the noble and learned Lord will be happily received.
Various noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, mentioned statutory social inquiry reports. I think the best thing that can be done about this, whether in any case or in relation particularly to supervision orders, which is the issue on which the noble and learned Lord raised this matter, is to advise the courts of the desirability of having these reports. We shall advise them, probably in the same circular that goes out to explain this Bill, rather than make it statutory, because if you make it statutory even I can think of a snag: something goes wrong with the Probation and Aftercare Service; there is not a report, and therefore the man cannot be tried and has to be put back. This could cause more trouble than it is worth. If the courts are aware of the desirability of having these reports—and I think they are increasingly aware of it—and if the Probation Service have enough manpower to provide it, which is most earnestly to be wished, I cannot see why in practice there should not be such a report before a court in almost any case of any gravity. I do not think we should want it in motor-car cases, but certainly in anything that is liable to endanger somebody's liberty or livelihood.
Finally, the noble and learned Lord talked about interlocutory appeals. I have been looking at the case of Collins in 1970 Criminal Appeal Reports. If the noble and learned Lord wants to deal with this subject further in Committee, I shall enjoy quoting to him the reasons why the Court of Appeal thought

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it was unnecessary for them to do anything about it, because they are quite weighty reasons which I enjoyed reading. But that is a completely new matter so far as I am concerned; I heard of it only this morning and have had little time to do more than read what the Court of Appeal said. If the noble and learned Lord knows of any other examples of where this procedure has gone wrong other than in the case of Collins, I shall be glad to know of them and to consider the circumstances. I think I have dealt with the points raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, in what I have already said.
I come now to my noble friend Lord Mansfield. Now that he has broken his silence, I hope that he will let fly with all his experience in Committee. I agree with him that we need probation officers who are there not only in quantity, but in quality, and I am glad to be able to tell the House that almost all of them now go through proper, fully-qualified social training courses before they are taken on. My noble friend asked about reparation under Clauses 1 to 5 and suggested that the victim would no longer be heard to ask for it even if he was there. My understanding of the Bill is that if he was there he would still be entitled to speak, and to be heard, and all that is being done is to take away the requirement that he must be heard before any reparation can be awarded. We are going to circularise the courts about this and remind them of their need to consider reparation in every case.
The other point that he raised concerned Section 3 of the 1961 Act. He is probably aware that this was debated at length in another place. My noble friend quoted a letter from the Advisory Council dealing with the young offender situation. Rather than read it out, perhaps I might refer my noble friend to the Standing Committee Report, 22nd Sitting, on March 16, columns 1040 and 1041, where the Chairman of the Council (Mr. Younger) had written to say that the repeal of Section 3 would not accord with the way in which their minds were at present working. In those circumstances, I am bound to say that I would almost certainly resist trying to go back at this juncture, when we are awaiting the Report, to a pre-1961 situation.
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I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, has been so generous in her reception of this Bill and is thinking so much along the same lines as ourselves, particularly about the implementation of the community service side, that I really need not add anything except my thanks for her amplification of the philosophy which underlies it. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Amory join in on very much the same theme. I think we are all inspired by very much the same ideas on this subject. I do not think it is going to be the sort of "soft option" that the right reverend Prelate thought it might be, because the people concerned are too sensible to allow this to happen and too well aware of the danger of it. Whether or not it would be "week-end" community service is something one would have to look at as part of an experiment to see how this scheme would best work.
The noble Lords, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell and Lord Donaldson, both asked about the approach to the community service order. It is perfectly true that, as the noble Baroness said, we will not have the probation officer or one of his ancillaries standing over a man to see that he is not smoking under a tree; but nevertheless it will be the Probation and Aftercare Service who are in charge of the order itself, and it will be for the probation officer, if the offender will not co-operate or something goes wrong, to take the man back to the court for further consideration. There are a number of things which can be done, but it is for the probation officer to take that step. I will look again at this, but I believe it is in the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, had some specific points and I think I have already covered some of them. I do not think that he is right about Clause 11(9). It is drafted on the same lines as the general legislation on probation orders. Although at present it is only going to be the Crown Court (and the magistrates' court in excise cases, and so on), there is power in subsection (2) to relax this. Therefore we need to draft it on the basis that it could be available to all courts in the end when the probation services are large enough to deal with them. The noble Lord also mentioned Clause 11(4), suggesting that

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the man should lead an honest and industrious life. The effect of the order has to be explained to him under Clause 11(11) and it would not surprise me if the magic words crept into the formula whereby the court would advise what it was he had to do to stay out of further trouble. This too might meet the point raised by the noble Lord.
My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve asked me about habitual drunks. "Habitual", of course, is not in the Bill: but we would rely on the constable finding the drunk to be able to sort out the chronic one from the less chronic one. We are not suggesting that the intoxication centre is to be used for the Friday night roisterer. I should be surprised if he (or she perhaps) is the sort of person who got in there. We shall be giving some guidance to the police in the areas where these centres are set up on how to deal with such people. I may have given the noble Lady the impression that the centres would not be at hospitals at all. They will be based on hospitals but they will be specially and carefully-chosen hospitals and not just the local ones. That is what I think perhaps the noble Baroness had in mind. We are going to set this up extremely carefully, with a lot of extremely skilled staff, and there will be 24-hour staffing so as to make quite sure that it works. I hope what I have said has taken some of the worry out of the mind of the noble Baroness about what may happen in North London.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester asked me about voluntary hostels. They will be allowed to continue: this must be a partnership, and I have no doubt whatever that there is no question of the Probation and Aftercare Services trying to hog the whole thing. We are still considering the Expenditure Committee's publicity recommendation. There will be a report on the work of the Probation Department of the Home Office and the Probation and Aftercare Service in general in the years 1969–71: it is due to be published fairly soon, later this year. I hope this will give some indication to Parliament and public of what is going on, but I should like to consider further what the right reverend Prelate has said.
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The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked about other establishments under Clause 44. The answer is that they get their money under Clause 47(4)(b). My noble friend Lord Digby spoke about attendance centres. Here we are inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, in her report (chapter 5 and recommendation 18) that we would not expand the detention centres beyond the two that are at present in existence until we see how the community service order system works. My noble friend also mentioned consent for supervision under Clause 11. It has been left out on purpose. We do not want the offender whose sentence has been suspended, with whoever is concerned with the supervision order, to vitiate the whole thing by refusing to give his consent to a supervision order. We think this is wrong and there is no mistake here at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, made a number of other interesting suggestions about what we should look at—drug addict centres, the work-shy, medical examinations, and so on. I have dealt with some of his points: others perhaps go a little beyond the scope of the Bill. It may be that he will want to take them further in Committee. But as I said earlier, so much of what he said was welcome to my ears because it confirmed my own approach to the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will think I have done him justice in what I have already said on some of his points. If he wants to take up more of them he has only to put down Amendments during the Committee stage—which he promised to do anyway.
Those, I think, are the main points that have been raised during the debate. I look forward to further enlightened, interesting and very well-informed debates at subsequent stages. I do think that your Lordships' House has done itself proud this afternoon. There is so much expertise even in those who pretended that they were rather "lay" in this subject, and noble Lords have shown that they are as expert as all the rest of us, whether it is the "laity" of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, or that of the right reverend Prelate. This is the sort of subject in which your Lordships' House excels, and I look forward to further stages, with my noble friend the

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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. We shall be arguing, I have no doubt, for at any rate two of the days with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in Committee. Meanwhile, I hope that this Bill may be given a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.20 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.]

HOUSING FINANCE BILL
7.30 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ROYLE in the Chair.]
Clause 55 [Functions of Rent Scrutiny Board]:
LORD AVEBURY LORD AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 110P:
Page 57, line 4, at end insert—
(" ( ) The rent scrutiny board may by notice in the prescribed form served on the authority or a tenant require him to give to the board, within such period, not less than fourteen days from the service of such notice, as may be specified in the notice, such further information as they may reasonably require and shall serve on the authority and on the tenant a notice, specifying a period, not less than fourteen days from the service of the notice, during which either representations in writing or a request to make oral representations may be made by him to the board").
The noble Lord said: Before coming to this Amendment, may I reiterate a complaint which I have had to make to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on previous occasions; that is, that we are not given sufficient information about the decisions which are made from time to time regarding the proceedings on this Bill. As he will recall, the noble Lord has given me undertakings twice before that we should be kept fully in the picture. This has not happened yet again.
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Until I came down to the House this afternoon, I was not aware that there were no less than 13 speakers on the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice Bill which has just been concluded, and that we would not start our proceedings on the Housing Finance Bill until half past seven.
Quite frankly, I think it is outrageous that the Government are asking us to consider the remainder of Part V, and also Parts VI, VII and VIII of this Bill during the remainder of the course of this evening, when we have already had quite a heavy day's work and when there are so many important Amendments which noble Lords wish to be considered. I really do not think this is the way in which the Government should handle a piece of legislation of this type, and I reiterate the plea which I have made to the noble Lord in the past, that we should be properly consulted before any final decisions are taken.
I must tell the noble Lord that I cannot make myself responsible for concluding these proceedings this evening at any reasonable hour because, on looking through the list of Amendments on the Marshalled List, I see that a great many are of considerable importance. I also think that it is unfair to the servants of this House not to reach a decision at a much earlier stage. We did not even know until just before the House rose at the end of the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill that we were going to be allowed half an hour for dinner—a procedure which I may say is likely to cause noble Lords ulcers and indigestion. Speaking for myself, I have had to gobble down my dinner and not complete the second course, which I was in the middle of when the hour of 7.30 struck. I really do not think this is the way in which we should handle proceedings in this House. I think we should be allowed adequate time, and in spite of the undertakings which I understand have been made through the usual channels that we shall finish the Committee stage of this Bill during to-night and to-morrow, I think the Government would be wise if they were to allocate an additional day for the Committee stage so that we might proceed at a reasonable pace and not have to rush through the remainder of the Amendments on the Marshalled List—as many as we have already considered, bat in a fraction of the time.
Having made that protest, I come to the Amendment. During the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill I pointed out that tenants have no proper right of appeal against the rent determinations made under the Bill, unlike those who live in privately rented accommodation, and I wish to contrast the two situations. The only way that a tenant can oppose the assessment of rent made upon him under this Bill is by making representations under Clause 53(5). And to whom does he make these representations? To the landlord, to the local authority which has determined the provisional assessment in the first place; and so the landlord is the judge and jury in its own case. After considering the tenant's representations and amending the provisional assessment, if it thinks fit, the local authority takes such steps as it considers reasonable to notify him of the amount of rent that is to be assessed. That is Clause 53(6).
Then the final assessment goes to the rent scrutiny board, which has the power to obtain such additional information as they may reasonably require for the purposes of confirming the rent submitted to them or substituting another rent. That is Clause 55(1). However, this power extends only to the local authority. The board is not entitled to obtain information from the tenant. In fact they are positively discouraged from doing so by the provisions of subsection (2) of Clause 55, and the board will be taken to have considered an assessment if they look at it by reference to subsection (3)(a):
"the rents of certain dwellings to which it relates and which in their opinion are representative of types or descriptions of such dwellings …".
In other words, they do not have to consider the locality of the dwelling, which I think is in flat contradiction to the provisions of 50(1), and this would have to rule out considerations such as those mentioned by the Birmingham City director of housing, given in paragraph 6 of his memorandum to the committee on April 26. The Birmingham City director of housing says, inter cilia, that he wants to apply to gross values a factor which is dependent upon the locality of estates within the city; not the locality of individual dwellings, but within a particular estate which he has calculated as having
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a certain amenity value. All the rents of similar dwellings will be the same, and to my mind this appears to conflict with the provisions of Clause 50(1).
What I should like to do is to contrast the provisions in the Bill with the machinery for determination of the rents in the private sector which are contained in the Rent Act 1968. While I am doing this, I ask noble Lords to bear continually in mind the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on Second Reading that:
"The fair rent principle devised by the previous Government will also be applied to council tenants."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 18/5/72, col. 1446.]
Under Schedule 6 to the 1968 Act, the rent officer has to serve notice on the tenant, informing him of the landlord's application and giving him the opportunity of making representation, not to the landlord but to an independent rent officer. There is no such provision in this Bill. If these representations are made, the rent officer has to appoint a time and a place for an informal consultation between himself, the landlord and the tenant. That is contained in paragraph 4(2) of the Schedule to the Act of 1968. There is no corresponding provision in this Bill. The tenant has a right of legal representation at this stage—paragraph 4(3) of the Schedule to the 1968 Act. There is no such right in this Bill. After this has been done, in the absence of any agreement, the rent officer decides what the fair rent should be and again he has to serve notice on the tenant under paragraph 5 of the Schedule. The equivalent of that in the Bill now under consideration is Clause 53, subsection (6), which as we know from previous discussion is not nearly so strong.
Finally, we come to the point under consideration in this Amendment: the rent assessment committee under the 1968 Act
"may by notice in the prescribed form served on the landlord or tenant require him to give to the committee, within such period of not less than fourteen days from the service of the notice as may be specified in the notice, such further information, in addition to any given to the rent officer in pursuance of paragraph 1 above, as they may reasonably require;"—
et cetera. The tenant has the right of objection before the rent assessment committee to the determination made by the

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rent officer after his meeting with the landlord and the tenant. No such provision is contained in this Bill, and that is the point of my Amendment.
I have not been able to deal with all the discrepancies between the 1968 Act and the Bill now before us, which, as your Lordships will see, are many and serious, but I do think that in this respect we are entitled to draw the line and to say that the Government should be forced to act upon the principle which they themselves enunciated on Second Reading and in the White Paper which preceded this Bill: that local authority tenants should be put on an equal footing with those who live in privately rented accommodation. Surely the right of appeal against a false determination of fair rent is fundamental to this principle and there is no such right contained in this Bill. That is what I am seeking to write in in the Amendment whch is now before the Committee. I beg to move.
7.42 p.m.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: If I may speak to this Amendment—
LORD DIAMOND: I wonder whether I may interrupt the noble Earl for one moment. I do not want to make a speech but to ask only one question. I wonder whether it would be to the convenience of the Committee that we should discuss at the same time Amendments Nos. 110T, 110X and 110Y. I am sorry to have interrupted the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: Actually, I am grateful for that interruption because I was going to ask if I could speak to the rest of the Amendments put down against Clause 5. As your Lordships will notice, the next Amendment suggests that we should leave out subsection (2). Subsection (2) of Clause 55 puts in a nutshell the difference between the rent scrutiny board of this Bill and the rent assessment committee of Schedule 5 to the Rent Act 1968, a matter which I did not understand until it was fully explained in column 457 of last Thursday's Hansard by my noble friend Lord Sandford. It was for that reason that I declined the invitation from the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, to walk arm in arm with him through the Division Lobbies.
As a final point, there could be a close connection between the rent scrutiny board and the county rates assessor when
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he determines the gross annual value. The information specified in Clause 55 is the sort of information which the assessor would use, but otherwise there is no connection between the board and any existing committee.
LORD DIAMOND: There are one or two things I want to say, although it is hardly necessary to say anything after the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who has put the case fully and persuasively. But the noble Earl has stimulated me to offer a few further comments, particularly in the hope that what did not happen on a previous occasion will happen later on, namely, that he will walk arm in arm with me through the Division Lobbies after he has heard the arguments on this particular Amendment. There is a very simple principle on which your Lordships' House operates and, indeed, so far as I know, on which every body dispensing justice operates, namely, that where you are dealing with the whole of the population, as you are in a Public Bill, although there is representation in the other place through constituents' Members of Parliament you do not take evidence from or hear individually the people affected. One could not, because one is affecting the total population. Where we are dealing with a situation—such as one very familiar to your Lordships under Private Bills—under which the rights of individuals are affected, then, so far as my limited knowledge goes, we do, the country does, without exception listen to the individual's representations. So far as I know, there is no exception to that rule in either House, in any court, or in any body dispensing justice.
What are we dealing with in these various Amendments? We are dealing with the assessment of the rent of each individual local authority dwelling. That is the duty laid by this Bill upon those who have the final responsibility and the responsibility at various stages. The noble Earl who is always helpful to our cause—and I am grateful to him—read out Clause 55, subsection (2):
"The Board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling to which an assessment relates."
and so on. Where do we stand so far as this particular Bill is concerned and the provisions respecting the functions of the bodies concerned, particularly the rent

669
scrutiny board—which is in Clause 55—in the determination of rent? We have two matters only to consider: the first is the one which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, described, namely, the principle adduced by the Government. "We will have", says the Government, "fair rents, just as you have them in the private sector". That is the whole basis for the Bill. It is a foolish, confused and impossible concept, as we have said and we shall continue to say. But I am not talking about our case; I am talking about the Government's case. The Government's case is, "We will have fair rents as in the private sector". As one knows, in the private sector all the normal principles of dispensing justice apply, as I have previously indicated and as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has made quite clear.
The parties have a right to be represented; they have a right to be heard; they have a right to bring evidence, expert evidence; and they have a right of appeal. The body which hears the appeal naturally hears the parties. In this clause no party can be heard by or represented before the body which determines the issue; no party can call witnesses or make submissions at law; there is no appeal. In short, every rule of natural justice is denied and the case is decided behind closed doors. That is the situation with regard to the rent scrutiny boards. I apologise that Amendment No. 110T refers to "the committee; it should of course be "the board". It refers to the committee considering representation made in writing, and so on, and asks for
"rights analogous to those which a tenant of a private landlord is able to exercise before a rent assessment committee under the provisions of the Rent Act 1968."
I have underlined to your Lordships two simple propositions. The first is that all of us always proceed to dispense justice in a particular way; namely, hearing the parties publicly; secondly, that this is the method by which rents are determined in the private sector. The Government are saying: "Please, all that we are asking is for what happens in the private sector to be introduced into the public sector, the same fair rents principle". How then is it possible for us to find ourselves in the situation where the Government are going forward with these un-
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natural proposals? I think I am entitled to call them unnatural, on the evidence both of the Council on Tribunals and of the Minister of Housing.
The Council on Tribunals is a council set up because of the difficulties under which tribunals work, and of the possibility of injustice resulting from their proceedings. The Council has been set up, and indeed my noble friend Lady Burton is, I believe, at the present time Chairman of the Council. The Council was aware of these proposals from the Government's White Paper, and their Report for 1970–71 printed by order of the House of Commons on December 1, 1971 (it does not appear to have a number) says in paragraph 37:
"We expressed strong objection to some features of the Department's original proposals for giving to rent assessment committees responsibility for scrutinising application of the fair rent principle to local authority housing in England and Wales."
They go on in paragraph 38:
"We considered that if rent assessment committees were to play this part in the determination of these rents, it was essential that they should follow judicial procedure and hear both sides fairly. To use them in the one-sided manner proposed by the Department would, in our view, be likely to compromise their reputation as impartial adjudicators and discredit the whole fair rent system of adjudication."
That is the view of the Council on Tribunals.
May I now refresh your Lordships' memories as to the view of the Minister. The Minister had to deal with this matter in the other place, and, of course, he recognised the difficulty of it. There are four volumes, because in the other place they had 57 sittings lasting over 150 hours, even though they were affected by the guillotine. We in your Lordships' House are required to do our duty in a very much shorter time. The Minister, at column 2072 in Volume II, said:
"This clause has given me more trouble and difficulty than any other."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons, Standing Committee E, 15/2/72, col. 2072.]
He went on at column 2081 to say, in similar words:
"I agree that this is the most difficult part of the Bill, because more than 5 million dwellings are being taken into a new scheme."
So we are quite clear as to what is the normal practice of the country and of your Lordships' House and of Parlia-

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ment. We are quite clear as to the principles of the Bill. We are quite clear that the Minister himself regarded this as the most difficult part of the Bill, and we know what the Council on Tribunals thought about it. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, what he feels about it, and I am sure he is fully supported by everybody who listened to his speech. Therefore perhaps I need not continue at length, as we are very pressed for time. I do say, however, that to me it is incomprehensible that the Government should pursue this line in the face of this criticism. I hope that they will, if not accept the Amendments in the precise form in which we have put them down, recognise that if you are going to have an inevitably unpopular reform, which apart from damaging the economy of the country is going to be regarded as the most difficult proposal by those who suffer increases in their rents, at all events, you must have justice being seen to be done; that is to say, open doors, representation, hearing the parties, rights of appeal—the normal, natural process of giving justice. You must have justice being seen to be done in order to get the slightest possibility of acceptance on the part of the 5 million tenants who are going to be affected. I appeal to the Government to withdraw from their policy of Government by diktat.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: There are two very small points I should like to stress. The rent scrutiny boards are appointed by the Secretary of State. This is another shift from the local authorities' powers and duties, but it is also a shift right away from fair play.
LORD SANDFORD: I wonder whether I may start by expressing my apologies, on behalf of my colleagues on this side, for any omissions that there may have been, and any discourtesy there may have been to the Liberal Opposition in the arrangement of the Business to-night and to-morrow on this Bill. But whatever may have been the cause—and my noble friends and I have noted what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said—I think every Member of the House was left in the position last week of making his own judgment as to how long the Criminal Justice Bill would take; none of us knew at that stage how many speakers there would be, and it is Perfectly true that
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there were in fact twice as many to-day as there were listed on Thursday when we dispersed.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond: I think it would be convenient, if the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, agrees, that we should conduct this debate on Amendments Nos. 110P, 110T, 110X and 110Y together, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, for the explanation about the wording of No. 110T. I imagined it was the board he had in mind and not the committee. What we now have, although the Amendments are on points of detail, is the third debate on the nature of the rent scrutiny board; we are merely hanging it on a different set of hooks. I make no complaint about that because this is a new body and it is important that the Committee should be clear about it. It is my duty to make as clear as I can what functions the rent scrutiny board carries out and what functions it does not carry out.
It might be helpful if I stressed, as most noble Lords who have spoken so far have stressed, that what we are concerned to achieve in this part of the Bill is the application of fair rents and the fair rent principle to the public sector. There is no argument between us about that. There may be an argument as to whether or not fair rents are sensible, but we are agreed that we are trying to apply them across both sectors. It does not follow, because the application of fair rents in the council house sector and the private sector is our aim, that we adopt the same procedures for arriving at them.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: Why not?
LORD SANDFORD: The noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, asks, "Why not?" I suggest to the Committee that there are three very good reasons, or one main reason which breaks up into three parts. That is that the relationship between the private landlord and the private tenant on the one hand, and the local authority and the council tenant on the other hand, are totally different. The private landlord, with his necessity to make a profit, in some cases with unscrupulous motives in making the maximum profit and perhaps cashing in on scarcity and so on, is of quite a different kind to the local authority as landlord. In the case of the local authority

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the councillors are elected by the tenants. Private landlords are not elected by their tenants. The housing authority has a statutory duty to meet housing need in its area, which is not something a private landlord has at all; and, furthermore, the local authority has a statutory duty imposed on it in this Bill to consider the representations made to it on the provisional assessment of rents, which is different from the progression to fair rents in the private sector.
It is because these relationships are quite different that there is every justification for using a different procedure to arrive at the same principle. I do not think I can say any more than that. I have said a good deal about the duty of the rent scrutiny board. It is a different body from the rent assessment committee, but there is a certain amount of cross-membership because the experience gained by the rent scrutiny committees is of such value to the rent assessment boards. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, read the views of the Council on Tribunals, and I should like to read on from roughly where he left off:
"Rents must be determined as at present by the administrative authority. Such authorities might, however, be enabled to draw upon the special experience and knowledge of the members of the rent assessment panels."
That is what we have achieved by drawing on the membership of the rent assessment committees to create the rent scrutiny boards. They have quite a different function; they are using different procedures. The end product will be fair rents in both sectors. I do not think I can say any more by way of explanation of the way in which the rent scrutiny board differs from the rent assessment committee and why the procedure in the council house sector differs from that in the private sector. I do not suppose I have been able to persuade noble Lords opposite on this point. I have tried twice before. I have been glad of this opportunity to try again. I do not think I can say anything more.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: Throughout the arguments on this Bill we on this side of the Committee have been saying that the relationship between the private landlord and the private tenant is different from the relationship between the local authority and its tenants. Now at
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last the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has conceded this. That is exactly what he has said; but, having said that, he says that of course the scrutiny boards are different from the rent assessment boards. We have no reason to suppose that they are going to be any different. If the Government have accepted this extraordinary thing about a fair rent in the local authority sector, I simply do not understand how they can manipulate it just according to what they want, and yet say that there is a great difference between the relationship of the private landlord and the local authority as a landlord and the tenants of either.
LORD BERNSTEIN: For the moment let us not deal with the question of private tenants and local authority tenants. Could we not deal with the question of what is equitable and just, and how justice is seen? Perhaps this is going outside the Amendments, but I should like to refer to Clause 75(2), which states:
"The board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling to which an assessment relates".
Why should people not consider the rent of an individual? There are five million of them. It may be extra work, but in equity and justice each person has a right to have his rent considered if it is going to be increased. I have not heard the case against the justice or the equity of it. Perhaps we could hear something on that.
LORD SANDFORD: I can explain that very easily. Of course a tenant who has his rent increased ought to have an opportunity of making representations about it. Hitherto if he were a council tenant he has not had a statutory right to have his representations heard. This is now being provided for in this Bill, but the representation is made to the local authority and not to the rent scrutiny board.
LORD BERNSTEIN: The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has not answered my very simple question. Perhaps I put it in too elementary a fashion. What I am asking is why the Government should say that the board shall not be obliged. I suggest to your Lordships that the board should be obliged. A tenant has a right to be heard about his rent. I do not care what the previous Act says

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or what the local authority associations say. In all equity it is a man's right to have his case heard. As I said the other night, we should object very strongly to having our rates raised without getting even written notice of it. That is the point I want to raise again.
LORD SANDFORD: It is a good point. As I say, council tenants have hitherto not had this right by Statute. They are being given it in this Bill. The reason there is no statutory right for them to make representations to the rent scrutiny board is that provision is made for representations to be made to the local authorities; these are the people who have been assessing their rents up to now and they are well qualified to carry on.
LORD DIAMOND: We are back at a difficulty which raised a certain amount of heat the other night—the refusal of the noble Lord to deal with a question which was put to him. It is all on record in Hansard now and I need not refer to it again. I want to mention the argument adduced by the noble Lord referring to the difference in the relationship between the private landlord and a private tenant on the one hand and the local authority and a public tenant on the other. Suppose I am a local authority tenant, a council tenant, and I am paying a rent. I have heard about this Bill and it becomes an Act in its present form. The local authority (that is to say, my council, covering the area where I have lived all my life, peopled by councillors whom I have had an opportunity of appointing or rejecting) tell me that they have considered the situation very carefully and that my rent should go up by y pence. I am, as your Lordships know, a very reasonable person. I think about the rent and I say, "All right, everything is going up these days, a y pence increase in my rent is reasonable", and therefore I make no representations, I am content. In the circumstances this proposal is then submitted to a rent scrutiny board. I know nothing of their proceedings. I am not allowed to make any representations. They do not call me to hear what my views are.
LORD AVEBURY: They call the landlord.
LORD DIAMOND: They have the advice of the local authority, which says, "The rent of x plus y is the right rent, and I have not objected to it". Having considered that, they add z pence, so the rent is now x, y and z. I have had no opportunity of letting them know my views; I have had no opportunity of putting before the board comparative rents; I have no right of appeal; I did not object (not that it would have made any difference) to the local authority, because the local authority's proposal was, I thought, having regard to general increases in prices not out of bounds. I am caught with an increased rent beyond what I think is fair, beyond what the council thinks is fair and right in relation to the proposals of the Government in this Bill, and I am caught without any opportunity of being heard, making representations, appealing, or anything. I am in a totally different position—and I am 5 million tenants—from the 1½ million private tenants, who at that point would have all the rights of natural justice afforded to them. Therefore, in those circumstances I cannot understand why the noble Lord is referring to noble Lords on this side of the House. By what right does he think that noble Lords on all sides of your Lordships' House are not interested in natural justice being provided?
That is the first point. The second point is this. Why does the noble Lord keep relating this to the local authority, when we are talking about the rent scrutiny board, the final determinant which listens not to the tenant, hears not the tenant, and from whom there is no appeal? It is the rent scrutiny board. I am bound to say to the noble Lord that the more he dodges this question, as he has now done for the fourth time in reply to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Bernstein, the more he underlines the fact that he finds it impossible to justify, just as his right honourable friend the Minister found it impossible to justify. He did not attempt to justify it. He knew that he would be slaughtered in the other place if he attempted to do so. What he said—and I will read it out in view of the noble Lord's insistence on dealing with matters with which we are not dealing—at columns 2078 and 2079 was:
"I do not dissent from the essence of what he has said."

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This is one of the Members making a similar case to that which we are making now:
"What we are proposing does not go all the way to producing a complete equivalence between landlord and tenant as there is in the private sector. I should like to do so, but I have not been able to find a way of making it possible."
There is no argument about the principle in the Minister's mind. What he is saying is that administrative convenience makes it impossible for natural justice to be provided.
The complaint of all the local authorities and their associations is that the Government are moving too fast, and that is our complaint. Because of the need of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to collect this money in quickly there is no possibility of administrative methods for justice to be done because, of course, there would be appeals and people would like to have an opportunity of expressing their own views about their own property and what rent they should pay. He goes on to say in column 2078:
"So much of practical politics is a matter of defending the had against the worst. It is impossible to achieve perfection in this world."
That is the sole justification of the Minister. We are agreed, are we not, that this denies natural justice in the way that your Lordships' House defends it on private interests in any Bill in which the private interests of individuals are affected. All we are asking for is that same justice as is afforded to private tenants, so that the Government can have an opportunity of effecting their Bill, which we dislike, without having the kind of explosion which one must expect if individuals are denied the right of being heard, or denied the right of appeal.
In those circumstances, I find it difficult to understand why the noble Lord does not take this matter as seriously as his right honourable friend did, and recognise that this is not to be justified on any grounds other than administrative convenience. We think that administrative convenience is a bad bed companion for natural justice.
8.18 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, still has an opportunity of taking to heart the words that have been spoken in this debate and of telling the Committee that he will go back
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to the Department and think of some machinery, before we come to the Report stage, whereby appeals can be written into the Bill. If he would do that, then I am sure that it would help to expedite the proceedings on the remainder of the Committee stage, because it would be an enormous concession, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has said, to the rights of natural justice. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, feels that himself, because the one thing that I agreed with in his speech was when he said that he did not suppose that he had been able to convince us by his arguments. If I may say so to him, those arguments were pathetic. I have never heard a worse presented case from the Front Bench than we have had from the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, to-night. He realises that he has not got a leg to stand on and that statements made by himself in this place, and by his right honourable friend in another, are totally in conflict with what the Government are trying to do.
I have already quoted one statement. May I just refer him to what he himself said when we were considering an earlier Amendment on June 22? He said at column 457:
"The criteria have been taken over from the legislation of the Party opposite and are set out in some detail in an earlier clause which we have been discussing. Those criteria have to be applied by the local authorities."
He is not doing that. He has brought forward with regard to the local authorities a totally different set of provisions from anything we have been familiar with in the Rent Act 1965, as consolidated in the 1968 Act. I do not want to go back over all the details again; I have already itemised them. The noble Lord, in his reply, has totally ignored the comparison that I made. But I think that it is a valid one.
If it is the philosophy of the Government that what has already been done in the private sector under a previous Government should now be applied to council tenants, then for the sake of this Amendment I will go along with the noble Lord and will ask why he has not done it. Why has he provided far less satisfactory procedures for the council tenant than anything which was done under the 1965 Act? It is no good the noble Lord saying that the relationship

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between the landlord and the tenant is totally different in the public sector from what it is in the private sector. He uses that argument only when it suits him. When we tried to present a case for adjusting fair rents in the local authority sector to take account of the differences in interest charges, repayment of capital and so on as between private and public landlords, he dismissed that in a few sentences.
He cannot have it both ways. When it suits the Government's case he cannot ignore the differences between public and private landlords, and when it does not suit the Government's case he cannot emphasise the differences, as the noble Lord has done this evening. The councillors may have been elected by the tenants. They may have a statutory duty to consider housing needs. They are still the landlords and, therefore,
they are in the same relationship to the tenant. If you live in a council house, you look upon the housing manager and the housing committee in the same way as a private tenant looks upon the landlord. You think that they are standing in the same relationship to you.
Therefore, I do not think that the noble Lord's arguments are valid and I dismiss them entirely. This is fundamental to our opposition to the Bill, and I appeal to noble Lords in this Committee not to accept the feeble arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, but to reject this clause and to vote with us when we go into the Division Lobby in a minute.
8.22 p.m.
On Question, whether the said Amendment (No. 110P) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 30; Not-Contents, 62.

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Shepherd, L.

Avebury, L. [Teller.]

Hale, L.

Slater, L.

Bernstein, L.

Janner, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Blyton, L.

Lee of Asheridge, Bs.

Summerskill, Bs.

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Maelor, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Diamond, L.

Platt, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Popplewell, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Royle, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Northchurch, Bs.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Falkland, V.

Oakshott, L.

Amory, V.

Falmouth, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E. [Teller.]

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

St. Helens, L.

Barnby, L.

Gage, V.

Saint Oswald, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Gainford, L.

Sandford, L.

Belstead, L.

Goschen, V.

Sandys, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gowrie, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Greenway, L.

Strange, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hailes, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

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

Strathclyde, L.

Chesham, L.

Thomas, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Kemsley, V.

Trefgarne, L

Courtown, E.

Killearn, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Craigavon, V.

Luke, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Vernon, L.

Digby, L.

Mansfield, E.

Vivian, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Milverton, L.

Wrottesley, L.

Elles, Bs.

Mountevans, L.

Young, Bs.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD ROYLE): I should point out that if Amendment No. 110Q were agreed to, the Chair would not be able to call Amendments Nos. 110R and 110S.
8.30 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110Q:
Page 57, line 5, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: Perhaps it would be convenient to discuss Amendments Nos. 110R and 110S with this Amendment. I will deal with them very briefly because of the pressure of time. The purpose of the Amendment is to provide that each dwelling will be dealt with individually. We feel that this is right because, as your Lordships are fully aware, there is no representation, no personal hearing, no appeal. We think it is right because a tenant who reluctantly accepts a local authority's provisional assessment, and who then finds that that assessment has been thrown overboard by the rent board, has no appeal or method of complaint. We also think it is right because each house should be dealt with in relation to its state of repair or disrepair. I beg to move.
LORD JANNER: I hope that this Amendment will be accepted. I cannot understand why it is not appreciated that houses, even in the same row as others and of a similar type of building, have certain characteristics and are in a certain condition which makes them different from others. Surely a tenant is entitled to point out that his house is different in many respects from others which apparently are going to be taken into consideration as a whole. Why is there a difference between the approach in this matter and the approach in respect of rateable values? Why do the Government not take a whole row of houses and say that they are of a similar type and that they are going to assess them for rateable purposes at a certain value and there will be no right of appeal?
It is sheer nonsense. It is depriving a tenant of his legitimate right to argue the position in respect of his house. It is a shocking thing to prevent an individual from doing this. It is a transgression against individual liberty and against the right of a person to have his case heard. The Government ought to
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realise that if they continue to object to an Amendment of this nature they are doing an injustice to every individual who happens to occupy a house which somebody—it does not matter who—considers to be of a similar but not exactly the same type as another. It cannot be. The tenant ought to be entitled to have his case heard so that the assessment may be properly made.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree with a very good deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Janner, has said. Although it is true that council housing, as compared with private housing, usually consists of fairly substantial blocks of identical building—some with two bedrooms and some with three—built at more or less the same time, there are differences. Some may have garages while others do not and some may have central heating while others do not. They may differ because some tenants are elderly and are not responsible for doing their own repairs. All these variations can occur within a block of what appear to be identical houses. But the local authority will know all about them; there are factors which it already takes into account and will take into account in the future in making its provisional assessment.
If we were denying the tenants a right to make representations about these provisional assessments or denying them the right to draw the attention of their local authority to the fact that their houses had not got central heating or some other variation, then there would be some force in the noble Lord's argument. But we are not denying them that. For the first time we are giving them a statutory right to make representations. I am sorry to go on about this but this is the case. The rent scrutiny board is not the body which will deal with these things either now or in the future. It is the body which will come in at a later stage to scrutinise the rents provisionally assessed by the local authority.
LORD PLATT: I hate to intervene in this argument because I am quite sure that I am not nearly as well versed in this matter as noble Lords on both sides of the Committee. But surely the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, is not telling us that there are not rows and rows and streets and streets of private residences which are of the semi-detached type

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with no difference between them. He seems to be making some distinction between council housing and private housing in this respect. I do not think he has examined some of the less desirable suburbs of the city of London.
LORD JANNER: I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will answer the point that I put. Why should there be a difference from the approach to rateable values? Why should a person be entitled to dispute a rateable value?
LORD DIAMOND: I wonder if I could put this point for the last time. I will not trouble the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, again. I will just assume that he is unwilling to deal with the point. This is the fifth time. I would appeal to him to read subsection (2) to which these Amendments refer. It says:
"The board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling to which an assessment relates."
What is "the board"? It is the rent scrutiny board. This is the board which will determine the rent. It is not the local authority. The local authority will make the provisional assessment, send it to the board and the board will either accept it or reject it; but it will finally determine it. Every time we raise a question about the functioning of the board the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, tells us what the local authority can do. I do not know why he does this. It cannot be that he does not understand the difference between the local authority and the board. It cannot be that he thinks that we are confusing the two. We are talking about the board. The whole of the Amendment refers to the board. The whole of my noble friend's speech referred to the board.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will say that he cannot or will not answer questions about the board and that he will not time and time again tell us what the local authority can do. What the local authority can do is irrelevant because the subsection says:
"The board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling …"
It does not matter what the local authority has done. The local authority may have considered these things ten times over. The noble Lord said that if it were true that there was no possibility
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of considering these matters then he would think that my noble friend Lord Janner had merit in what he was saying. But that is the case. It says here:
"The Board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling …"
So with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I do not think that we shall advance our understanding of the Bill or our understanding of one another if, every time we talk about the board, he tells us what the local authority can do.
8.40 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am sorry if I cannot help the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, as much as I should like to do. The noble Lord, Lord Janner, made the point that tenants have no right to make representations about their rents or rent assessments. He did not qualify that. I agree that we are talking about Amendments to subsection (2), but my argument in reply to what the noble Lord, Lord Janner, said is that because tenants have the right to make representations to the local authority we do not think that it is necessary for them to have the right to make representations to the board.
LORD JANNER: With the greatest respect, the opinion of the council (to which representations can be made) having been come to, it can be overridden without a right of appeal; and therefore the tenant has no right to present his case.
LORD DIAMOND: I do appeal to the noble Lord. May I put the one argument to him which I think he was unable to hear because he was not here at the time? It is not only the case of an objecting tenant who makes representations to the local authority which the local authority passes on to the board and the board is required to ignore. It is not only that. It is, as I tried to indicate, the case where there are no representations because the tenant is content, is satisfied; where the rent has been increased and he accepts it, and he makes no representations. Therefore, when the local authority sends the case along to the rent scrutiny board, they cannot be saying, "This tenant has objected ", because he has not. Nevertheless, the rent scrutiny board determines what the rent shall be without hearing the tenant.

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The board makes its decision; and, if it increases the rent, the tenant has not been heard, he has not been represented, he has not been allowed to produce evidence and he has not been present. The whole thing has been done behind closed doors; and his rent, which he thought he had accepted from the local authority, has been increased. In those circumstances, there is no question of any representation, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, keeps on reminding us, the representations can only be made to the local authority, and in this case the tenant does not wish to make representations to the local authority. The rent is increased, and he has no opportunity to make representations at all. "This is such an utter denial of simple justice that I do not know why the noble Lord or the Government are pursuing it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I wonder whether I could help the Committee by putting forward a slightly different gloss, a different point of view. What the rent scrutiny board is doing is seeing that the rents of the local authority as a whole are fair rents, that they are in line with fair rents as determined by the rent assessment committees or the rent officers for private dwellings. They will get the lists of the rents. Those lists will have been arrived at by the local authority, which has always fixed rents for its tenants, after considering the representations of their tenants. Now what sort of representations will they be? Local authority houses are, by and large, in blocks of fairly similar houses, in contradistinction to privately-owned houses. Tenants' representations, therefore, if they are made by the occupants of a block, or by one of the occupants of a block, are likely to be that the rents fixed for that block are out of line with the rents fixed for other blocks. Or, it may be that the representation made by an individual—and I heard the noble Lord refer to this at an earlier stage—will be that because of certain reasons the rent fixed for his house is too much in relation to the rents fixed for the block in which he lives.
Now, what will the local authority do? The local authority will then consider these things and will adjust the rents as between their tenants. But the question still remains open whether those rents, taken as a whole, are in line with the
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fair rents outside. This is the conception. The noble Lord quoted my right honourable friend as saying that the conception is not perhaps ideal; but at any rate I think it right to put before your Lordships what the conception here is. I concede what the noble Lord says, that administrative convenience plays its part in this, but so also does the fact that the local authorities have always fixed the rents for their tenants, and they will continue to do so after the representations are received in this way. They will then pass them on for the rent scrutiny board to harmonise them with the rents outside.
LORD DIAMOND: I am grateful to the noble Lord because he has obviously turned his mind to our complaints, and he is turning his mind to the rent scrutiny board. That is some advance, and we are grateful to him. I would therefore ask him to be good enough to consider two aspects, one of which I have already put to him but with which he did not deal. That one is not, as the noble Lord instanced, the case where there is a complaint. I am trying to make the case as simple as possible by giving as an example an instance where there is no complaint. The first question I am asking him is: how can he say that the rent scrutiny board pays any attention to the representations of the tenant when the tenant has not made any, the reason he has not made any being because he was content, but the board has nevertheless increased that rent? That is the first question. The second question concerns the situation when you have identical circumstances in a block of property owned by a private landlord. Your Lordships can imagine such a large block; there are dozens of them, all within your Lordships' knowledge and recollection, all over London, in all the areas where people live—huge blocks of flats, and so on, owned by private landlords. Why, in those circumstances, is there an appeal by each separate tenant against the fixing of his rent to an appellate body?
LORD DRUMALBYN: As to the second point, of course, the reason is that this is the way in which the rents come to be registered—rent by rent, individually—whereas in the other case (that of local authorities) we are dealing

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with the fixing of rents for a large body of houses in the ownership of the local authority. It is the local authority that will judge what the relativities are; and the local authority has every power to make it known what the rents of individual houses will be. No doubt people in a block will compare notes to see what variations there are, and then the individuals who feel that they are being harshly treated within that block can make their representations to get adjustments made in the relativities. But what I am saying is that the rent scrutiny board is not dealing with individual rents in the sense that a rent assessment committee is dealing with them: it is dealing with the rents en bloc, which is a totally different operation. The tenant will have had his opportunity, as my noble friend has so repeatedly said—and I do not understand why noble Lords do not take this point—to make representations about the relativities of his rent in relation to the rents of other local authority houses. What have still to be determined are the relativities of the local authority houses and the other houses in the block as a whole, and this is what the rent scrutiny board will be dealing with.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: Is the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, saying that after the rent scrutiny board has fixed the rent a tenant can make a representation to his local authority? Is that what I am to understand? Is that what the noble Lord is saying?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I do not recall having said any such thing. I certainly did not say that, and I hope I did not imply it. But, of course, it is a fact that the local authorities themselves will have the further opportunity to comment on the rent scrutiny board's determinations.
LORD DIAMOND: The noble Lord is being very helpful and he is moving in the right direction by altering the Bill. That is always helpful. I do not know whether he intended to do so, especially as he is altering a part that we have already passed, which is unusual. In the previous subsection it says:
"It shall be the duty of the rent scrutiny board to consider any provisional assessment submitted to them …"
Is the noble Lord saying that that is inaccurate, or is the noble Lord saying that
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"any" means a block, which is the example he gave? We thought that "any" meant "any"; and that, as the noble Lord has said, the machinery is first for the individual assessment to be adjusted by the local authority on hearing representations, then for the local authority to submit individual provisional assessments; and then
"it shall be the duty of the rent scrutiny board to consider any provisional assessment submitted to them …"
The noble Lord now says—in order to get out of this awkward situation—that it is not their duty to do so. He may be right; but it is not the way that one normally reads the Bill or the sense one normally gives these words.
I am bound to pursue the noble Lord further and to pursue him on the question which my noble friend Lady Gaitskell asked; because unless he is saying that the rent scrutiny board gives an opportunity to the tenant to object to the rent scrutiny board's increase of a tenant's provisional assessment then the implication is exactly as my noble friend indicated. Where there has been no objection to the provisional assessment at the local authority level and it is increased by the rent scrutiny board, then I repeat that the tenant has had no method whatever of having his objection heard because he has not made one. That, surely, is something we can all agree on: that you cannot listen to an objection if it has not been made. I am illustrating the point in all its simplicity: he makes no objection to the local authority provisional assessment that the local authority submits to the rent scrutiny board; the rent scrutiny board increases it by 50 per cent. and the tenant has no opportunity of any kind of appeal.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It is difficult to pursue the noble Lord on this matter because he takes a view here which ignores, and continues to ignore, the fact that the individual tenant is given an opportunity to make representations. If he has not made them then his case has gone by default.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: But—
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am trying my best. I hope noble Lords will allow me to complete my argument. The tenant's case has gone by default up to that point.

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The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, is saying that the rent scrutiny board will consider any assessment; and so it does. But is it likely that the rent scrutiny board, which is obviously not going to be able to inspect all the houses (and this is the point noble Lords were making), would vary the rent for a particular house without a particular reason? Therefore, the relativities will remain the same. This is the point. The rent may be increased. If the rent of one house is increased it is almost certainly (I need not go further) because the rents of all the local authority houses are being increased, or at any rate the rents of a block which perhaps the rent scrutiny board have considered are now out of line with the fair rents of houses or blocks outside. It is extremely unlikely that the rent scrutiny board will alter an individual rent of its own volition. Why should it? That being so, there does not seem to be any reason why an individual should question the increase of the rent as it applies to his own house only; because this will have happened to the other houses as well. This is the way the system is going to work. There is no question of it. This is what will happen.
LORD JANNER: I do not understand this argument at all. If the rent is increased for a block, will the tenants be heard against that increase? As I see it at present, there is no appeal from what the rent scrutiny board does and consequently not only will the single tenant be prevented from stating his case but the block tenants, the whole lot of them, will be so prevented. It is not entirely correct to say that they have had a chance of putting their case. Of course they have; but if you get another body which can come forward and say, "We do not care a hang about what you said before; we are going to decide on a certain rental", where do the tenants stand? Moreover, where does the council stand?
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I answer that point? There is no question of the rent scrutiny board saying that they do not care a hang. That is not so. The rents are referred back to the local authority and the local authority can then make its representations on the rent scrutiny board's findings. That being so, it is the local authority representing the
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tenant that can make these representations.
We have not yet reached Clause 56 which deals with the determination of fair rent, but that does not mean that we should not take it into account when examining this part of the Bill. Clause 56 says:
"If the rent scrutiny board agree with a provisional assessment, they shall send to the authority a report …
(3) If the board do not agree with the rents assessed for any dwellings to which a provisional assessment relates, they shall send to the authority a report on that assessment specifying the rents … with which they agree and the rents with which they do not agree and giving their reasons …".
LORD DIAMOND: We are waiting for the noble Lord to be good enough to direct our attention to where the appeal is—an appeal from the rent scrutiny board.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is in the nature of an appeal, if you like, because the authority can then make its representations against the determination of assessment of the rent scrutiny board. This is a collective appeal by the authority against the rent scrutiny board. This is the way the thing will work. I know that noble Lords opposite do not like it entirely, but I should have thought that, given the fact that the local authority, those who determine the rents, will report to the rent scrutiny board, who have the necessity for harmonising with the private sector the rents so determined, one could say that this is not a bad way of doing it.
LORD DIAMOND: We are agreed that there is no appeal from the rent scrutiny board. That is the point my noble friend Lord Janner was making: that there is no appeal. What can happen is that the local authority can say to the rent scrutiny board, "We do not like the rents you have determined." The rent scrutiny board can say to the local authority, "It is a fine day and I hope it does not rain." That is as far as we can take it. There is no appeal against the rent scrutiny board. Now I come back to some of the other arguments of the noble Lord because we are making some progress. Let us assume that my request that Clause 55(1) be removed from the Bill is accepted. I want to make it easy for the noble Lord. Notwithstanding that

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Clause 55(1) says that it is the duty of the rent scrutiny board to consider any provisional assessment, he is going to read the Bill as if it says that it is not the duty of the rent scrutiny board to consider any provisional assessment. Let us get over that one by assuming that we have removed that from the Bill. I now want to say to the noble Lord, why? In the circumstances where he once exercised his own profession it is normal, usual and inevitable that the person complaining is heard, because he knows something about the matter which the party who has made the decision may not know. He is heard, therefore, and gives evidence; and the circumstances relating to the need for the individual to be heard in a rent assessment are exactly the same.
Let us assume that we can walk together on the argument that the rent scrutiny board does not fix individual rents. That the local authorities fix individual proportions is what the noble Lord is saying. They fix the proportions of a standard rent and that rent is determined, as it were, by the rent scrutiny board en bloc. The relativities are fixed by the council and the board does not interfere with that. It merely looks at the total block, and the relativities remain the same and move up and down according to what the rent scrutiny board says. It is still the case that there are many circumstances in which individuals consider that their rent should not be varied in the same way as other rents should be varied. They will say that their house or flat abuts on the railway line, and that they hear the noise of the trains but the people next door or over the way do not hear it.
The noble Lord must have canvassed a lot when he was a Member of Parliament—like the rest of us who were M.P.s did—among individuals in blocks of flats, and he must have heard the complaints of tenants about their individual circumstances. Each one would have a different view of his own circumstances compared with those of his neighbours and all sorts of reasons are adduced. Some of them, I am sure, would be taken into account by a fair tribunal, including whether the neighbour was a very difficult tenant who sat up all night singing or playing the piano. There are some very difficult tenants who make things difficult for their neighbours. That is something
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to be taken into account; it is not something that a rent scrutiny board should ignore. There are a whole host of circumstances, including the state of repair of individual properties, and that is something to be taken into account. The rent scrutiny board cannot know anything about that.
I am bound to say to the noble Lord that even were he right about this curious idea that the rent scrutiny board should not look at individual rents but only at the level of relativity and not consider the individual relativities—and that is in absolute conflict with Clause 55(1)—it does not alter the fact that, as in any other disagreement, the person who disagrees should have an opportunity to say why he disagrees. He may be right or wrong, but at all events he gets the chance of saying before a judge or an arbitrator, or the person who determines his rent, what he thinks his rent should be and why it should be different from the rent of other people, and so on. It is a simple denial of justice for him not to have this opportunity so far as the rent scrutiny board is concerned.
9.5 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I should like to take up one point with the noble Lord. It is obvious that we cannot reach agreement about this but I feel that I must do this because he challenged me on it. If he will look at Clause 53(1) he will see that it states:
"An authority shall publish their provisional assessment of fair rents within six months …"
and so on. Then, take Clause 55(1) where it states:
"It shall be the duty of the rent scrutiny board to consider any provisional assessment …"
so the assessment we are talking about is the assessment of fair rents as a whole.
LORD DIAMOND: I am sorry, but I think that this ought to go on the record. Is the noble Lord then saying that this Bill means that a rent scrutiny board does not have to consider a provisional assessment of individual rents?
LORD DRUMALBYN: That is exactly what Clause 55(2) does say:
"The board shall not be obliged to consider individually the rent of any particular dwelling to which an assessment relates".
Of course there will be a list. The assessment will consist of a list of rents. They

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may be individual or by blocks, I do not know, but the assessment will consist of a list of rents. I am merely drawing this to the attention of the noble Lord. I am interpreting the clause as I have understood it. If I am wrong then I shall very gladly tell not only the noble Lord but also the whole Committee that I was wrong.
LORD DIAMOND: And not only the whole Committee, which is why we must pursue this, because every local authority wants to know what to do. They are all at sixes and sevens, not knowing how to proceed. What Clause 55(2) says is that the board shall not be obliged to consider. One can understand that it shall not be obliged to consider. If it gets a block of 20 rents, each one of which is identical with the other, and there is no difference of any kind, and it is known that there is no difference,
and they are satisfied, and the local authority says that there is no difference, and there has been no complaint from anybody at all—then, of course, it need not consider each one of those rents individually, particularly if it is not going to vary the rent. But that has nothing to do with saying that its duty shall be not to consider them. The Bill says that the duty is to consider them and merely that it is not obliged to consider every case. These two subsections are quite reconcilable and therefore, with respect, subsection (2) does not mean what the noble Lord said it meant.
9.8 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 110Q) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 30; Not-Contents, 63.

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Bernstein, L.

Hale, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Beswick, L.

Janner, L.

Tanlaw, L.

Blyton, L.

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

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Champion, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Maelor, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs.

Diamond, L.

Platt, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Popplewell, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Shepherd, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Slater, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Mansfield, E.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Falkland, V.

Milverton, L.

Amory, V.

Falmouth, V.

Molson, L.

Balfour, E.

Ferrers, E. [Teller.]

Mountevans, L.

Barnby, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Northchurch, Bs.

Belstead, L.

Gage, V.

Oakshott, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gainford, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Bethell, L.

Goschen, V.

St. Helens, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gowrie, E.

Saint Oswald, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Greenway, L.

Sandford, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Hailes, L.

Sandys, L.

Chesham, L.

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

Strange, L.

Craigavon, V.

Strathcarron, L.

Crathorne, L.

Hood, V.

Thomas, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Kemsley, V.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Derwent, L.

Killearn, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Digby, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Vernon, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Latymer, L.

Vivian, L.

Elles, Bs.

Luke, L.

Wrottesley, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Young, Bs.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110Z.
Page 57, line 33, at end insert—
("(7) The sittings of the rent scrutiny board on the consideration of any provisional assessment or any reassessment shall be held in public.")
The noble Lord said: In case your Lordships think I am incapable of saying anything other than "Not moved", I think I had better move Amendment No. 110Z. The words in the Amendment speak for themselves. It is normal process and justice. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: If the rent scrutiny board were carrying out the judicial function which noble Lords opposite have been urging so strongly that they should carry out, there would be a case for this Amendment. But because the rent scrutiny board are carrying out the valuation exercise that we have been equally strongly urging on the Committee as the function assigned to them, there is no occasion and no necessity for this to be done.
LORD JANNER: Surely that is not an answer to this proposal. We are dealing here with the lives and homes of people. You are now going to ask that this board shall consider rows of houses or blocks of houses of a similar type. Surely the public are entitled to know on what grounds a decision is going to be arrived at. And if that decision happens to be arrived at in consequence of certain information which has been given to the rent scrutiny board, of which the public and the Press do not approve, at least there is the opportunity for the local authority, which is an elected body and which must listen to public opinion, to do something about having the decision revised. I cannot see why the decision should not take place in public, unless of course the rent scrutiny board will have matters to hide and which they cannot present to the public at large. I think the answer that has been given is quite wrong. It is not a question of "judicial". There are many matters dealt with by local authorities which are not judicial, but which are open to public scrutiny. Why should this not be?
LORD SANDFORD: I agree with a great deal of what the noble Lord has said, and when we get on to the next clause we shall see that if the rent
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scrutiny board have occasion to disagree with the provisional assessment forwarded to them by the local authority they have a duty to give reasons for that, and they undoubtedly would be made public. But that is not the point. The point I am making is that the rent scrutiny board are not sitting in a judicial capacity. There is no opportunity for representations to be made to them, as we have just been discussing. For that reason there is no need for their sittings to be made public, though their findings and their reasons for disagreement will be made public.
LORD DIAMOND: Where is that said in the Bill?
LORD JANNER: That does not answer the point.
LORD SANDFORD: If I can answer the aside of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that is made clear in the next clause, Clause 56(1) (2) (3) and (4).
LORD DIAMOND: The noble Lord said that they would be made public. I am asking where it says in the Bill that they will be made public.
LORD SANDFORD: That, I quite agree, is not mentioned specifically in the Bill, but there is no earthly reason why it should not be made public, and I imagine that every local authority receiving those reasons would make them public.
LORD JANNER: But, with respect, that does not answer the point that I raised. Does not the noble Lord realise that, whatever reasons the board may give for arriving at a decision, if the inquiry was held in public then the public would know, would hear what was said, whether those reasons were valid or not. Surely the public are entitled to know the basis on which the reasons have been arrived at? That is my point. If the public were there, there would be public criticism and also public understanding of the reasons put forward, and the basis for those reasons would be known. The same thing happens with a court: a court comes to a decision and those who have attended the hearing, the reporters and so on, know what has been said. If it thereafter appears that the case which is stated is based upon reasons which are inconsistent with what happened at

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the court, then counsel has the opportunity of putting the facts forward in his own way. The public are entitled to know on what grounds a decision has been made.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: May I ask the noble Lord whether the rent assessment bodies who assess the fair rents sit in a judicial capacity? The noble Lord is quite right: we do not like this Bill, but what we like even less is the complete lack of logic about this. That is what we do not understand.
LORD DIAMOND: Perhaps it would be convenient if I added my own views at this point, and I am sure that the noble Lord will be good to take them into account. Our difficulty here is that what we are proposing in this Amendment is nothing like enough, but it is something: it is indeed a minimum. All we are asking is that the board shall sit in public. The noble Lord has said that it is not a court. That is an interesting reply, but I do not think it carries much conviction, because we all know all sorts of bodies which are not courts but in whose decisions the public is interested, and the public are admitted to the gallery. I am told that this goes on in your Lordships' House; it goes on in another place; and it goes on in connection with every council we are talking about. Every member of the electorate can go along and listen to the council's deliberations, because these affect the area in which the people live. These decisions can affect the rent of the dwelling in which an individual lives. Why should not an individual just be allowed to go and listen? It may be that some injustice would be spared. It may be that, having heard it, they find that the proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, are not being carried out.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, says that the rent scrutiny board will have regard not to the relativities but to the general level of rents, of the block of assessments which has been put to them. They may decide to pick out an individual one and alter it differently from others—put one up and leave another the same. They certainly have power to do that under Clause 55(1). They are not required to do it under Clause 55(2) but they have the power to do it under subsection (1). They may decide to do
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that and the local authority may feel that this is an error in their approach to their responsibility. The Government may feel that it is an error in the approach to their responsibility, and the Government may decide to give them directions under subsection (5) which says that
"The Secretary of State may give directions to rent scrutiny boards … as to the manner in which they are to apply the provisions of subsections (3) and (4) above."
They may want to give directions, and, if so, it is necessary that the public should know how they are applying the provisions. I should have thought it was a tiny thing to ask the Government to consider, whether or not, like councils, like thousands of other bodies, non-judicial bodies, the rent scrutiny boards should not sit in public. It is as simple as that.
9.26 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think I have much to add. Of course it is true that debates in your Lordships' House and in another place and in council chambers are open to the public as they should be, and so are judicial hearings; but not every debate, discussion, deliberation and consideration of public business goes on in public, and I doubt very much if housing committees themselves meet in public. The point is that the important matters emerging from the rent scrutiny boards—their decisions and their reasons if they disagree with the provisional assessment of the local authority—will be issued. I cannot imagine any local authority that will not make them public. That is something we shall be coming on to.
LORD DIAMOND: I cannot leave that, because the noble Lord keeps on saying what he cannot imagine people will not do something which is not written into the Bill. I am sorry to say this to the noble Lord, but what he says about what local authorities will do if they are not required to do it under the Statute is, with the greatest possible respect, totally irrelevant. It has no power—I will give way in a moment—and he knows that it has no power whatsoever. I could just as well stand here and say that no local authority will publicise. He is not entitled to say it; I am not entitled to say it. All we are entitled to discuss is what is in the Bill

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and there is no provision in the Bill about publicising this information.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: If the noble Lord will turn to subsection (7) of Clause 56 he will see that local authorities have to publish the fair rents that have been assessed.
LORD DIAMOND: I am sure that the noble Earl was present during the whole of our debate, and I am sure he realises that that is not what we are discussing at all. What we are discussing is reasons; not amounts.
LORD SANDFORD: I am sure the Committee would agree that we are getting two things mixed up. When I explained that the rent scrutiny board will have to give its report on what it thinks of the assessments and its reasons for disagreeing, the noble Lord said there was nothing in the Bill about making that public. I have assured him that it will be made public. When we come to discuss the clause we can discuss whether there is or there is not enough in the Bill about that matter. But the Amendment is to the effect that the rent scrutiny board should sit in public. On that point I am quite clear that there is no reason at all why they should sit in public because they do not in any way correspond to a court sitting in judgment and listening to a case between two litigants; nor in any way do they correspond to a council or legislative chamber in the course of debate.
LORD SHEPHERD: Would the noble Lord not agree that while they may not be a court, they in fact make a judgment and the judgment is going to bind the local authority and eventually the tenant? They are making a judgment and so they are to some extent similar to a court.
LORD SANDFORD: We discussed this matter in one of the four or five debates we have had on the point and I made the point then that judgment can be of two different kinds. It can be a judgment between two parties or a judgment as to a particular figure. This is a valuation exercise, and I really do not think that members of the public ought to be admitted into a valuer's office when he is making a valuation. This is what the rent scrutiny board will be doing.
LORD JANNER: But, with respect, that is precisely what happens with the rent tribunal. What is the difference? The rent tribunal assesses the amount of rent that a person has to pay. What on earth is the difference between the two? This is a board which is going to say that 50, 100 or 150 houses are to be assessed at a certain amount. Why should not the public be there to listen to what is happening, if the reasons are put forward later on in the form of a return? It is not an appeal. The board can do precisely what it wants to do without having any appeal against it. It is a scandalous thing that the public should not know what is happening with regard to houses.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I am afraid I came in a little late. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell us in simple language what is the reason for objecting to this Amendment? Every time Amendments of this type are moved we do not get a practical reason for the Amendment being refused.
LORD SANDFORD: I cannot say anything different from what I said originally. This is not a court or a debate or a judicial hearing, or any of the things where it would be appropriate or necessary or where the public would glean anything by attending a sitting of the board. It is quite an informal occasion where the various members discuss their findings, for instance as a result of visiting and inspecting a building and considering the details of the assessment that has been submitted to them.
LORD BERNSTEIN: The noble Lord does not think that this is an appropriate place for the public to be present?
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think they would gain anything by being present.
LORD BERNSTEIN: It is not whether they gain or not, but whether it is appropriate for the public to be present.
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think it is appropriate at all.
LORD DIAMOND: Quite obviously we shall not make any progress on this. We dislike it intensely but we are coming towards the end of the clause and we shall seek to divide the Committee on the

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clause. Therefore I think it would be more appropriate to express our views there than on this particular Amendment. I will only add that we now know how the Government think: they think that the man in the rent scrutiny board knows best and that is the reason why they are advocating what I previously called "Government by diktat." So long as it is realised that we object strenuously to
Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 55 agreed to.
Clause 56 [Determination of fair rent.]
9.35 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZD:
Page 58, line 9, at end insert ("shall give the authority and each of the tenants affected an opportunity to state their case in person thereafter").
The noble Lord said: This is the clause dealing with the determination of fair rent. Page 58, subsection (4) says:
"If within two months of the receipt of a report … the authority make representations in writing to the board as to any of the
this and to every other part of this clause, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.34 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 55 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 24.
rents to which the report relates, the board shall have regard to those representations …"
The Amendment seeks to add at that point
"shall give the authority and each of the tenants affected an opportunity to state their case in person thereafter".
This means that instead of asking, as we have asked and have failed to persuade your Lordships' House, that the normal processes of justice should apply, we are asking here just for the minimum possible request, namely, that the rent board shall give the housing authority and each of the tenants affected an opportunity to state their case in person after that. I beg to move.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Falkland, V.

Mansfield, E.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Falmouth, V.

Milverton, L.

Amory, V.

Ferrers, E. [Teller.]

Molson, L.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

Mountevans, L.

Barnby, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Gage, V.

Northchurch, Bs.

Belstead, L.

Gainford, L.

Oakshott, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Goschen, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gowrie, E.

St. Helens, L.

Bethell, L.

Greenway, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Hailes, L.

Sandford, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

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

Sandys, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Strange, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hood, V.

Strathcarron, L.

Crathorne, L.

Kemsley, V.

Thomas, L.

Daventry, V.

Killearn, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Kinnoull, E.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Derwent, L.

Latymer, L.

Vernon, L.

Digby, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Vivian, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lothian, M.

Wrottesley, L.

Elles, Bs.

Luke, L.

Young, Bs.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Shepherd, L.

Bernstein, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Tanlaw, L.

Beswick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Blyton, L.

Janner, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Champion, L.

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

Winterbottom, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Wright of Ashton-under-Lyne, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Maelor, L.

Diamond, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Popplewell, L.

LORD JANNER: May I add just a few words to this? I think the noble Lord will realise that at least the authority and then tenants affected should be given this opportunity. It would be grossly unfair if the opportunity were not given to them to state their case. I am sure he is going to accept this Amendment, because otherwise the position of the tenant and indeed of the authority itself would be untenable. They are entitled to be heard. Quite frankly I do not think there is any need to add any more. It would be just too absurd if they were not given this opportunity.
LORD SANDFORD: As I think I have made clear and my noble friend has made clear, the relationship is between the rent scrutiny board and the local authority in respect of the provisional assessment, and the report of the rent scrutiny board, and their reason for disagreeing with any of the provisional assessments, if they do in fact disagree, is a report from the rent scrutiny board to the local authority. As I said in our debate on the earlier clause, the local authority would make the report and the reasons, if there are reasons, for disagreement public, and there is then, as noble Lords will see from subsection (4), a two months period after which the authority can make further representations in writing to the board, during which period it is perfectly free for the tenants to make further representations to their local authority, but not direct to the board.
9.45 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has omitted to do what he said he would do when we got to this clause, that is, to explain his justification for saying—he has just repeated it—that local authorities would make these reports public.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. As I think my noble friend mentioned, there is subsection (7) as well. There is my assurance that they would in practice do so, but I am very happy to consider, and I will undertake to consider, if noble Lords want to press me on this point, whether or not there should be some further reference to making public the report or the reasons for a disagreement, if there is one. I am quite happy to consider whether that ought to go into the
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Bill or whether it would be right to trust the local authorities to do this. I am quite sure they will, but I shall be happy to consider that point.
LORD JANNER: Whilst appreciating what the noble Lord has said, I should like to ask how is that going to help eventually for the tenant to present his case. Does the noble Lord not realise that having given the reasons and everything else the tenants themselves will want to examine those reasons? Perhaps they will go to the local authority, but surely they themselves are entitled to be heard?
LORD SANDFORD: I do not want to go over that ground again. My noble friend and I have been over it several times. As I say, the relationship is between the rent scrutiny board and the local authority. The tenants' representations, when they want to make any and at the points where it is proper for them to make them, are made to the local authority and not to the rent scrutiny board. I will certainly be willing to consider this point about making the report and the reasons for disagreement public if noble Lords think on reflection that this is not something which can be entrusted to the local authority.
LORD BERNSTEIN: Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us how he expects the local authority to make this public? The town crier has gone out. We are not going to have local radio; we are going to have regional radio. How is the local authority going to make this public? Will it be by inserting it in a local newspaper? I am told these are now dying. They are going to have the right to go into sound broadcasting. How will local authorities make this public?
LORD SANDFORD: There are an enormous number of ways in which a local authority can make facts public to its council tenants. Many of them are already set out in an earlier clause—Clause 54.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I should like to ask one or two questions which I hope are relevant. I presume the rent scrutiny board will be totally independent of the councils. I do not think this has been emphasised quite enough. Secondly, on a point which exercises the

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minds of members of the Opposition, in the event of a council tenant objecting to an assessment and the council disagreeing, will the council be obliged to send on the objection to the scrutiny board or not?
LORD SANDFORD: No; it will not. Tenants have at least as much right to make representations as they have now to the local authority, plus a statutory right to have those representations considered. This is embodied in an earlier clause in this Part and has been referred to continually.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am sure the Committee is greatly indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. He has just put a point we have been trying to get across. As a result of the reply he has just received he must see that there is something radically wrong. As I see it, a situation is developing where the tenant of a council-owned property is going to regard himself as receiving second-class treatment as compared with the tenant of a privately-owned property. Let us be under no illusion, the local authority is under an obligation, if this Bill is carried, to introduce a profit making rent, not a fair rent. They are being told what they have to do. The tenant, when he makes representations to the local authority, in his eyes is making representations to his landlord. We on this side have repeatedly been urging that he should have an opportunity of making an appeal to the rent scrutiny board. In justice this ought to be done, and clearly if the Government deny this then they are establishing the fact that they regard the council house tenant as being a second-class citizen.
LORD JANNER: May I take one point further? I am sorry to intervene so often, but this whole position seems to me to be absurd. You have a local authority, and the local authority have a vested interest in the matter. The tenant has to pay the rent, not the local authority. The tenant is being squeezed out of any right to object to an assessment which has been made. He goes to his landlord, the local authority, to plead his case. A good local authority may be prepared to do it with a proper spirit; a bad local authority is the landlord that is going to
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get the rent, and it is not going to plead the tenant's case. The position is absurd. It is contrary to all the principles we adopt in regard to any matter that is being tried. It cannot be done.
If you have the rent tribunal, for example, you have the landlord and the tenant being represented. You may have a very fine local authority indeed who are prepared to lean over backwards in favour of their tenant, but it is shocking that the tenant himself cannot eventually come forward and say that he objects to this assessment. Furthermore, this is in respect of an assessment which may have been agreed between the landlord and the tenant before, and is now coming up before another body in which the only persons who can put forward the case are the landlords and not the tenant. Is not this a ridiculous position? Surely the tenant must be given a chance of pleading his case. I would go further and say that he should be entitled to appeal against a decision, but if he is not given that right at least give him the right to appear before the body that is assessing the amount that he has to pay.
I hope that the Government will reconsider the position and regard it from the point of view that I have put forward. I think it is a perfectly reasonable point that I am making. I have been engaged, as some of us have, in pleading cases of this sort where a tenant comes to a lawyer and asks the lawyer to plead on his behalf, and surely there must be a right for the tenant himself to have some say in respect of what the decision is that is ultimately made as to what he has to pay.
VISCOUNT AMORY: May I ask a question? I apologise, but I am very ignorant. Is it a fact that, as I think has been charged from the other side, under this Bill a tenant of a local authority will be in a different position in relation to the rent scrutiny board than a tenant of a private landlord? If so, I should have thought that does want spelling out and explaining to us, because at first sight it does not look quite right.
LORD DIAMOND: May I just support what the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, has said? We are very grateful to him. We have indeed spelt this out in as many words as I am capable of summoning.
VISCOUNT AMORY: Surely not as many words; perhaps almost as many words as the noble Lord is capable of summoning.
LORD DIAMOND: If the noble Viscount presses me very hard I will try and summon one or two more. I assure the noble Viscount that we have pressed this endlessly, and I hope that he will have more success in private conversations with his Front Bench than we have had in public, because we have got absolutely nowhere. The difference is total. All the normal processes of justice are open to a private tenant and denied to a public tenant, it is as simple as that.
But I want to press the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on an issue which is dear to his heart. He keeps on saying that the justification for this procedure is, in part, that the tenant has an opportunity of making representations to the local authority. The reason why I am moving this Amendment is that this is a different situation, and I do not know whether I made that sufficiently clear. We are now in a situation where the tenant, having made representations, or not having made representations, on the first round, and the provisional assessment having gone to the rent scrutiny board, the rent scrutiny board has made its determination, and now, on the second round, the local authority can make representations to the board about any of the rents to which the report relates. But the tenant is completely excluded from that second round. The tenant cannot appeal or make representations to the board. He cannot appeal to the local authority, because he knows nothing about the board's report. If he does become aware of it, he has no means of seeing that his further representations to the local authority are conveyed by the local authority to the rent scrutiny board, because the board makes its final determination and merely has to reply, "We will alter" or "We will not alter", as it thinks fit. Therefore, this is a different situation.
Before I sit down, I want to say to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, that we are very grateful to him for his undertaking to consider something which we believe to be of vital importance. We are particularly grateful, because we think it is much more important that
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something should go into the Bill and be seen by every local authority when they read the Statute, than that a statement should be made by a member of the Government, or even that the Government should undertake to issue a circular. I was imagining that the noble Lord would reply that the Government had it in mind to issue a circular, but that would be nothing like so satisfactory as including in the Statute a provision to make it public. That would be a very great help indeed. The noble Lord has undertaken to consider that and we are grateful to him. Unless he wants to say any more on the issue, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.58 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZE:
Page 58, line 33, at end insert ("and details of each individual assessment shall be sent to each tenant of the dwelling to which the assessment relates").
The noble Lord said: I move this Amendment very shortly, as I wish only to give the Government an opportunity of,saying whether their thinking has moved at all since we last discussed this issue. Your Lordships were very interested in, and deeply concerned about, the fact that
"details of each individual assessment shall be sent to each tenant of the dwelling to which the assessment relates"
and not merely left in some public place where the tenant might find them if he knew anything about them. So I should like to ask whether the Government have any more to say to us yet on this issue. I know that they undertook to consider it.
BARONESS YOUNG: As the noble Lord has said, this matter was considered when the Committee sat last Thursday. I can only confirm what my noble friend Lord Sandford undertook at that point, which was that the Government would consider whether details of the fair rent assessment should be sent to each tenant individually. In saying that, I hope that noble Lords opposite, who have consistently expressed the view that local authorities should have independence to run their housing affairs as they think best, will recognise that if these words are included in the Bill we shall be

709
putting into statutory form a detail of administration for a local housing authority. However, I should like to confirm the undertaking which my noble friend Lord Sandford gave.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I know that we went through this matter on Thursday night, but with your Lordships' permission I should like to repeat myself. I do not hold your Lordships up very often or for very long. Your Lordships have refused to accept the advice of the local authority associations in practically everything but suddenly this recommendation has been picked upon. It is all wrong that local authorities should not be obligated in writing statutorily to advise people when their rents are increased. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said at about 10 or 11 o'clock on Thursday night:
"I have confirmed that it is their intention, and we are concerned here simply with whether we secure this by putting it into the Bill and making it a statutory requirement. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/6/72; col. 484.]
The point that we have is quite clear. We feel that it should be a statutory requirement. If the Government are going to govern they should govern in this respect as in the many other respects they have shown in this Bill.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Bernstein, may I say that my noble friend Lady Young said that the Government were still looking at this matter.
LORD DIAMOND: We are very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for making it quite clear that the Government have not reached a conclusion on this matter but are still considering it.
In view of what she said, may I say that she reads our minds absolutely correctly? We attach enormous importance to this. We recognise that it puts a responsibility on a local authority. It is not a matter of dreary administration. It is a matter of the liberty of the subject and we attach great importance to it. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said.
I am sure that she will not mind my going on to say that we hope to move very quickly indeed with this Committee stage if she will come along with us. I
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dare say that we shall be required to move to the Report stage with regrettable speed and give an entirely inadequate period of consideration to that stage of the Bill. Therefore, the Government will need to consider this matter fairly quickly in order to get an Amendment down before the Report stage starts. That is the reason why I am reminding the noble Baroness of her kind undertaking to consider these matters. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 56 agreed to.
Clause 57 [Power to enter and inspect dwellings]:
On Question, Whether Clause 57 shall be agreed to?
10.3 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: When this clause was included in the Bill its purpose was twofold. First, it was to make it easier for the rent scrutiny board to discharge its duties by inspecting representative dwellings. Secondly, it was considered to he in the long-term interests of the tenant. An internal inspection of a dwelling might well ensure that there could be no doubt at all about the circumstances of the dwelling and in particular its state of repair. However, it was always recognised that this clause would be in the nature of a long-stop. It was always hoped that when the rent scrutiny board was carrying out its duties it would be able to find either an empty house or to inspect a house with the full agreement of the tenant.
The Government have considered this matter very carefully and have come to the conclusion that it would be better to take out this clause, because they would be able to meet the conditions required by the rent scrutiny board and ensure fairness to the tenant without it. Furthermore, they do not in any way wish to add to the numbers of people who have a statutory right to inspect a house. They hope, therefore, that agreement with a representative tenant or the finding of an empty house will enable the rent scrutiny board to do its work properly. In those circumstances, the Government wish to withdraw the clause.
LORD DIAMOND: We are very grateful to the Government for having yielded to the pressure put upon them in another place. The clause, as it now stands, is a redraft of an even more obnoxious clause which met with very heavy criticism indeed in another place. This clause was redrafted to meet that criticism. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that second thoughts are best, and I am delighted to see that we shall remove this clause entirely from the Bill. It only shows that in certain circumstances a Government will yield. The circumstances—and here I address myself to the noble Viscount, Lord Amory—are when they get wise advice from senior and authoritative Back-Benchers, and if the noble Viscount will be good enough to read some of the speeches which have been made on the gross injustice being offered to public tenants as compared with private tenants and will then perhaps invite some of his noble friends on the Front Bench to lunch, at Report stage we may even get some movement on that. At all events, that is how this clause comes to be altered—because there was pressure from both sides of the Committee in another place—and we are very glad to see the end of it.
Clause 57 disagreed to.
Clauses 58 to 62 agreed to.
Clause 63 [Increases towards fair rents]:
10.8 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZK:
Page 63, line 22, leave out ("shall") and Insert ("may").
The noble Lord said: We have now passed rapidly over the remainder of Part V—not, as your Lordships know, because we are happy about the contents of it but because we are so pressed for time that we cannot debate all those matters which deserve full consideration. Coming to Part VI of the Bill, Clause 63, we are now dealing with the progression to fair rents. Subsection (1) says:
"Every local authority, and every new town corporation shall, … make the increases … required by sections 64 and 65 below",
being increases towards fair rents. These are increases which, as your Lordships now know, will affect some five million
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tenants, and, without going into the whole of the argument for fair rents, all this Amendment seeks to do is to give housing authorities some discretion whether to move at this speed or not. We are in a very difficult situation—there is no need for me to underline that—and at a time of economic difficulty such as we are now experiencing a highly inflationary increase in rents is something that has to be handled with the greatest possible care.
So that what we are proposing here is that local authorities who have been asking for a slower pace—and it has been the main argument of all the local authority associations that although it is not for them to say whether the principle of a Government proposal is good or bad, it is for them to say that they can or cannot manage what the Government are proposing—who are saying that they cannot manage, should be allowed some discretion having regard to local difficulties. It would be a discretion that it would be wise to use, having regard to the general economic situation. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is rather a fundamental change which the noble Lord is proposing to the Bill. He said he thought it right to leave to the local authorities some discretion. In fact, what he is asking for is absolute discretion in the progression towards fair rents; and that, it seems to me, is a very different matter. It is not too much to say that this Amendment cuts right across the whole principle of this Part of the Bill, in that it leaves to the local authorities the decision whether to make the increases required by the Bill. The Bill is a closely-integrated document and Clause 2, which deals with residual subsidies, provides in effect for the phasing out of existing subsidies at the rate of not more than £20 per dwelling in the first two years of the new system and not more than £10 in the subsequent years. To offset the effect of this phasing out on the Housing Revenue Account and to provide a margin of additional rent income to meet any increased expenditure that might arise in the account, the progression to fair rents envisages increases of up to an average of £26 per dwelling each year. Clearly the annual increase is likely to diminish after the first year as more and more rents reach the fair rent level.

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The effect of this Amendment, if it were carried, would be to enable local authorities at their own discretion to reduce the revenue of the Housing Revenue Account through rents, and so to affect the amount of subsidy paid, since apart from the residual subsidy the subsidy is payable only if the account is in deficit. It would be unfair as between one local authority and another if the first local authority kept to the amount of increases required in the Bill and the second did not, and so increased its deficit and enabled it to get a subsidy it would not otherwise have got. The fact that additional rate fund contributions would also he required might not weigh so much with the second local authority as the prospect of a considerably greater subsidy. But it would mean that other ratepayers would continue to subsidise reasonably well-off tenants for longer than the Bill provides.
The noble Lord said that this would enable local authorities to ease the rate of increase in rents as they wish, or perhaps he might say as their constituents wish. Here, again, it would he unfair if the movement to fair rents in one local authority was at one rate and the movement in other local authorities was at another rate. The whole conception of the Bill is that because rents have, in the main, been too low for too long, the sooner we can get realism into the rents of local authorities the better. Also—here again one has to revert to what has been said before—it is right that those who inhabit council houses should pay the same amount for the same value as those who inhabit other houses; and that they should all come to pay the same fair rents in approximately the same time. This is quite a fundamental matter. I hope that I have summarised the point of view of the Government on this subject. We do not believe that it would he either fair or right in the present circumstances to leave it to local authorities to decide the rate of progression towards fair rents in their own areas. I am sorry, but for that reason I cannot accept this Amendment.
10.15 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is being totally unrealistic about the rate of progression towards fair rents. As he knows perfectly
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well, he refused to give us an answer the other night when we were talking about the Birmingham formula. As I explained at the time, if local authorities do not know where they stand at the moment—and they are not likely to know where they stand until the proceedings on this Bill are completed—they will be in a situation where they do not have a meeting of the housing committee until September, or of the full council until later in the month. It would be a physical impossibility to implement the rent increases demanded under this Bill on October 1 of this year. The noble Lord knows this as well as I do. He must realise that you cannot get instructions out to the housing departments, and through the department to the tenants, within a space of a couple of weeks. This is being totally unrealistic, and unless the noble Lord is willing to say what he will accept as regards the plans put to him by authorities such as Birmingham before they disperse for the Summer Recess he is being totally unreasonable to local authorities. I think that noble Lords on both sides of the Committee would agree with me on that.
I am not speaking just for the Opposition; I am speaking for all noble Lords who have had contact with members of local authority associations and who know the practical difficulties imposed on local authorites by this Bill. It is not as though they were faced only with the requirements laid down here in the next few months. They have also to cope with the Local Government Bill which has yet to come before your Lordships' House; with the reorganisation of the health services and with many other Bills introduced by the Tory Government which will affect local authorities. How on earth does the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, expect chief officers to do all this at once? Is he really saying that they can cope with major fundamental reorganisations of this character simultaneously without causing the most tremendous disruption in the services provided by local authorities for the citizens that they are trying to help?
As regards the contention of the noble Lord that this Amendment cuts right across the provisions of the Bill (the progress towards fair rents, he says, is absolutely fundamental), I would represent to him seriously that this is not the case,

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because if a local authority had imposed increases of 50p as at April 1, the tenants of that local authority would be much better off than the tenants of an authority which imposed an increase of £1 a week on October 1, because both of them face another increase of 50p per week on April 1, 1973. In the first place, they face an increase of 50p on top of 50p, and in the second place they face an increase of 50p on top of the £1. Therefore, if one looks at the total amounts in rent paid by each of them over a period of 18 months there it a difference of something like £13 in the relative payments of the two local authorities.
There is no question of principle here; it is just a question of what the Government want local authorities to do. They are able, if they want to bulldoze this provision through this Committee and through another place, to impose their will. There is no question of that at all. But it is our duty to question this and to try to point out, not only to your Lordships but to the people outside who may be reading the proceedings of this Committee, the implications of the Government's proposals. That is what I am trying to do at present. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said, and I am quoting him, that "council tenants have got to pay the same value as those who inhabit other houses". Is this fair? The noble Lord knows that it is not. He is well aware that local authority houses cost much less to build and to service than houses that are provided by private landlords because of the difference in the period of repayment, the interest rates and the fact that local authorities do not have to make any profit. Yet now that it suits him he says that the same rules have to apply to local authorities as apply to private landlords. Why does he say on one Amendment that the same rules should apply to local authorities as to private landlords and on the next Amendment say that the situation is completely different? I suggest that the Government are being completely inconsistent in this matter and that before we go any further they should decide on their attitude. Are the private landlords on an equal footing with local authorities or are they not? That is the question of principle the Government have yet to decide.
LORD DIAMOND: I was very interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, had to say on this Amendment. I was particularly interested in his argument about fairness as between different local authorities, and his argument that this was a closely integrated Bill in the relationship with the rent increases to the phasing out of subsidies at £20 a year: a progression in average rent increases of £26 to compensate for that phasing out. I was also interested in what he said about the difficulties that would arise if all local authorities were not treated in the same way, particularly in relation to one having a deficit which would attract a subsidy and another which would not. I am particularly grateful to him for everything he said, because I am going to quote it all back to him as soon as we get to Amendment No. 110ZP which raises the issue of Birmingham fully and on which I hope to address your Lordships' Committee at some length. The issue of Birmingham, I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can be fully and adequately debated on that Amendment, and therefore we need not anticipate it at this stage.
The noble Lord has said with regard to this Amendment that he thinks it is too fundamental. We have suggested the reasons—and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has added to them—why it would be right to give local authorities some discretion, especially as they are going to be in a position of just not being able to cope. In particular, as the noble Lord knows, all local authority staffs tend to go away on their holidays in August; it is an off-period for them. The Bill is not likely to become an Act much before then, and the local authorities therefore are under no compulsion to take any steps until then. Yet they have to get their rent committees functioning and the rent notices out so that rent increases have effect as from the beginning of October. It is an impossible timetable.
On this matter we all speak with one voice with the local authority associations: the odd man out here is the Government, wishing to bully the local authority associations for the same reason that they were prepared to deny natural justice to every one of the five million tenants in

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the country, so that the additional income from the rents can be collected as fast as possible. That is the sole issue that is concerning the Government, and we think it is most unfortunate. However, the noble Lord has made it clear
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that he is not going to budge on this Amendment, and at this stage all I can do is to seek your Lordships' permission to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.28 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZN.
Page 63, line 29, leave out from ("charged") to end of line 30.
The noble Lord said: By this Amendment, we propose to leave out the words:
"dwellings for which no fair rent has been determined".
I do not want to spend much time on this Amendment. I just want to say that, in view of the changes in the Bill during its progress in another place and the marked worsening of the economic situation since it was debated in another place, I am wondering whether the Government are not now going to agree to await the determination of fair rents before enforcing large increases. It may well be that the large increases are going to be excessive increases; one does not know. But whether they are excessive or not, surely it would be unnecessary for them in the new circumstances to continue to pursue this policy. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The proposal that the noble Lords is making would mean—and I think he said this—that until fair rents had been determined no increases under the Bill could be made. The noble Lord referred to events that had taken place recently. I should have thought that these events underlined the need for us to approach our problems with realism. This is what we seek to do in this Bill so Far as rents are concerned. The reason why the Government propose to make 1972–73 and not 1973–74 the first year of the new system is that they consider the existing system to be in great need of radical reform. At the same time, for nearly all authorities the fair rents will be higher than the current rents. Therefore in most cases it is unlikely that the first increase towards the fair rents which will take place before the fair rents are determined will result in rents above the fair rents.
Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that a lower increase will suffice, he can use his power under the subsection that we are coming to. This means that in any case where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the increase towards fair
720
rents in 1972–73 or 1973–74 is likely to bring 2 per cent. or more of the authority's qualifying dwellings substantially above the fair rents for those dwellings, he may use his powers under subsection (4) and direct that the increase towards fair rents should be such lower amount as is specified in the direction. So there is really no reason at all why the increases should not be made straight away in anticipation of the fixing of fair rents. In those cases where a higher rent than the fair rent is paid, under Clause 68 a repayment can be made. We believe this will not be likely to arise in many cases on the basis of the definition of "fair rents" in the Bill.
LORD DIAMOND: The position is totally unsatisfactory, but the Government clearly are not going to listen to our arguments on that point. I would only say that if the noble Lord thinks that the economic situation calls for an increased rent in order that every wage-earner shall be stimulated to demand an increase in wages, this is a new economic theory. But perhaps we can leave the economic theory until a later occasion, and I will seek leave from your Lordships to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.33 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZP:
Page 64, line 37, at end insert—
(" ( ) Where the Secretary of State has considered an increase under the preceding subsections he shall give reasons for either issuing or not issuing a direction to the authority and shall set out the criteria which have governed his decision.")
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment which I think requires us to consider the matter very carefully. The preceding subsection was the one varied during the earlier consideration of the Bill in another place, and gives the Secretary of State power, where he is satisfied that the increase would he such that it would be likely to bring the rents of 2 per cent. or more of the authority's qualifying dwellings substantially above the fair rents, to direct that the authority's increase shall be such lower amount as is specified in the direction. The purpose

721
of the Amendment, therefore, is to enable the Government to disclose the criteria by which they propose to act.
The starting point, I think, is the Minister's speech on the Report stage in another place; and perhaps I may quote from column 661 of Hansard for May 4. He said:
"I now have the figures for Birmingham." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—
and we all know what that means.
"Birmingham has"
I am continuing to read the Minister's statement—
"over 140,000 dwellings. It is the largest housing authority outside the G.L.C. The council has recently approved estimates of the fair rents for council dwellings after studying the various items of information involved. The council considers that the estimated average fair rent for all dwellings would be £3·60 per week compared with the average rent now being charged for all dwellings of £3·25 per week."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 4/5/72, cols. 661–662.]
That is an increase of 35p—not £1 but 35p, and an increase therefore of approximately 10 per cent. and not of the average 50 per cent.
The Minister then went on to quote details showing that for three categories of dwellings there would be increases of between 24p and 38p, and in four categories there would be identical fair rents as the rents at present existing. I am going to read out the figures to illustrate the point that, curiously and coincidentally, the fair rents were precisely, to the penny, the same as the existing rents. They were £4·78, £5·25, £3·83, and £4·63—not round figures, and precisely the same as the existing rents. Obviously the Minister was immediately asked whether he accepted the Birmingham criterion, and that question has not yet been answered either in that place or here. It is very important indeed to know whether the Government accept the Birmingham criteria because the Birmingham authorities included many criteria which the Government have rejected in debates and excluded the one which the Government said was all important. The Government said, "The main criterion is comparability with the private sector. You find a registered rent in the private sector which compares so far as the dwelling is concerned with the one you are considering in the public sector and you say,
722
'There you are. That's it.' And you remove scarcity value in each case." But Birmingham said, "We cannot do this. There simply are not enough for us to go on, and therefore we have excluded comparability." So that was the main consideration in the Government's Bill, and that has been excluded by Birmingham.
Birmingham, on the other hand, went on to say, for example—I need not go into all the details—"You must have regard to wage levels." The report of the Director of Housing to the Housing Committee of Birmingham, dated April 27, 1972, includes the following paragraph on this issue:
"Figures have been obtained of average earnings in the region. Your department do not consider that fair rents fixed in accordance with the definition in Clause 50 could be at a level where a large proportion of the tenants are forced to apply for a rebate. If the definition of fair rents in the clause implies that the market in terms of supply and demand is roughly in equilibrium, then the price or the rent which people would pay in these circumstances would not be at such a level that the majority would require assistance by way of a rebate to meet it."
That is the argument of the Birmingham Director of Housing. Therefore, he says, one must take account of average earnings. But, as the noble Lord knows, the Bill specifically excludes wage levels, as one of the personal considerations which must not be taken into account. So without going into all the criteria used by Birmingham, suffice it to say that they have excluded criteria which the Government insist on in the Bill and have included criteria which the Government exclude from the Bill. Therefore this is a totally different calculation.
What happened then was that the Minister said that according to the local Press—and I quote from the local Press:
"Although no directions could be given until the Bill becomes law we would be prepared to give an indication on receipt of an informal application setting out the case as to whether a direction is likely to be issued should clause 63(6) of the Bill be enacted substantially in its present form."
Clause 63(6) is now Clause 63(4) which we are considering at this moment. That was on 4th May, a date which those interested in local elections will not need me to underline. That is what the Minister said at that time, according to the local Press.
The leader of the Birmingham Council (it was at that time a Conservative Council and a Conservative leader) said he concluded from a letter he had received from the Minister—and I quote:
"that the overall rent increases will only be about 10 per cent."
That is the figure which I have detailed, of 35p in an average of something like £3.60. In other words, the Birmingham Council chairman is saying that he understands from the Minister that these proposals will be broadly acceptable. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said, at column 684:
"… that city"—
he is referring to Birmingham—
"has followed a realistic rents policy over a number of years. Therefore it is likely that the increases which will take place in Birmingham under the Bill will be moderate in character, as apparently has been forecast by the housing committee in Birmingham." [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 4th May, 1972; col. 684.]
He went on to say that the Birmingham figures "are not astonishing at all". So in this way there was broad implicit, if not explicit, acceptance of the Birmingham figures at that time.
The Bill has two main provisions. One is fair rents, based on the private sector registered fair rents and involving an increase in October of £1 a week in rents. Birmingham says that their fair rents are based on anything but the registered fair rent, and I have indicated what their figure is. The Minister himself, when he was referring to the Birmingham estimates on the Third Reading of the Bill, said that they must be treated with respect. So I have given indications from the Press, the Birmingham Chairman of the Council, the Under-Secretary of State and the Minister himself, all adding up to a clear indication of the way in which the Government's mind was moving, certainly in early May.
But the Bill proposes something totally different. The Bill says that fair rents have to be determined by rent scrutiny boards—as we know, we have been debating them all evening. They are to be based on registered fair rents in the private sector, and the increase this year of £26, which is based on £1 a week as from 1st October, is, as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, told us a short time
724
ago, part of a closely integrated scheme. The arithmetic of the rest of the Bill all ties up with that increase of £26 this year. The phasing out of the subsidy at £20 a year is based on that £26. So we have a situation in which Birmingham proposes fair rents based on anything but the private sector, because it says there are too few registered there, the proposals have not been anywhere near a rent scrutiny board; the increase proposed is 35p in October, not £1, and the related residual subsidy remains unaltered. I am bound to say, therefore, that the major principles of the Bill and a good deal of its arithmetic have been blown sky high by the Government's response to the Birmingham figures. I think we are entitled to say to the Government, therefore, that we must now know what the Government's new criteria are. The Bill's provisions have been blown sky high; what is to take their place? That is the purpose of the Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord has moved this Amendment and we seem to have got some distance away from the Amendment itself. I do not complain about that, because he made it clear that what he was seeking here was that, as the Amendment says:
"Where the Secretary of State has considered an increase under the preceding subsections he shall give reasons for either issuing or not issuing a direction to the authority …".
In other words, what the noble Lord wanted was that once the Bill had become law the Secretary of State would exercise his discretion under subsection (4) of Clause 63 and would explain the way in which he had exercised his discretion—the criteria, in other words, on each occasion.
May I first of all deal with the Amendment itself before I come on to the reasons why the noble Lord wanted the Amendment? So far as the Amendment itself is concerned there is no need to place an express duty on the Secretary of State to give reasons for his decision on an application by an authority for a direction under subsection (4). This he would naturally do, where appropriate, as a matter of ordinary courtesy and normal practice in exercising such a discretion in relation to a local authority. For

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that reason it has not been thought necessary to place such an express duty on Ministers in this kind of situation in similar legislation in the past. For example, Section 10 of the Prices and Incomes Act 1968, and Section 3 of the Rent (Control of Increases) Act 1969, did not place a duty on the Minister to give reasons for his decisions on a local authority's proposals to increase rents. Yet in every case the Minister gave reasons why he did not approve the authority's proposals. Where he did approve them, the authority was content to assume that the reason for the decision was that the Minister accepted the reasons put forward by the local authority in support of their proposals. It is the intention to employ this procedure in relation to the power under subsection (4), and there is every reason to suppose that this will be as satisfactory to local authorities as the procedure adopted under the 1968 and 1969 Acts.
The noble Lord then went on to deal with the criteria, and he said that his view was that the criteria in the Bill had been blown sky high; that was his expression. Well, the Government's position in this respect is that the rents of council dwellings should be fair rents determined in accordance with the principles in Clauses 50 and 58, which are in line with those which apply to determinations in the private sector. Clause 50 provides that in determining a fair rent regard must be had to all the circumstances and, as the noble Lord pointed out, it says,
"… to all the circumstances (other than personal circumstances)"
—and it goes on,
"and in particular to the age, character and locality of the dwelling and to its state of repair."
In Part V of the Bill determination of fair rent is the responsibility of the rent scrutiny boards, who must either confirm or alter the local authority's own provisional assessment. Some authorities, of which Birmingham is one, have estimated that their existing rents are nearer to fair rents than had previously been suggested. If it appeared to the Secretary of State that an authority's rents are near fair rents, he would be able to issue a direction by virtue of the provisions of the
726
subsection immediately before the point where the noble Lord wishes to insert his Amendment, and in that case the authority would be allowed to make smaller increases towards the fair rent in 1972–73 or 1973–74 than would otherwise be required under the Bill, if the fair rent has not yet been determined. Birmingham have asked the Department informally for an indication of whether such a direction might be made and their request is being considered. But it would not be appropriate to comment on this request while it is under study, since in due course the Secretary of State must deal formally with an application for a direction.
I appreciate—the noble Lord in fact quoted this—that the Under-Secretary in another place said that an indication would be given of the attitude of the Government. But an indication could only be given on the basis of a close study by the Secretary of State of the data and the methods and so forth that Birmingham put forward to support their estimates, and this has not yet been completed; but when all this has been examined an informal indication about a direction under Clause 63(4) can be given, but we have not yet reached that stage.
That is the position at the moment, but I would point out that until a fair rent is made any local authority which wants to have an increase of less than that laid down in the Bill has got to make its case and satisfy the Secretary of State with the evidence put before him. So far as this Amendment is concerned, if the Secretary of State agreed with the assessment, then in that case it would be in keeping with what has been done in the past for him simply to give his agreement to indicate his approval; it seems commonsense. But if he disagreed, then he would, as he has always done in the past, give his reasons for disagreement.
LORD DIAMOND: First of all I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for what he said about the Amendment. He said that there was no need for it because it merely asked the Government to do something the Government or the Secretary of State would do as a normal matter of courtesy. Then there is really no reason for refusing the Amendment, because we are only asking

727
for the Secretary of State to do something which in any case he would normally do. Therefore I must press the Government again to consider whether it would not be wiser, in all the circumstances surrounding Birmingham and so on, that this Amendment should be accepted and this statutory requirement to disclose the criteria included in the Bill.
The circumstances surrounding Birmingham are really very odd, and the noble Lord has done nothing whatever to clear them up. He has been good enough to confirm virtually everything I have said —namely, that the Government through their spokesmen promised an indication of their views if an informal application were received. An informal application was received, and the Government have not given their views formally but have given them informally. That is the only interpretation one can put on what the chairman of the council, the Under Secretary of State and the Minister said. They have broadly accepted that here is a case for consideration of a much smaller increase than the £1—an increase of only 10 per cent. The noble Lord has not disputed what I have said—namely, that the criteria chosen by Birmingham exclude those chosen by the Government and include those excluded by the Government.
The criteria are totally at variance with what the Government propose in this Bill. I will read in full the letter of the director of housing if the Minister Without Portfolio wants me to do that. It is many pages long, and I have no doubt he has a copy of it. It has been quoted on many occasions. I have merely referred to those parts which I consider are most relevant. The other criteria are chosen by the director of housing, on the basis of which the figures were submitted to the Government and on the basis of which application the Government implicitly accepted the figures. Those criteria are completely at variance with the criteria laid down in the Bill, and so we have reached this situation where the Government are saying one thing in the Bill and have indicated, by what they are doing in relation to Birmingham, that they are going to act in a different way. We do not want to rely on implications. We want an
728
explicit statement by the Government as to where they stand on this matter.
It cannot be very difficult for the Government to say, "These considerations, these criteria, are not the criteria in the Bill; therefore we reject them". It cannot take from May 2 until June 26—I suppose it is still June 26—to reach that conclusion. Of course it is an extremely awkward situation for the Government, and we recognise that. The Government may have said something which on second thoughts they wished they had not said and which was quite pointlessly said, because instead of the Tory council being saved it has gone the way of many other Tory councils, and the action did not therefore have the desired effect. But we are not concerned with political activities of that kind at election time. We are concerned with getting the Bill straight, and at the moment it is anything but straight. Therefore we are pressing the Government to say—as they have had plenty of time to say—whether the criteria chosen by Birmingham, which are completely at variance with the criteria in the Bill, are to be accepted, or whether the Government are going on with their Bill.
As the noble Lord said, it is very awkward for the Government to go on with their Bill unless they continue with the criteria in the Bill, because the arithmetic is integrated. The increases of a pound a week must come in, in order to provide for the subsidy provisions which are laid down earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, repeated that on an earlier Amendment only an hour ago. So we are all quite clear that the arithmetic is integrated and therefore, if the principles are varied, the arithmetic becomes wrong. So we must know whether the Government propose to proceed with this Bill or to withdraw it. It is as simple as that. The Bill cannot work except on the principles which are included in it as an integrated whole. If those principles are to be withdrawn, then the arithmetic must be withdrawn as well.
This is not the first time that we have raised this issue; it is not the first time that it has been raised by Parliament as a whole; and every time the answer has been that the matter is under consideration. I do not know how we shall persuade the Government that it would be right for them to make up their minds

729
which way they are proposing to act while legislation is still under consideration. We cannot consider the legislation seriously if the Government drive their own coach and horses through two of its major provisions. I think my facts are all correct. The noble Lord has not contradicted one of them. We really must know where the Government stand.
When we debated the Industrial Relations Bill, the guts of the matter was how the Government were going to act, and that was represented by the Code of Conduct. In that case, we suggested quite firmly that it would not be right to continue with our consideration of the Bill until the Code of Conduct had been made available, because that was an integral part of the Bill. That showed what the Government proposed to do. Here we are asking the Government what they propose to do in relation to the Birmingham criteria, which are opposed to the Bill's criteria. Therefore, it is essential that further consideration of the Bill—at Report stage, for example should not anticipate the Government's decision on the Birmingham criteria. That is what this Amendment is about, and I hope that the noble Lord can say that the Government will make a statement about what their criteria are before we get to the Report stage.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Let me say straight away that the Government are going on with the Bill. Secondly, I wondered what the noble Lord was doing while I was speaking, because what he has said about what I said seems to bear no relation whatsoever to what I said. I must repudiate right away the statement that the Government have broadly accepted the case made by Birmingham. I have told the noble Lord that the Government are reconsidering the case. When Birmingham wrote informally to the Department to ask for an indication of whether a direction would be given under Clause 63(4) when the Bill became law they merely gave an estimate of what they considered to be the likely fair rents. They gave no reason or explanation of their view to the Department. Since then correspondence has been going on, so as to enable the Department to elucidate the Birmingham reasons and explanations.
The noble Lord seems to think that there is a choice between the criteria that
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Birmingham has adopted or may have adopted—the Government have not yet arrived at a view of what the Birmingham criteria were—and the criteria in the Bill which are set out clearly in Clauses 50 and 58. Those criteria stand as far as the Government are concerned and it is those criteria that the Government will obviously be bound to apply to Birmingham's assessment of what fair rent will be in Birmingham. Neither Birmingham nor anybody else can expect that, having put these in the Bill, the Government would be prepared to give an indication on the basis of any other criteria. Obviously they must apply the criteria in their own Bill. I hope I have made that clear. I thought that I had made it clear before. I must say to the noble Lord that when the Government have had an opportunity of analysing fully the request that has come from Birmingham for an indication then an indication will be given. But it is bound to be an indication on the basis of the terms of the Bill.
LORD DIAMOND: The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has made some extraordinary statements. Those who find it trying to their patience do well to withdraw from the Chamber. The Government are no doubt finding themselves in a very difficult position, but the Government should not have acted as they did act if they wanted to pursue the Bill with integrity. May I refresh the noble Lord's memory? He said that the Department is not aware of the basis on which Birmingham has reached these calculations. This is a letter dated 27th April. I do not know whether the noble Lord is saying that Birmingham has refused to hand this letter to the Department or whether he has got the letter. It is the report of the director of housing to the Housing Committee. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to let us know if he has got this letter. If he has not, I shall be only too glad to hand it to him. Everybody else has a copy of it. It is an extraordinary thing that the Government have not got it. The public as a whole have got it. It has been published. I will read it in relation to the noble Lord's statement that the criteria were not different. Paragraph (e) reads:
"Your Department has examined figures of fair rent in the private sector…"
LORD SHEPHERD: May we have a bit of order? In view of the conversations that are going on it seems that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, could not hear what my noble friend Lord Diamond was saying. I wonder if he would care to repeat it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Did I hear the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, say that I had said that the criteria applied by Birmingham and the criteria—
LORD SHEPHERD: I am sorry, but I cannot hear what the noble Lord is saying because there is so much noise from the Benches below. I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, could help us in this matter. It is quite impossible to hear what is going on in view of the hubbub. I wonder if the acting Leader of the House could do something about it.
LORD DIAMOND: Perhaps I can refresh the memory of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. The first question I am asking him is: has he or has he not got a copy of the report of the director of housing to the housing committee of Birmingham dated 27th April, 1972? That is not a very difficult question, or an unfair question to ask. If he has not got a copy, I shall be glad to supply him with one tonight. The second thing I want to draw his attention to is paragraph (e) in that report:
"Your Department has examined figures of fair rents in the private sector. Unfortunately, relatively few rents have been registered under the Act, and many of these cannot be used for direct comparisons with municipal houses. The national and regional figures for fair rents given in the Francis Report have also been studied."
That, I think, makes it quite clear that the Birmingham criteria so far as fair rents are concerned are not the criteria in the Bill.
The second one—I will go through the whole of them if the noble Lord wants me to—is the one I particularly read earlier on, making it clear that wages had been taken into account as an element in arriving at fair rents; and, as the noble Lord has recently read out, those are excluded from the criteria laid down in the Bill. So here we have totally opposing criteria. In these circumstances it should not be very difficult for the Government to let us know what the answer to Birmingham is. Is it the same as the answer which people took it to be at the
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time of the municipal election, or is it now a new answer? It would be helpful if the Government could give us a considered view on what is, after all, a very simple matter. We are not asking for a final consideration, because that is not what was promised. What was promised to Birmingham was an indication on the basis of an informal application. That is what was promised on the part of the Government. If the Government are going to say that they stick to the criteria and the arithmetic in the Bill and that they reject everything to do with the Birmingham figures and the Birmingham criteria, then one can understand that; that makes a logical approach to the Bill. But, of course, Birmingham may have something to say about that. If the noble Lord is able to make a further statement, I would be grateful to him.
LORD DRUMALBYN: For the reasons I have already given, I cannot make a further statement on this subject. As I have explained, the Government are not yet in a position to give the indication that has been asked for. I hope that I have made myself quite clear.
LORD DIAMOND: I understand exactly what the noble Lord is saying, and he understands what we are saying with regard to the progress of the Bill; namely, that it would be unfair to ask Parliament to continue with the Report stage of a Bill which sets out one set of criteria when we cannot get from the Government an authoritative statement on whether another set of criteria is to take its place. In those circumstances, I seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 110ZR:
Page 65, line 14, leave out ("section 71(5)") and insert ("subsection (2) or subsection (5) of section 71").
The noble Lord said: This small Amendment is to make it expressly clear that the amount that an authority can round off to a multiple of 5p under subsection (7) is the total rent payable; that is, including any sum attributable to rates or the use of furniture or the provision of services. As a result of this Amendment, the amount of rent of any dwelling which results from an increase towards fair rents can be adjusted to produce a multiple

733
of Sp whether or not the rent includes an element for rates or furniture or services. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 63, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 64 [Increase towards fair rents before 1973–74]:
11.15 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZS:
Page 65, line 16, leave out ("£26") and insert ("£13").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps it would be convenient to consider with this Amendment, Amendment No. 110ZT; ZU; ZV and ZW. This series of Amendments is proposed to achieve more moderate increases towards fair rents than those in the Bill. The reason is the well-known one of the new economic situation since the Bill was debated in another place. Amendment 110ZV proposes to leave out "£1" and to insert "35p" which is the figure proposed by Birmingham.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This Amendment is not acceptable to the Government and I think I have already indicated the reasons why. In effect, it would halve the rate of increase towards fair rents, which would mean doubling the time before fair rents are achieved. We do not believe that this would be justified. When the Opposition were in Government they allowed local authorities to increase rents by an average of 37½p a week in any 52 week period with reference to the Minister, under the Rent (Control of Increases) Act 1969. So it would appear that the Opposition has rounded this figure down to 35p in order to assure the maximum rent increase beyond which they think local authorities should not go. When the 1969 Act was in operation, many authorities did not have a rebate scheme at all. In the light of present-day rental values and incomes, the rate of progression under the Bill is not out of line with the limit set by the Opposition in 1969, and rebates will be available now for those tenants who cannot afford the rent increases required under the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, referred to the change in economic circumstances. When one compares those
734
circumstances with 1969, I think it would not be unfair to say that a rent of 50p nowadays would be justified where a rent of 37½p was justified in that time of stringency. I am sorry that I cannot accept the Amendment, but again it would dislocate the whole of the Bill and we do not consider that it would be right to do that.
LORD DIAMOND: I see no chance of persuading the noble Lord, and so I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 110ZX:
Page 65, line 35, at beginning insert ("where the effect of the decreases hereafter referred to is to cause the Housing Revenue Account to pass into deficit, then").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will convey to those of his colleagues who found it a little too difficult to stay to listen to our debates the number of Amendments which have been withdrawn in order to meet the Government's programme. Perhaps in those circumstances we may be allowed to speak on one or two Amendments, although perhaps that also is against the wishes of the Government Front Bench. However, I will continue to deal with these Amendments as fast as I can. This Amendment proposes to insert:
"Where the effect of the decreases hereafter referred to is to cause the Housing Revenue Account to pass into deficit, then ".
the proposals in the Bill should apply. The reason for the Amendment is that it is felt that there is no justification for penalising a housing authority which has reduced rents in the relevant period so as to reduce the surplus on the housing revenue account. If it had reduced rents for any unsatisfactory or malevolent purpose, the Government might feel that they would have to exact the proposals in the Bill. But where a housing authority has merely sought to reduce the surplus on its housing revenue account, as surely it is entitled to do, I should have thought there is no justification for penalising the housing authority which, in effect, these proposals involve.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I shall be very glad to convey to my colleagues the fact that the noble Lord has been good

735
enough not to move some of the Amendments he put down, with a view to making further progress. I thought I detected a slight irony in the way he put it, but nevertheless we are grateful for his co-operation.
The effect of this Amendment would be to restrict the operation of subsection (5) to cases where the decreases referred to in the subsection cause the housing revenue account to pass into deficit. The noble Lord has said that if the decreases do not lead to a deficit we should have no reason to object to the Amendment. But even if the decreases in rent do not lead to a deficit for 1971–72 or 1972 or 1973, the loss of income resulting from them could well cause a deficit for subsequent years which would not otherwise have arisen; or cause a larger deficit than would otherwise have arisen, and so necessitate a larger amount of subsidy or rate fund contribution for such subsequent years. Increased expenditure for subsequent years, or the cost of rebates or other factors, might well make the position of the housing revenue account for those years less favourable than seemed likely when the rent decreases were made between July 19, 1971, and the coming into force of the Bill.
If the financial situation of an authority is such that the decreases in rent have no effect other than to reduce the amount of the housing revenue account surplus for subsequent years, the decreases have the broad effect of depriving the ratepayers of half that part of the surplus which fails to materialise as a result of the decreases and of depriving the taxpayers of the other half. It is hardly equitable that, in order to enable tenants to pay a rent which is even further below the fair rent than otherwise it would be for 1971–72 or 1972–73, the taxpayers and ratepayers should lose the relief which could be given to them by a surplus towards which the taxpayers will certainly have contributed by past subsidies and towards which the ratepayers may well have contributed by past rate fund contributions. So although at first sight this Amendment might have seemed reasonable, I hope that, in the light of what I have said, the noble Lord will appreciate why we cannot accept it.
LORD DIAMOND: I understand what the Minister is saying. He is saying that he cannot accept the Amendment. But I want to make it clear that we do not share his view for one moment that a subsidy previously given is a loan which has to be repaid. I want to get that absolutely clear, because if that is part of the Government's thinking then at no time does a subsidy mean a subsidy. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has just said that where a subsidy has been given in the past by the taxpayer it is right that the taxpayer should now recoup himself. I have always understood that a subsidy means what it says. It is a gift for the time; a plain gift. It is not a loan. We could never attempt to move on the basis that where a local authority has been given a Mayday gift for good reasons existing at the time then that gift should be repaid at a later date. Therefore I find myself in considerable disagreement with the reasoning behind the noble Lord's unwillingness to accept the Amendment, but in view of the lateness of the hour I would seek your Lordship's permission to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.23 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY LORD AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 66, line 26, after second ("rent") insert ("after the 4th May 1972 and")
The noble Lord said: I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will realise that May 4, 1972, was the date on which an Amendment as made in another place on Report stage to nullify retrospectively rent-free weeks which had been decided by councils fully in accordance with the provisions of the Bill as it stood at that time. I must criticise most strongly the action of the Government in deciding to veto perfectly legitimate decisions of local authorities which were arrived at in full accordance with the provisions of the Bill as it stood at that time. One of the most important decisions that we have to make of this Bill is that it has been retrospective in its effect in negating decisions which had been made by local authorities in full justification of the powers which they possessed at the time prior to the date of this Amendment having been made on Report stage in another place. I cannot see how the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, could justify such action on the

737
part of the Government. The local authorities which took the decision to grant rent-free weeks did so in accordance with powers which they were able to exercise at that time and on which they had taken legal opinion. For example the Tonbridge Urban District Council, of which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is, I am sure, aware, had gone to counsel and had been advised at the time that rent-free weeks could be allowed within the provisions of the Bill as it stood. I do not want to go into the details at this late hour but I am sure that the noble Lord is quite familiar with what has happened.
As soon as local authorities decided to grant rent-free weeks, as they were perfectly entitled to do at the time, the Government, in another place, introduced an Amendment on Report stage on the date which I have mentioned in my Amendment invalidating that decision. How can we justify that when the noble Lords opposite are continually saying that they want to give greater freedom to local authorities? They vetoed what had been done by these local authorities fully in accordance with the powers that they possessed under Acts of Parliament as they then stood. Then the Government come forward with this Amendment on Report stage and retrospectively prevent them from doing it. Tories in the past have criticised the Labour Government when they have introduced what has been called restrospective legislation. I am sure I do not need to remind your Lordships of the case of Burmah Oil, on which there was some considerable controversy in your Lordships' House before I came here, when I was a Member of another place. I fully sympathise with the attitude taken by your Lordships on that occasion. But I suggest that your Lordships ought to be consistent, and that when the Tory Government introduce retrospective legislation of this kind you ought equally to be opposed to it, and to declare your abhorrence of legislation brought forward in this way during the course of proceedings on a Bill to invalidate the perfectly legitimate decisions which have been made by local authorities in respect of a matter such as rent-free weeks.
We know how this has occurred. The Tory Party became aware that councils, such as the Tonbridge Urban District
738
Council, had decided to overcome the provisions of Clause 63 by granting rent free weeks to their tenants. As soon as this became known to the Government, they decided that they were going to bring forward an Amendment on the Report stage that would prevent those local authorities from going ahead with their decisions.
I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, asking him for his opinion on the matter of rent free weeks, and saying that I hoped he would give me the benefit of his judgment before we reached Clause 64. In order that we can get this matter on the Record, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I read out the letter which I received from hint in reply, because I think it deserves wider currency than it has obtained so far and should be known to the local authorities who are going to be vitally affected by the provisions of this clause. The noble Lord wrote:
"During the Second Reading debate on the Housing Finance Bill I undertook to write to you about the granting of rent-free weeks during the period commencing with 19th July, 1971, and ending with the date of the coming into force of the Bill.
"Clause 64(5) provides that where any rent decreases take place then, notwithstanding that that they may be wholly or partly restored, the increases towards fair rents in 1972–73 as provided for in the remainder of Clause 64 shall be further increased by an amount which produces a total weekly rental equal to the total weekly rental lost by the decrease.
"Subsection (8) of the clause makes it expressly clear that a decrease in rent could arise from the granting of extra 'rent free' weeks or some similar arrangement under which no rent is payable by a tenant for one or more weeks. However, the subsection would not apply to an arrangement whereby, for administrative convenience, no rent is collected during certain weeks but a correspondingly larger amount is collected during the other weeks of the financial year. The subsection also makes it clear that any rent free weeks' granted by authorities under the guise of rebates from rent or waivers of rent and which are unrelated to the personal or domestic circumstances of the tenants should be treated as being decreases of rent for the purposes of subsection (5).
"Some authorities have granted such rent-free weeks, not for reasons of administrative convenience, but in order to reduce the income in the Housing Revenue Account. This is presumably on the grounds that part of a surplus or an emerging surplus should not be allowed to accrue to the Exchequer and the ratepayers under paragraphs 17 and 18 of Schedule I to the Bill but should be used to give the tenants a decrease in rent. Such a decrease

739
in rents would normally have been made only in anticipation of the Bill and could well result in more subsidy being payable to the authority under the provisions of the Bill. Such a decrease in rents ought therefore to be made good unless there are special reasons, in which case the Secretary of State would issue a direction under subsection (7). The subsection does not inhibit the granting of genuine rebates from rent to tenants on grounds of need under Section 113 of the Housing Act 1957."
I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for having read out the whole of that letter which I have received from the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, but since it contains important guidance to the local authorities on where they stand under this particular clause, I believe it is for the benefit of local authorities and of the tenants who are going to be affected by these provisions that everyone should know the precise attitude of the Government on this matter. That has not been made entirely clear so far.
Going back to the particular case of the Tonbridge U.D.C., of which I have no special knowledge—I happened to come across it purely by chance and to have received the views of the Urban District Councils' Association, of which the noble Lord will be aware, endorsing what the Tonbridge U.D.C. have said—I believe that the Amendment is widely acceptable to the authorities concerned. I also suggest to the noble Lord that it is entirely wrong for a Government at a late stage of the Bill suddenly to introduce Amendments on Report stage which invalidate the perfectly normal and reasonable behaviour of local authorities, entered into in the light of the provisions of the Bill when it was first presented in another place.
If one is going to say that every time a Bill is presented to Parliament and local authorities, or any other bodies affected, take action to deal with the situation in the light of the circumstances for the benefit of the people they serve, the Government should come forward in the later stages of the Bill—on Report in another place or even in this place here—and try retrospectively to invalidate what those local authorities or other bodies have done, then it would be an unfortunate and an evil day for democracy. For whatever Government are in power to decide that they will twist and turn in order to prevent publicly-elected bodies from serving the interests of the people, as in this case—how can this be
740
justified? How can any Government justify it? The noble Lord is looking very uncomfortable, and I am pleased to see it. He knows that it is wrong; he knows that the clause should be withdrawn; he knows that local authorities have the right to do their best for the people they represent. They have done that, and have been squashed by the Government. The Government must withdraw this clause: otherwise eternal shame will rest upon them.
11.40 p.m.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I have nothing to add to the remarkable statement of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, except to say this. I think that your Lordships should know something about these wild men of Tonbridge who have given relief to some of the tenants. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said he had no knowledge of them, but I have. They are members of what is known as the Conservative local council.
LORD DRUMALBYN: What the noble Lord seems to be saying is that the Government are entirely impartial in dealing with local authorities, and I am glad to hear him say so. I think it is right to say that there is really nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever in this provision. Indeed, may I point out first of all to the noble Lord that subsection (5) states:
"If in the period beginning with 19th July 1971 and ending immediately before the coming into force of this Act decreases, whether simultaneous or not, were made in the rents of more than one per cent. of the authority's Housing Revenue Account dwellings as at the coming into force of this Act, the increase towards fair rents in the year 1972–73 … shall be increased by an amount which produces a total weekly rental equal to the total weekly rental lost by the decreases."
The reason for this was quite clear. The reason was that it was intended to avoid any local authorities' seeking to get round the Bill by decreases of rent; this was going to prevent their getting the advantage of so doing. The date of 19th July, 1971, was the date when the White Paper received the approval of the House of Commons after a debate. The policy was approved.
LORD BERNSTEIN: White Paper?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, Fair Deal for Housing. Everyone knew what the policy was.

741
We come now to the subsection that the noble Lord complains was amended on 4th May in another place. The first part of the subsection reads as follows:
"Subject to section 71(5) below, the decreases to which subsections (5) and (6) above apply include any case where there is a reduction of rents (affecting more than one per. cent. of the dwellings in question) for any period, however short …"—
I repeat, however short. That was the subsection as it stood before the Amendment was introduced. Does anyone, when he reads or hears that, think that that was not intended to cover rent rebates?
LORD AVEBURY: Yes.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord says there was counsel's opinion to say that waivers of rent, reductions of rent, free weeks and the like, were not covered by that. The White Paper dealt with yearly reductions in the residual subsidy, and so forth, and the yearly increase in the rent to be made. It was on a yearly basis, so obviously the rent contemplated in the White Paper was on a yearly basis. It was abundantly clear. Is there anything to be ashamed of when the Government intended this to be so and believed that it was so? Mark you, it is not something that has been tested in the courts. It was just something that was the opinion of counsel, and obviously it was at variance with what the draftsman thought his words meant. Is there anything wrong in the Government making what it intended absolutely clear? It had always been the Government's view that such decreases ought to count, and in fact did so count, as rent. The purpose of the Government Amendment at Commons Report stage was merely to place the matter beyond all doubt. It would be unreasonable now to amend the Bill to accommodate those authorities which sought to employ a device designed to decrease rents at the expense of the taxpayer.
LORD AVEBURY: The noble Lord is being completely disingenuous, as he knows. I was not going to quote him but I shall produce the letter from the Clerk of the Tonbridge Urban District Council, which relates to the conversation which he had with an official in the Department of the Environment, of which I am sure the noble Lord is fully
742
aware. The Clerk of the Council says that the Department of the Environment informed the Treasurer's Department that their lawyers had advised them that because of the combined effect of Clause 64(5) and Clause 71(4) rent-free weeks would be caught by the provisions of the Bill, so as to make it necessary for local authorities to increase rent in the next financial year by the gross loss of weekly income. He goes on:
"On receiving this information I spoke to the Department personally and explained fully the Council's intention, and put the direct question as to whether they would suggest that a proposal to grant rebates under the provisions of section 113(3) of the Housing Act 1957 came within the ambit of their lawyer's advice. The official stated that he was not suggesting that their lawyers' advice related to rebates. I explained the Council's intentions fully to him and nothing emerged during the conversation to throw any doubt upon the decisions already taken by the Council. This was the last official contact we had with them up to shortly after the 4th May 1972."
The noble Lord has been wrongly advised by the Department about the conversations that took place between the Tonbridge Urban District Council and his Department and he should go back to them and ask for further information before he comes to this House and gives an explanation of the sort that he has afforded to your Lordships this evening. It is totally incorrect, as the Committee will see from the passage that I have read out from the letter from the Clerk of the Urban District Council, unless the noble Lord is going to say that this falsifies a conversation which he had with an official in the Department. I am sure he will not say that; he would not impugn the integrity of the Clerk of the Tonbridge Urban District Council. The noble Lord knows that he is wrong and he ought to withdraw what he has already said to the Committee, go back to his Department, and promise to produce an Amendment on Report stage.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I must rise for a moment to say a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn. I have the original Bill in front of me and Clause 64 has hardly altered at all and its meaning certainly has not been altered in the Amendments that were made in another place before it came to your Lordships' House. I am very sorry that the noble Lord

743
opposite should take this view. I think his attitude is grossly unfair, and I must say so.
LORD KILLEARN: May I say that official communications have nothing to do with the Legislature?
LORD AVEBURY: With what?
LORD KILLEARN: Official communications between officers of the Council and officers of the Ministry have nothing to do with this House.
LORD AVEBURY: Why not?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am surprised at the noble Lord. Why he should say that I know I am wrong I really do not know. It is most unusual, and I may say almost unprecedented.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD DRUMALBYN: Why should I know what transpired between an official of an urban district council and an official of the Department on a particular matter which is not actually raised in this Amendment? I have dealt with this and I stand by what I have said. The intention of the Government was as I have said. The noble Lord, from the letter he himself read out, made it quite clear that there would be occasions when rent rebates might be permissible, but that is not to say that in the conversation that he has ventured to quote all the factors were present in everybody's mind at that time. The noble Lord really ought not to make allegations of that kind in this House. I have stated what I know to be the case, and that is, that it was the Government's intention throughout that any form of reduction in rent should be covered by subsection (5).
The Secretary of State is given the power to waive the effect of subsections (5) and (6) and no doubt where he considered it appropriate he would do so and where the rent-free weeks take place and are done in accordance with practice—and some authorities have done it for years past—no doubt a waiver might be made in appropriate circumstances. That, it seems to me from what the noble Lord read out, was what was intended.
The noble Lord must realise that the part that I quoted from the subsection, as it now is, was intended to cover the sort of case that the noble Lord has
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quoted here. The whole purpose of subsection (5) is to prevent the frustration of the purposes of the Bill by rent reductions. That is the purpose of these particular provisions and if in this case—and I am not passing any judgment on any of these things—that was the purpose it most certainly must be honoured.
LORD AVEBURY: I must defend myself on this. Noble Lords opposite have criticised me for reporting what the Clerk of the Urban District Council, Tonbridge, told me he said to the Department. I am only telling your Lordships what I received from him. He said that he had had a conversation with an official from the Department and I have already told your Lordships what the result of that conversation was. I do not know whether noble Lords who have intervened in the debate are calling me a liar or whether they are calling the Clerk of the Urban District Council of Tonbridge a liar. I have quoted from the letter and I must accept from the Clerk of the Urban District Council, Tonbridge, that he accurately reports what was said in the conversation that he had with the Department of the Environment.
It may be that there was a misunderstanding, in which case the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, could tell us so, and that when he asked the advice of the Department they were not fully aware of the import of his question and as a result of that the Tonbridge Urban District Council was led up the garden path. Is that what the noble Lord is saying? Or is he accepting that a decision was made by that urban district council in the light of proper advice which was obtained by their officers and which they had instructed their officers to obtain, advice which led to a decision which was subsequently overturned, but for which they cannot possibly be blamed. In the light of the facts that I have given, no one will say that the Tonbridge Urban District Council, or any other urban authority—I have merely quoted them as an example—had decided to grant rent-free weeks and which went to the extent of asking the Department whether this was allowed under the terms of the Bill, could possibly be criticised now for the decision that they took, or, that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is justified in saying that the meaning of the Bill was

745
perfectly clear when counsel's opinion had to be obtained and when chief officers of the local authorities had to consult the Department as to the meaning of this Clause and were clearly informed that they could, as I am suggesting they were perfectly entitled to do. If the noble Lord is saying that councils and chief officers were so stupid as not to understand the provisions of this Bill as it originally stood, why did they introduce an Amendment on Report stage, as I
Clause 64 agreed to.
Clause 65 [Increase towards fair rents in 1973–74 and subsequent years]:
On Question, Whether Clause 65 shall stand part of the Bill?
12.4 a.m.
LORD DIAMOND: I should like to ask the Government one or two questions. This is the clause which deals with the increase towards fair rents in 1973–74 and later. We have just passed the clause which deals with the increase in rent before 1973–74. The first thing I want to ask regarding Clause 65 is what effect it will have on situations like the Birmingham one or the Newcastle one, where one has a likelihood that the increase towards fair rent is going to be less than the stipulated increases in each
have already outlined? I believe that the noble Lord and his Government have caused immense damage to local authorities who exercised their powers legitimately as they stood at the time, and it is up to them to make restitution.
11.56 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 111) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 9; Not-Contents, 48.

CONTENTS

Avebury, L. [Teller.]

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Shepherd, L.

Bernstein, L.

Diamond, L.

Tanlaw, L. [Teller.]

Beswick, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Winterbottom, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mansfield, E.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Fortescue, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Gage, V.

Atholl, D.

Gainford, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Balfour, E.

Glasgow, E.

Redesdale, L.

Belstead, L.

Gowrie, E.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hailes, L.

St. Helens, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

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

Sandford, L.

Chesham, L.

Sandys, L.

Cowley, E.

Hood, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Daventry, V.

Kemsley, V.

Strange, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Killearn, L.

Terrington, L.

Digby, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Latymer, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Elles, Bs.

Limerick, E.

Vivian, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Lothian, M.

Young, Bs.

Falmouth, V.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

year. The second question relates to subsection (9). That subsection appears to give the Secretary of State additional discretion. It states that he
… may on the application of any authority direct that this section shall apply, for any year specified in the direction, with such adjustments as appear to the Secretary of State desirable for the convenience of the authority in the administration of the increase towards fair rents, and any such adjustment may be as respects all or any of the authority's qualifying dwellings."
I am asking for help with regard to the phrase
the administration of the increase towards fair rents".
I am asking whether this subsection gives additional flexibility along the lines of Clause 63(4), or whether it merely gives some flexibility in relation to the administration of the increases; that is to say, in spreading the increases among the different dwellings.
My third question is: what is the situation where the Minister has given a direction under Clause 63(4) for the year 1972–73, assuming that he has been satisfied that there is no need to increase the rents by £1 a week on October 1 and has given a direction that the increase shall be x, which will bring the amount up to the full fair rent? As we are to have a full fair rent in 1972–73, will the Minister be empowered to reopen the rent for 1973–74 on the basis that there has been further inflation, money buys still less and the general level of rents has gone up? If the 1972–73 figure has, by the use of Clause 63(4), been directed by the Minister to be increased by such figure as will bring it to one the Minister is satisfied is the fair rent for that year, will the rent be increased yet again in the following year? The Bill provides for only a triennial review. Will the rent be increased yet again because the value of money having fallen—and it is a likelihood—rents have generally increased in the private sector? Therefore, can he say, "There has been a 10 per cent. increase in rents, and what was a fair rent last year must be increased by 10 per cent. this year"? I hope that the answer is "No", but I ask the question in order to be quite clear what the Minister's powers are.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord has asked me three questions. The first was what effect will this clause have on Birmingham in 1973–74, if the Secretary of State allows a lower amount of increase towards fair rents than is prescribed in the Bill. I am not quite certain whether the noble Lord appreciates that fair rents will go on being increased until a fair rent is reached for each dwelling. There might well be some reduction in the first year in respect of a particular place, but it would not follow that all dwellings in that place had reached their fair rent in spite of the fact that the average increase was allowed to be below the full amount prescribed in the Bill. So the answer must be—and it is a hypothetical answer—the same as the answer to the third question. It would depend on whether by that time all the rents in the place had reached fair rents. Otherwise the increases in respect of those dwellings that had not reached fair rents would go on until they had.
LORD DIAMOND: May I interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in regard to the first question? Obviously I did not make myself sufficiently clear. I instanced the situations in Birmingham and Newcastle. I should have kept it exclusively to Birmingham. According to the figures given by the director of housing there was not a single case in Birmingham in October in which the increase in order to reach the fair rent as determined by Birmingham was as much as £1. Therefore, if the Birmingham figures had satisfied the Government and the Government had made a direction under Clause 63(4), not only on average, each Birmingham rent would have been a fair rent in 1972–73. My first question therefore is: in a case like that does one take it that there is no further increase in rent in 1973–74?
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has come round to his third question at the same time. That is exactly what I was trying to point out. If there were such a case in the Kingdom—and despite Birmingham's estimate it is by no means certain—and every house in the place had reached its fair rent in the first year, presumably there would be no further increase in the remaining part of the triennium. This is not a question which I would ask, but this is the way I read the Bill. If I am wrong, I shall tell the noble Lord.
Turning to subsection (9), I can confirm that the adjustments would be for administrative convenience only; they could only be marginal and could not, for example, involve postponing by a period of months the relevant date and the date of the increase towards fair rent. I think I have covered the third question in what I have said.
LORD DIAMOND: I had better pursue the third question because the third question is not related to Birmingham; it refers to any case in which in year one or year two in the triennium a fair rent has been reached and in a situation of falling purchasing power we have got, according to normal expectations, to make an automatic increase each year in the market level of rent as in the market level of any other commodity. In those circumstances, it not being the third year of the triennium, is it the

749
Government's intention or, more specifially, is it within the Minister's power, to increase rents further notwithstanding the fact that a fair rent was achieved which would have remained a fair rent had the purchasing power of money remained constant?
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: May I ask my noble friend whether I would be correct in saying that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, is making is the stage at which a fair rent is registered in this period? Is that correct?
LORD DIAMOND: If it is registered in year one, for example, does it remain binding for year two and year three? One recognises that at the end of year three one has reached the end of the triennium and it has to be reviewed. Is it binding for year two and year three, notwithstanding that there is a possibility of the general market rent level being higher as a result of the purchasing power of money being lower?
LORD DRUMALBYN: As I read the Bill, that is so, because the rents are reviewable in three-year periods. So that, so far as I can understand the matter, it would be necessary to have fresh legislation to alter that. What I thought the noble Lord might have had in mind was whether, in the case where there had been a direction in 1972–73, there could again be another direction in 1973–74. There could if the fair rent has not been determined by then, but if the fair rent has been determined then the question will not arise.
LORD DIAMOND: I am going to ask the noble Lord whether he would take advice and if he would be good enough to confirm his view on this point at some stage or other, because I think there is somewhere in the Bill a provision which says that "any change of circumstances"—I think those are the words in some clause or other—entitles the Minister or somebody to vary the rents.
LORD STOW HILL: It is Clause 67.
LORD DIAMOND: I want to be quite sure that the change of circumstances does not cover the normal inflation which we can expect so long as this Government remain in power. That is the real point of the question.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am obliged to the noble Lord. Clause 67(3) says:
"Rents may be increased to reflect"—
(a), and (b), and then (c):
"any other change of circumstances".
I shall take advice on the interpretation of that, and I shall let the noble Lord know.
Clause 65 agreed to.
Clauses 66 and 67 agreed to.
Clause 68 [Rent exceeding a fair rent]:
12.19 a.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 111J.
Page 72, line 4, at end insert—
("(10) Where an authority reasonably believe that by virtue of this section a person may be entitled to recover from the authority a sum of money in respect of the extent to which the rent exceeds a fair rent, they shall not in respect of the dwelling be bound to comply with the provisions of sections 64, 65 and 66 of this Act.")
The noble Lord said: The hour is late and this is a somewhat technical Amendment, but I hope your Lordships may think that it serves a useful purpose. It is designed to provide that where the local authority think that there may be a right in a tenant to recover rent under Clause 68, they are not under an obligation to impose the increases toward a fair rent under the provisions of Clauses 64, 65 and 66. Your Lordships will see that the whole purpose of Clause 68 is to enable a tenant who has paid more than a fair rent to get the excess back. I hope your Lordships may think it not an unuseful Amendment for this reason, that considerable anxiety has been expressed and reiterated throughout our debates that some of the provisions of the Bill will impose an extremely heavy burden on the staffs of local authorities. One of the burdens would consist in seeking out, under the provisions of Clause 68, persons who are entitled to receive back an excess of rent overpaid over fair rents, particularly where the tenant who paid the rent has died and a question arises as to who in his place as his successor is entitled to recover back the excess. In an endeavour to lighten the burden of local authority staffs, the Amendment I propose is designed to relieve the local authority from the obligation to which I have referred under Clauses 64, 65 and

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66 of imposing the increase towards fair rents where the local authority, when they bring their judgment to bear on the matter, realise that there is a likelihood that in any event the tenant has paid more than the fair rent and therefore will be entitled to recover the excess or probably will be in the position of being entitled to recover some excess.
If one goes back to Clause 63 one finds that in subsection (1) there is what at first sight seems to impose an absolute obligation upon local authorities to charge these increases towards fair rents. Subsection (1) is unqualified in terms and imposes on local authorities a duty in all circumstances to impose the increases towards a fair rent. When one looks at subsection (2) one finds that the obligation arises both in relation to subsection (2)(a) dwellings for which a fair rent has been determined and (b) dwellings for which no fair rent has yet been determined, so that there is a dual obligation.
May I treat each of them separately? If one takes paragraph (a) and asks what, if any, is the qualification of the absolute obligation to charge increases towards fair rents in respect of dwellings for which a fair rent has been determined, one finds in Clause 63(3) the qualification. That qualification is expressed in the words:
"Nothing in the following provisions of this Part of this Act shall authorise the authority at any time to increase a rent to an amount in excess of the fair rent for the dwelling …"
I need not read the rest. So one finds that there is a qualification on the absolute obligation imposed by subsection (1) by this subsection (3); namely, that in no circumstances must a local authority charge more than the fair rent by charging these increases towards a fair rent. So far, so good. One would have thought, therefore, that the Amendment I propose could in no circumstances bite on the case of houses for which a fair rent has been determined. But if one looks at the next subsection there seems what at any rate at first sight appears to be a contradiction.
Subsection (4) is the one which enables the Secretary of State to give a direction. He can give a direction when
"the amount of an authority's increase towards fair rents in the year 1972–73 or 1973–74, as determined under the following provisions of this Part of this Act is such that,… that increase towards fair rents is likely to bring the
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rents of 2 per cent or more of the authority's qualifying dwellings substantially above the fair rents for those dwellings, …"
I submit to the Committee that that seems to involve a contradiction because subsection (4) clearly contemplates that there will be cases in which notwithstanding the qualification introduced by subsection (3) the increases charged towards fair rents will in the case of more than 2 per cent. of the dwellings have resulted in the tenant paying substantially more than the fair rent which has been determined. So there seems to be a contradiction between subsection (4) and subsection (3).
If that is the case and if there are circumstances in which, notwithstanding subsection (3), tenants may be paying substantially more than a fair rent and therefore the local authority may be clearly of opinion that the imposition of the increases towards fair rents would mean that the tenant would certainly have the right to recover the excess, it seems absurd that they should nevertheless have to go through all the requirements of Clauses 64, 65 and 66 in imposing the increases towards a fair rent. The Amendment I propose would relieve them of that obligation where it is perfectly obvious that to impose the increase would result in their having to repay to the tenant the amount of the excess. That would lighten the burden on the local authorities.
Then I turn back to subsection (2) of Clause 63 which imposes the obligation to charge the increase in relation to dwellings for which no fair rent has been determined. I suppose those are the dwellings in relation to which the local authority has not yet determined the fair rent. It is not only a problem which exists until the first of the triennial impositions of the fair rent standard, but also it is a continuing problem; because if one looks back at Clause 61 one finds that that clause deals with dwellings brought into being after the provisional assessment of the fair rent in any one of any of the triennial periods. There would therefore certainly be a number of houses in those triennial periods in respect of which rent is being paid before the fair rent has been assessed with regard to that house and that rent may be in excess of what ultimately is likely to be assessed as the fair rent.
The Amendment would also relieve the local authority of having to go through what would be the rather farcical procedure of complying with Clauses 64, 65 and 66 in those cases as well; in other words, imposing an increase towards the fair rent when in point of fact they are of opinion that already the tenant is paying more than what is likely to be assessed as the fair rent. Those are the reasons for which I hope the Committee will think this a sensible Amendment designed to relieve the burden on local authorities, if I have understood the position correctly. I am afraid it is somewhat technical. I have tried to give some indication of the broad lines on which it is moved but I should feel satisfied if the noble Lord would say that he would like to look at this further between now and Report stage. Certainly I should not press the Amendment if he would give an indication that that is what would be his intention.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: Before my noble friend replies I should like to point out that it is part of the case that under this Bill where a local authority could have two-, three-, four- or five-apartment houses, it might be that in the first year the rent of the two-apartment houses reached a fair rent whereas it might be some time before, say, a five-apartment house reached a fair rent. I sympathise with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has just said. I have been into this thoroughly and from the advice I have received I am satisfied that this sort of thing will even itself out in the next two or three years. In view of that, the situation will probably never arise. I am not very happy with the wording of this Amendment although I was very interested and pleased that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, raised this point.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I share the pleasure of my noble friend Lord Balfour that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, should have raised this point and should have done it so clearly and lucidly. His analysis seemed to me to be correct but I should like to study what he has said. The question "What is a fair rent?" in the early stages before the fair rent has been determined is one of considerable difficulty, as we know from the different criteria that are being
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applied apparently by different people in reaching a decision on it. That is why it is for the Secretary of State to decide under Section 63(3) whether there should be any modification of the amount of increase towards fair rents in the years 1972/3 or 1973/4 insofar as during that time there has been no fair rent determined for the dwellings. That is all common ground.
Subsection (3) states:
"In this subsection "the relevant date" means—

(a) in the year 1972–73, 1st October 1972, and

(b) in any later year the relevant date as defined in section 65 below."

It merely says:
"Nothing … shall authorise the authority at any time to increase a rent"—
this is a rent—not the whole of the rent—
"to an amount in excess of the fair rent for the dwelling and accordingly no increase towards fair rents shall be made in any year if on the relevant date in that year the rents for all the authority's Housing Revenue Account dwellings are fair rents."
We are back at the original difficulty of the date of 1972/3.
I should like to look at what the noble Lord Lord Stow Hill has said. The conception is quite clear, that before there is any departure from what is prescribed in the Bill the authority of the Secretary of State shall be obtained to make a variation. I do not at first sight see how that could be reconciled with a mere belief on the part of an authority, however reasonable, that a person may be entitled to recover from the authority a sum of money in respect of the extent to which the rent exceeds a fair rent. They will not be bound to comply with the three sections that deal with increases towards the fair rent. I do not see that, but I should like to look at what the noble Lord has said and I hope therefore that he will withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STOW HILL: I am very grateful to the noble Lord Lord Drumalbyn for what he has just said. In view of his indication that he would like to give it further consideration I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 68 agreed to.
Clause 69 [Increases towards fair rents: supplemental provisions]:
On Question, Whether Clause 69 shall stand part of the Bill?
12.34 a.m.
LORD STOW HILL: I desire to probe the Government in the hope that they may accede to the arguments which I should like to advance. I will start by submitting to your Lordships that this clause is a rather disagreeable one from the point of view of local authorities. It is the sort of clause that one finds in a Finance Bill designed to prevent evasion of tax liabilities. It is a clause the object of which is to frustrate what are supposed to be the possible manœuvres of local authorities; for example, in converting what are called short periodical tenancies into long periodical tenancies in order to avoid the obligation of charging higher rents. Therefore it does contain a reflection on the purposes of local authorities, and my submission to your Lordships is that if the Bill will stand without that clause, it should, for those general reasons, be omitted. I submit that, without infringing the purposes of the Government in the least, it can perfectly well be omitted if the Government persuade your Lordships to pass Clause 70.
May I elaborate that point quite shortly? Clause 70, as I analyse it, does this. It provides that in the case of any tenancy—that is to say, a short periodical tenancy or a long periodical tenancy or even a very long lease—other than an existing weekly tenancy (and a weekly tenancy is referred to in paragraph (a) of subsection (1)) and some others which are referred to but which are not important for this purpose, it shall be an implied term of the tenancy that the local authority may raise the rent—and that I get from subsection (2):
"It shall be an implied term of the tenancy that the authority may increase the rent payable under the tenancy with effect from the beginning of any rental period by a notice given to the tenant"—
within a certain period. In other words, every single tenancy, long, short, medium or very long, with the exception of existing weekly tenancies, are to have an implied term that the local authority can raise the rent payable under that tenancy with effect from the beginning of any rental period.
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One then asks oneself: what is a rental period? And what is the meaning of the expression, "with effect from the beginning of any rental period"? When one turns over the page one finds the answer to that question in subsection (5), which reads:
"If any rental period exceeds six weeks this section shall apply as if references to the beginning of the rental period include references to the beginning of the second or any subsequent week in the rental period".
If I have correctly understood this clause, it provides that in the case of any tenancy other than a weekly tenancy it shall be an implied term that the local authority can by notice raise the rent with effect from the beginning of any rental period; and, however long may be the rental period, the rent may be raised from the beginning of the second or any subsequent week in that rental period—that is to say, the rental period covered by the tenancy.
If that analysis of the powers given by this clause be right, what more do the Government want? Supposing the local authority, with evil intent, has converted a short periodical tenancy into a tenancy for 15 years at a fixed rack rent over the whole of the 15 years, that tenancy for 15 years, or lease, as I will describe it, to be subject to an implied term that from almost any week the rent can be raised by the local authority. So what on earth is the point of having Clause 69 in the Bill, and its somewhat offensive undertones, if the Government are also going to ask and be accorded by your Lordships the power contained in Clause 70? I hope that I have made my question clear. I would ask the Government, if they think they are already given the necessary powers by Clause 70, to agree that one can perfectly well strike out of this Bill Clause 69. It is for that reason that I move your Lordships to leave out Clause 69.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am grateful to the noble Lord. This is a difficult pair of clauses to understand. Both Clause 69(3) and Clause 70 are designed to avoid possible methods of frustrating the progression to fair rents; and I suppose that all clauses designed to avoid the frustration of legislation, whether of Finance Acts or anything else, are somewhat unpopular, certainly with those people who are affected. Clause 69(3)

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deals with a case where a weekly, fortnightly or monthly tenancy is converted, say, into an annual tenancy. Clause 70 deals with a tenancy which is converted into a fixed-term tenancy, say for three or five years. Before being so converted, the tenancy would perhaps have been weekly, fortnightly or monthly. That is a broad explanation of the difference between the two clauses.
Subsection (1) of Clause 69 would seem to be rather different, in any case, from subsections (2) and (3); and I am not sure that we should be right to leave out the whole of Clause 69 merely because we do not like those two subsections. The point here is that subsection (2) was added in another place on Report, and I think one can be fairly certain that it would not have been added, with Clause 70 already there, unless there had been some reason to think that it was necessary. Subsection (2) says in effect that if a local authority converted a weekly or monthly tenancy into an annual tenancy a week or two before October 1, 1972, the result would be that the first rental period after October 1, 1972, would not begin until a year later, during September, 1973. There might be good reasons for doing this in a few cases, but if the local authority did this with a considerable number of their houses they would frustrate the progression of their houses towards fair rents. The subsection therefore requires the authority to satisfy itself that any long-term tenancies it may create will permit the progression towards fair rents required by the Bill, without putting an unfair burden on other tenants.
Subsection (3) is more or less the obverse of the same coin. It deals with the position where a local authority has already converted more than 1 per cent. of its Housing Revenue Account dwellings from short-term to long-term tenancies since July 19, 1971. In that case the terms of the tenancies would revert to what they were before the change in all respects except the rent, which would be covered rent for the houses in question. This is to prevent local authorities from giving longer periodical tenancies, say for three years, and so frustrating the progression towards fair rents. However, if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the local authority has good reasons for giving such tenancies in particular cases
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he may direct that that particular subsection shall not apply to them.
Clause 70, to which the noble Lord referred, deals with cases where there are in existence tenancies for long periods at fixed rents. It enables local authorities to alter the rent without otherwise altering the terms of the tenancy so as to bring it into line with the progression towards fair rents. It does not oblige them to do so unless they cannot otherwise comply with the provisions leading to increases towards fair rents. If the local authority does give notice to increase the rent then the tenant has the right to terminate the tenancy. Again the Secretary of State is given power under subsection (1)(d) to exclude any dwelling, either by a general or a particular direction from the provisions of the clause; for example, if the local authority let dwellings on fixed-term tenancies to the W.R.V.S. to enable them to house families who need special social and welfare attention it may be reasonable to exclude them.
Subsection (b) deals with cases covered by the clause under which the rent is less than for any earlier period; for example the local authority might seek to end the provisions of the Bill by granting a tenancy for three years which provided for a decrease of rent of 75p a week. In that case the local authorities would have to increase the rent provided for in the second and third year by 75p per week for the first year and £1·50 for the second year. In addition it could make increases towards fair rent by making use of the implied terms of the contract introduced by subsection (2). So I hope I have said enough to make it clear that these two clauses have somewhat different purposes. But, having said that, again I will look very carefully at what the noble Lord has said to see whether any adjustment in one or other of the clauses is needed.
LORD STOW HILL: Again I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord. May I say just two words on what he said so that he may consider them. I should have submitted that it was beyond doubt that Clause 70 would certainly include long and short periodical tenancies and it is not only limited to tenancies for fixed terms. It does not say so and is quite widely drawn enough to include

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periodical tenancies. The noble Lord also referred to the fact that Clause 70 includes tenancies granted before the coming into force of this Bill, but it is not limited to tenancies granted before the coming into force of this Bill. It applies to them equally whether they came into being before the Bill came into force or after. So I respectfully submit that the noble Lord should also give that reconsideration.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Did the noble and learned Lord say "includes"? The clause says, other than a dwelling for the time being subject to a tenancy granted before—
LORD STOW HILL: I will not continue the controversy. The noble Lord has been so kind as to say he will consider the points, and I say no more on those words. An Amendment was down to leave them out in any event; but I do not wish to continue the controversy in view of what the noble Lord said. I am grateful for what he said and I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 69 agreed to.
Clause 70 agreed to.
Clause 71 [Supplemental]:
12.50 a.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 1110:
Page 75, line 6, at end insert ("but if the tenant shall dispute such determination he shall be entitled to refer the matter to the rent scrutiny committee who shall adjudicate thereon.")
The noble Lord said. I beg to move Amendment No. 1110 which provides that matters may be referred to the rent scrutiny committee—and I must apologise because the term should of course be "rent scrutiny board"—if the tenant should "dispute such determination": that is a dispute arising in connection with an apportionment of amounts fairly attributable to the use of furniture and similar matters. The purpose of the Amendment is that it seemed reasonable that the tenant should be able to appeal to the rent board where, in circumstances such as this, there was a dispute as between him and the housing authority. I beg to move.
EARL FERRERS: We are here considering the progression to fair rents and
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there is no reason to suppose that a local authority will find it diffcult to comply with a duty to make the furniture or services element a fair one. If an individual tenant objected to his authority that they had not complied with this duty in relation to his rent the authority could be expected to alter any apportionment that was unfair as a result of a genuine mistake. A systematic failure by the authority to make fair apportionments over a wide scale would obviously be picked up by the district auditor, who would ensure that the progression to fair rents takes place in accordance with statute. Even if the authority makes the furniture or services element unfairly large this cannot result in the rent being increased above the fair rent as determined. It could only result in the rents being progressed to the fair rent more quickly. Equally, if the authority makes the furniture or services element unfairly small this would result in the rents being progressed to the fair rent more slowly than they should be. So it will not affect the fair rents, and it would merely be the progression to the fair rent which would be affected only marginally.
LORD DIAMOND: I thank the noble Earl for what he has said and I seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
EARL FERRERS EARL FERRERS moved Amendment No. 111P:
Page 75, line 6, at end insert—
("(3) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of subsection (2) above, an increase of the part of any rent attributable to rates, or to the use of furniture, or to the provision of services—

(a) shall be disregarded in determining whether there has been a general rent increase or in determining the amount of that increase, and

(b) shall not count towards the increases towards fair rents which the authority is to make.")

The noble Earl said: The purpose of this Amendment is to make it clear that in the provisions of Part VI relating to general rent increases and increases towards fair rents, the amount of the increase in rent relates only to the occupation element of the rent. This ensures that these increases are computed on the same basis for every dwelling and that a tenant whose rent includes an element for rates or furniture or services is not given

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an unfair advantage over a tenant whose rent does not include such an element. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 71, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 72 [Introduction of new subsidies for housing associations]:
12.52 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 111Q:
Page 76, line 17, at end insert—
("(5) Provided always that the provisions of this section shall be without prejudice to the power of the Secretary of State to continue to pay to a housing association the same subsidies as are payable at the date of passing of this Act.")
The noble Lord said: We are now moving into a somewhat quieter stage of the Bill. I think it is agreed between all three Parties and people of non-Party persuasion in this House that housing associations are a desirable form of social organisation. For this reason I do not attempt to raise any element of controversy in discussing this subject.
The two sections of the Bill with which I am dealing this evening—or rather in the early hours of this morning—are Part VII, which deals with the housing associations and the subsidies that apply to them, and Part VIII, which applies to the rent limit for dwellings let by housing associations, housing trusts and the Housing Corporation. The housing associations exist in various forms. They are administered in many cases by the tenants themselves in the form of management committees. They are laymen, and they have to face this complex Bill. I would have thought that even those noble Lords who are steeped in the matter find that this is a rather difficult Bill. If that is true, how much more difficult must it be for laymen to see how this Bill affects the housing associations for which they are responsible. In general, the Amendments that I and my noble friends have tabled, and which other noble Lords have tabled, are designed partly to probe the intention of the Government and to protect the various individuals who inhabit houses administered by housing associations, from any risks that they may run by not understanding this complex Bill completely.
One thing is very clear, and this really is the point which my Amendment is designed to bring out, that the Secretary of State throughout has very substantial powers. My Amendment reads:
"Provided always that the provisions of this section shall be without prejudice to the power of the Secretary of State to continue to pay to a housing association the same subsidies as are payable at the date of passing of this Act."
There must be no retrogression and throughout, as we shall see, the Secretary of State has great powers to reach decisions on the basis of facts presented to him. This is a good thing. It is on the basis of just indicating to your Lordships that my Amendments and those of my noble friends are not put down in a mood of hostility but to protect laymen who may find it somewhat difficult to understand this Bill that I beg to move Amendment No. 111Q standing in my name on the Order Paper.
LORD SANDFORD: I think all members of the Committee would agree that in moving into Parts VII and VIII which are to do with housing associations we are moving into rather calmer and less controversial waters, and for that we owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Gage who some weeks ago moved a Motion which we debated here and which was concerned with the anxieties that housing associations were feeling at that time about the Government's intention with respect to the provisions in these two Parts, particularly to the phasing out of the subsidies which they had up to now enjoyed. Following that debate, and to a large extent as a result of it, Her Majesty's Government have been able to meet the fears and the anxieties expressed by the associations and the bodies that represent them and to meet those points in full. Anyway, that is our understanding, and perhaps in the course of the debates on some of these Amendments we shall hear whether in fact that can be confirmed.
The noble Lord's Amendment leads straight into this particular question of the way in which the existing subsidies can be continued and assured and raises the whole question of whether the transition will be damaging or not damaging to the associations which we all want to see supported. I can deal with it best, if the Committee would agree, by going rather wide and referring straightaway

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not to this particular Clause 72 but to Clause 75, subsection (1), which is the point to which I will want to refer the Committee in dealing with each of the next 5, 6, 7 or 8 Amendments. It is here that the Secretary of State, having been furnished with information as to their financial position by a housing association, has powers either to slow down the rate of withdrawal of the existing subsidies or even to suspend the withdrawal altogether.
The slowing down is achieved by a substitution of a smaller amount for that provided for in the Bill, the £5 for the first year or the £20 for the subsequent years, or the reduction of that amount to zero, which has the effect of suspending the withdrawal of the subsidy altogether. I am happy to be drawn on further points of detail on other Amendments if necessary, but I think what I am saying now in answer to the noble Lord's first Amendment will probably serve for the other Amendments, which are just alternative ways of reducing or modifying or altering the provisions made in the Bill for the withdrawal of the existing subsidies.
LORD AVEBURY: May I say that the noble Lord has given some rather vague assurances in relation to Clause 75(1) which I think ought to be amplified before we leave the particular Amendment under consideration at the moment? I realise that we are not talking about Clause 75 at all. The noble Lord has moved an Amendment relating to an earlier clause, but since the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has opened again the whole question of subsidies for housing associations, I think that the Committee is entitled to a certain amount more clarification than he has given us. After all, the housing associations have been in communication with the Department for some time, as the noble Lord has said, and they have expressed anxiety as to where they stand under this Bill.
All the noble Lord has said, as I understand him, is that he is prepared to consider sympathetically any representations which they may make to the Department to exercise the discretion which the Secretary of State has under Clause 75(1) to give them either a delay in the withdrawal of subsidy or the total abolition of the powers which the Secretary
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of State would otherwise exercise under this Bill. I think before we leave this Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, ought to give us a little bit more information about what his intentions are. I do not question his sympathy for the housing association movement at all; we all know the noble Lord has been extremely helpful to housing associations over the years, and that during the course of the proceedings on this Bill he has entered into consultation with them and has given every indication that he wants to see the housing association movement prosper.
I suggest that if that is the case, if the noble Lord wants to implement these undertakings, he should give us some more precise indication of the way the Government is thinking than he has so far divulged to the Committee. I personally do not question his bona fides. I am only suggesting that before we get to Clause 75, which is the operative one, now that we are on Clause 71, it would be a convenient moment for the noble Lord to declare his intentions more fully to the Committee, so that, if necessary, at a later stage we can put down appropriate Amendments, or we can speak more fully on the subject when we come to the Question, That the clause stand part. Those are the two alternatives which are open to the Committee, and the noble Lord could cut short the discussion and enable us to proceed if he would explain a little more and be a little more forthcoming concerning the Government's intentions on this matter.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I had intended to say something on the Question, Whether the clause shall stand part? But in view of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, perhaps I may make my remarks on the present Motion. Unlike some noble Lords who have spoken I want to take the opportunity of thanking the Government for what they have done in turning this Bill, as originally drafted, into something which I trust will give the housing associations a real future. I very much hope that we can look forward to this agency filling the place that the Minister originally hoped it would fill and that gradually it may make a bigger and bigger impact on the supply of rented accommodation and even be accepted as such by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and the noble Lord, Lord

765
Garnsworthy, who are rather despondent about the future of rented accommodation.
I am speaking now in connection with the Federation of Housing Associations. We do not propose to support any of the Amendments which have been tabled, although I understand now that they are not moved in any hostile spirit, so that it would be unnecessary for me to take them as such. If this is to come about, there is one further aspect of the situation which has not called for any Amendment but on which Government assurances may be of the greatest value. It seems absolutely essential that if the best results are to be achieved there should be established immediately a central body representative of the 2,050 associations of all sorts, shapes and sizes to carry on doing much the same work as the Federation has been doing hitherto—namely, negotiating with the Government on behalf of the large number of associations. I am quite certain that there will be numerous administrative matters at least which will continue to demand attention. This central body should act in a judicious way to stimulate growth, to promote activity, particularly activity of the right kind, to advise the associations of the best way of doing this and to make allocations out of the comparatively small central funds which the Federation at present possesses. Again, this is a matter which demands knowledge and judgment, and I would hope that Her Majesty's Government would have sufficient confidence in this central body to consult it in the matter of the discretions the Minister has reserved to himself. That is one of the matters to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred.
I hope that the Minister will consult with the central body. It would be very difficult for him to consult with any of the 2,050 bodies. The Minister might have some difficulty in reaching decisions without appropriate advice. As I have said before, these are voluntary bodies, and we require a certain amount of judgment and knowledge to deal with them properly.
The Government may ask: "What is stopping you from doing this? Why not carry on with the Federation as before?" That sounds simple, but I do not know that it is so simple. In 1968, a Labour
766
Government set up the Cohen Committee to consider and report on the proper role of voluntary housing, including the role of the housing corporation. That Committee took evidence but failed to reach any conclusion, and in 1970 a Conservative Government decided to take over the evidence and to produce a scheme. In 1971, they produced a paper which foreshadowed fairly comprehensive legislation which might well render the Federation unnecessary. We do not know for certain whether such legislation will be forthcoming, but the prospect of it must have a somewhat unsettling effect on our small paid staff. That might not matter so much if there were not one further uncertainty.
Our small permanent staff have been paid over the years, but—to anyone accustomed to local authority ways of doing things—in a very odd way; partly out of affiliation fees, partly from charity, and partly by varying Government grants on quite a small scale. In fact, by local government standards an agency such as ours, building, as we now do, between 14,000 and 15,000 houses a year, must seem ridiculously understaffed. Your Lordships will see that these three prospects—first, being worked extremely hard; secondly, being superseded in a few years time; and, thirdly, perhaps being phased out for lack of money even before they are phased out—give a bleak outlook for any worthwhile staff. We certainly do not want to ask the Government for money, because we value our independence too much. But it would be a real tragedy if at this present critical juncture, for one reason or another, there were no properly staffed and equipped central body. I know that further talks are now being held and I do not wish to press my noble friend to say anything at all definite tonight. But if he can assure us that he is aware of, and is sympathetic to, the points I am trying to make, that will give our staff some much-needed encouragement.
LORD SANDFORD: If I may take up the last point first, it is of course very much in the interest of Her Majesty's Government that there should be a strong and effective voice to speak for the housing associations' work, and we very much hope that a resolution of these problems can be reached. But I agree with my

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noble friend Lord Gage that a straight subvention from the Government would not be the right solution, because that would indeed lead to loss of independence, and such independence is as desirable to the Government as it is to the Federation itself.
To turn to the Amendment—and for the time being I resist the temptation to be drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, into a premature discussion of the details of the operation of Clause 75—the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, made it clear that he was moving Amendment No. 111Q as a probing Amendment. It is one way of ensuring that subsidies would be continued just as before, if that were thought desirable. But for the reason which I have set out—namely, that there is power in Clause 75 (1), if necessary, to suspend altogether or to slow down the rate of withdrawal—I submit to the Committee that this method is not necessary or apt. But I will certainly go into further detail of the operation of the subsidies to take the place of the existing ones, as we move on to the other clauses in this Part of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 72 agreed to.
Clause 73 The basic residual subsidy]:
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 111R.
Page 77, line 6, leave out subsections (6) to (9) and insert—
("( ) The withdrawal factor for the purposes of this section shall be such positive amount equal to the surplus accruing to the association from its completed building schemes (aft erallowing for any deficits) or such negative amount equal to the deficit accruing to the association from such schemes (after allowing for any surpluses).")
The noble Lord said: We are now entering the working part of these two sections of the Bill. They remind me of the problem that used to beset us at school in the early days of our study of algebra when we were told that we had to calculate what happened to the water in a bath when we pull out the plug and the water flowed out at a certain rate and we turned on the taps and the water flowed in at another rate. If we had a good day we got the answer right. During the rest of the evening, with the exception of the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, we shall be dealing with plug-holes and
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taps, and that is the basis on which I am going to tackle the problem. Clause 75 deals with the basic residual subsidy, and all my Amendments are aimed, as I said earlier, at protecting the individual housing association and its tenants from the complexities of the Bill. What I hope to see is that in a situation in which there are negative and positive balances the tenants always comes out best and enjoys the best results from these two possible situations.
LORD SANDFORD: As I said, I need on each of these occasions to refer to the provisions we have made for securing withdrawal and compare it with the various alternatives which each of these Amendments proposes. In this case the advantage that I would claim for Clause 75 (1) is that the system that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, is proposing in this Amendment would be governed by purely mathematical considerations which would, as he says, either slow up or speed up the rate of withdrawal. I doubt if this would be as sophisticated and refined a system as that which could be applied by the Secretary of State, with all his knowledge of the factors presented to him by the housing association and through the exercise of the powers he is being given in Clause 75 (1). It would be a way of speeding it up or slowing it down, but not as good or as flexible a way as the one we have provided. For those reasons I hope that the noble Lord will not press this Amendment.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I am glad to know that the procedures of the Secretary of State are more sophisticated than mine. On the basis of that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 111S:
Page 77, line 19, leave out ("£5") and insert ("£2·50").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee I will deal with this Amendment and Amendment No. 111U together. These are reductions of
"The sum produced by multiplying £5 by the number of dwellings determined under paragraph (a) of subsection (7) above;"
and
"the sum produced by multiplying £20 by the number of dwellings determined under paragraph (a) of subsection (7) above; …"

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This is fundamentally a slowing down of the outflow of subsidies, and since I am trying to ensure that the associations have as little trouble as possible during the transition phase, I am trying to slow down the rate of outflow from the funds that are available to them. I do not quite know—and perhaps the Minister can explain to us—how the figures £5 and £20 were reached. Were they guessed out of the top of a head, or were they based on sophisticated calculations? I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: Again, perhaps I may take the last point first. The figures of £5 and £20 are based on the expected rate of the increase of the existing rent to the fair rent. The £20 is the amount corresponding to the increase over a full year; the £5 is the increase over one-quarter of a year, which will apply for the first year of the operation, because this system cannot begin until January, 1973—the date on which the rent allowances become payable. I hope that deals with the latter part of the noble Lord's remarks. As to the first part, what he is proposing in his Amendment is within the scope of the Secretary of State's powers. He could prescribe some smaller amount than £5 or some smaller amount than £20, and £2·50 and £10 are such smaller amounts. But the Secretary of State, in the exercise of his power, has discretion to use any other smaller amounts, and I think the noble Lord will see that that is more flexible.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Since the whole power of modifying the rate of outflow lies in the hands of the Secretary of State, I feel there is no real cause for alarm, and I beg leave—
LORD AVEBURY: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, if, before we get to Report stage, he will give us a sample set of calculations on which we can base our judgment of these Amendments, so that, if necessary, we can bring forward further Amendments on Report stage? Of course, if we are entirely satisfied with the provisions that he has made, then we can avoid raising further Amendments when we reach Report, as the noble Lord would no doubt like us to do. But we are rather galloping through these provisions regarding housing associations.
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We seem to be making extremely speedy progress at the minute, and I do not think it is fair to the housing associations that we should rush through as we are doing now. I realise that we are at a late hour of the night, but these provisions are very important for many thousands of people and for many people who have to run housing associations, and to accept the rather brief explanations of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, without question simply because we have reached the hour of 1.20 a.m. is, to my mind, not satisfactory. But I should he quite prepared to carry on with the provisions of this Bill and to look at subsequent clauses if the noble Lord would reassure the Committee by saying that, before we reach Report stage, he will let us have some arithmetic which we can show to the housing associations so that we can ask them whether they are satisfied with the assurances that he has given. If the noble Lord would do that, I am sure we could make much faster progress than we are doing so far.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I rise to my feet once more to say that what has been transcribed into this Bill has been the subject of very long and detailed discussions between the Department and the officials of the Federation of Housing Associations. I do not say that the Federation is representative of every sort of housing association, but I think they are pretty representative. They tell me that they would prefer to get on with the Bill and to get it passed knowing very well that there will be a great number of difficult administrative matters which have still to be solved. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, who is President of the Federation, whose health does not permit him to be present here tonight, would agree with that. I appreciate the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in this matter, but I do not think that it is so casual as it would seem. We recognise that here is a great deal that may be solved administratively rather than by changes in the law. However, I can speak only for this Federation.
LORD SANDFORD: I am certainly very willing to consider whether there are calculations which I could let the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, have to elucidate still further the way in which these subsidies operate. We were able to help

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noble Lords opposite when we discussed Part I in respect of the much more complicated subsidies introduced in that Part and it may be that we can do the same in respect of this Part. Alternatively, it may be that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, could see some of the correspondence between the Department and the Federation which might help him. I will certainly consider that point.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 73 agreed to.
Clause 74 [The special residual subsidy]:
1.23 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. IIIX:
Page 78, line 26, after ("appropriate") insert ("but including particularly co-operative housing associations and other organisations whose tenants choose, or are substantially represented upon, the governing body ").
The noble Lord said: I have included this Amendment because I feel that when we consider how the Bill is to work we should lay stress on the work of cooperative housing associations and other organisations who are to choose or to be substantially represented on the governing body. I mentioned this in my opening remarks on this Part of the Bill. These people require the clear assurance and explanation from the Secretary of State for which I and Lord Avebury have asked. It is all very well when housing associations are run by professionals and by lawyers, but when you have a managing body consisting of members of the general public living within an association there has to be some clarity about the way the provisions of the Bill are applied so that they may understand and obtain the benefits. For this reason I have put down the Amendment.
BARONESS YOUNG: The Government are very anxious that there should be consultation with housing associations, but the point at question here is that many co-operative housing associations are also co-ownership societies, whose members own jointly the dwellings that they occupy. Such associations are not eligible for subsidy under Part I of the Housing Subsidies Act 1967 and cannot qualify for special residual subsidy. Therefore there is no point in consulting them about a subsidy for which they do
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not qualify. Those co-operative housing associations which are not co-ownership societies are eligible for this subsidy. The Government believe that their interests, as a group, are adequately represented by the National Federation of Housing Societies because most of them are members of that Federation, and the Secretary of State will certainly consult the Federation under the provisions of subsection (4)(b). I hope that that explanation meets the noble Lord's point.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: In view of the assurances from the noble Baroness, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 74 shall stand part of the Bill?
1.30 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: May I at this stage make three points briefly? May I reply to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who was accusing me, I think, of rushing on a bit? We have the possibility of discussing a very important Amendment in the name of Lord Brooke of Cumnor about the requirements of students. I should have thought this a rather limited but important section of the housing association's needs to which we should give some attention. So I am pushing on over what I consider to be secondary issues in order to get to what I think is a primary issue which is included in Lord Brooke's Amendment. I hope that Lord Avebury will forgive me, I am not being slovenly but I want to get on to this rather meaty Amendment.
May I ask the Minister two points? The first refers to the position of hostels. I am a little mystified about this. Hostels are mentioned in Clause 74(9). I want to know why hostels have to have special treatment. In Clause 100 there is a rather peculiar definition:
"'hostel' means a building wherein is provided, for persons generally or for a class or classes of persons, residential accommodation (otherwise than in separate and self-contained sets of premises) and either board or facilities for the preparation of food adequate to the needs of those persons, or both."
A hostel seems to be differentiated from other forms of association if facilities for the preparation of food are included in the administration and articles of association of the hostel association. I should

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like to know why there is this rather sharp differentiation of hostel associations from other forms of association.
The third point arises from information received in a brief and perhaps the Minister will have some sympathy if I read from the brief on this rather technical point. I understand that the majority of qualifying schemes will be under construction but some are currently under negotiation. For these pipeline schemes, approval under Clause 74 will be taken as approval of form HCY1 subject to three conditions. The first of these, and it is the only one I am going to raise, is that the erection costs do not exceed the yardstick plus 10 per cent. Those of us who have had a finger or more than a finger in the construction industry would hold the view that a yardstick plus 10 per cent. in the present rate of the inflation of building costs is entirely unrealistic. For this reason I should like the Minister to confirm that it is the case that if form HCY1 is forwarded to the Minister it is not tied down by erection costs exceeding the yardstick plus 10 per cent.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I think there are 2,050 associations in the Federation and about one-third of them could be described either as a home or as a hostel. I share the noble Lord's mystification but I think this indicates that the whole question of these definitions should be gone into much more carefully.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I rather think the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, agreed to do that at an earlier stage.
LORD AVEBURY: Perhaps this would be the appropriate moment for me to make an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for an error which I made on June 8 when we were discussing hostels on Clause 2. At that time I said that Section 15 of the 1958 Act applied to local authority hostels and not to those which were provided by organisations such as the Y.M.C.A. The noble Lord quite rightly corrected me in a letter which he wrote to me, referring me to subsection (2) of Section 15 where similar provisions to subsection (1) applying to local authority hostels are extended to those which are provided by voluntary organisations. I incorrectly informed your Lordships that organisations such as the Y.M.C.A. were not covered by Section 15 of that Act. The noble Lord has
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quite rightly put me on the right track on this matter.
The point I was making still remains: that organisations such as the Y.M.C.A. which are providing hostels are not absolutely certain where they stand under the Bill, and I am not altogether certain when I look at Clause 74(9) whether I am any clearer about the matter. The Y.M.C.A. does a tremendous job in making accommodation available for single persons and for persons who have no other source to look to. They cannot go to the local authorities, who are not interested in them, and they do not have the ability to pay for the sort of accommodation which private landlords are offering. Organisations such as the Y.M.C.A. are offering a service which, I suggest, nobody else can provide.

I am sure that your Lordships who are familiar with these matters will agree with me that they are filling a gap which is of immense importance and that if they were to drop out it would be—I make no exaggeration—disastrous. If we are doing anything in this clause—and I am not suggesting that this is the case, but I think the noble Lord should explain it—which will make it any less easy for the Y.M.C.A. or for any other organisation providing hostel accommodation to do what they are doing at the moment, then we should give serious consideration to some Amendments. But I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who is extremely sympathetic to the provision of accommodation for single persons, particularly by organisations such as the Y.M.C.A. who are doing their best in difficult circumstances, will give us some assurance on this clause so that we do not need to come back to the subject on Report stage.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for the remarks which he made relating to our earlier exchanges. I take note of the question that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, asked me, but I am wondering whether he would accept this from me. As he said, there are a number of quite substantial Amendments ahead of us on these next two Parts, and there is a separate clause, Clause 90, devoted specifically to hostel subsidies. I would suggest, if the Committee agrees, that for those two reasons we should defer further consideration of hostel grants and the

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importance of hostels—and there is no doubt that they are important—on this Motion that Clause 74 stand part, and concentrate our attention on the matter when we reach Clause 90.
Clause 74 agreed to.
Clause 75 [Residual subsidies—supplemental]:
1.41 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 111Y:
Page 79, line 22, leave out ("having regard to their normal sources of income").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 111Y and 111Z together. These two Amendments relate to Clause 75, to whose importance the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has drawn our attention. This is perhaps one of the key clauses of the Bill. It cannot be said too loudly or too clearly or be made too widely known that the powers of the Secretary of State can modify the various sums of money mentioned in the clause down to the point when he can say that the actual amount which is substituted shall include zero; that the pipe shall be closed and that subsidies will be continued. It was to underline the importance of this principle that I put down these two Amendments. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree that Clause 75, and particularly subsection (1), is cardinal to everything that we have been discussing up to now on this Bill, and a good deal of the discussion with the Federation has been around this point. I do not think it would be right for me to read right through the agreement which has been reached with the Federation on this point, but a statement of the principles which the Secretary of State would follow has been agreed upon with them. The considerations that he would have in mind, for instance, in deciding what their normal sources of income were, and the sense in which he would interpret this, have all been agreed upon with the Federation, and that statement of principles was incorporated in the OFFICIAL REPORT on the Committee stage in another place. I really have nothing to add to that. It runs to about three pages in my brief, and I think the noble Lord will find there a full explanation.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I agree that this is an important matter, but I accept what my noble friend says. I think the position is partly met by Amendment Nos. 112 and 113. I value the assurances given. This does have effect on the charitable donations which the Federation have been receiving, and the last thing one wants to do is to frighten them off. I hope we may be satisfied that this agreement will have no deleterious effect on that important source of supply.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: In view of the fact that there is clearly a channel of communication between the Minister's Department and the Federation of Housing Associations and that the principles have been laid down so that anyone who wishes to do so may read them, I shall be pleased to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1.46 a.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 112:
Page 79, line 23, after ("expenditure") insert ("(including loan charges)").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 112, and at the same time to speak to Amendments 113, 118 and 124. The effect of all four Amendments is to meet the request made by the voluntary housing movement that capital borrowed from housing associations' own funds should be treated for the purpose of the Bill as if it attracted loan charges, in the same way as capital borrowed from an external source.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I am glad that the Government have agreed to this proposal, and I support the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: I beg to move Amendment No. 113.
Amendment moved—
Page 80, line 11, at end insert—
(""loan charges" includes any loan charges made by a housing association (including charges for debt management) whether in respect of borrowing from any capital fund kept by the housing association, or in respect of borrowing between accounts kept by the housing association for different functions, or otherwise.")—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 75, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 76 [The new building subsidy]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 114:
Page 80, line 19, leave out ("and") and insert ("if they").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. It is really no more than a drafting Amendment in order grammatically to improve this subsection.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
1.48 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 114A:
Page 80, line 27, at end insert ("and shall include all costs admissible for loan sanction and promotion costs").
The noble Lord said: This is an area of the Bill in which I have put down a number of Amendments, in conjunction with my noble friends. They really revolve round the percentage of the original deficit which is to be met by a subsidy. The original intention of the Government, as I understand it, was that the percentage would be placed at 90 per cent., but that due to a point put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, and representations, the figure for the first three years for which subsidies are available has been raised to 100 per cent. This is an extremely valuable decision, since if this figure of 100 had not been put in the Bill I am assured by people who are in a position to know that many housing associations would have gone out of business, and one of the few sources of rented accommodation available to the general public would have been withdrawn. For this reason, I am moving a series of Amendments to make certain that these deficiency payments are not allowed to lapse with the passage of time, but are constantly met with subsidy, assuming that the inflow of funds which is foreseen in Part VIII of the Bill does not take place as rapidly as had been foreseen.
LORD SANDFORD: I am glad the noble Lord recognises that the changes made here, following our debate earlier on, before the Bill was before us, have met the fears and anxieties of the housing associations. On this particular Amendment the explanation I should like to offer to him, in inviting the Committee to resist the Amendment, or in suggesting to him that he might not press it but
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withdraw it, is that whereas it may well be appropriate to allow certain costs for the purposes of loan sanctions—that is to say, for instance, the tolerance above housing yardsticks—it is not necessarily appropriate to allow the same amount in the calculations leading to calculations for subsidy. This point we have met before in an earlier stage of the Bill and it applies here.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: In view of the noble Lord's explanation, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1.52 a.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: I beg to move Amendment No. 115 and at the same time I should like to have considered Amendments Nos. 116 and 117. These are in fact drafting Amendments and they remove these forward-looking references to subsections of Clause 76 which are considered superfluous at this stage.
Amendment moved—
Page 80, line 42, leave out ("as estimated in accordance with subsections (7) to (11) below").—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS YOUNG: I beg to move Amendment No. 116.
Amendment moved—
Page 80, line 46, leave out ("as estimated in accordance with subsections (7) and (11) below").—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS YOUNG: I move Amendment No. 117.
Amendment moved—
Page 81, line 10, leave out ("as estimated in accordance with subsection (7) to (11) below").—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: We have already debated this point, and I beg to move Amendment No. 118.
Amendment moved—
Page 82, line 29, after ("expenditure") insert ("(including loan charges)").—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS YOUNG: I move Amendment No. 119 and should like to have considered at the same time Amendments Nos. 127 and 128. These are drafting Amendments. They set out expressly the

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procedural provisions governing the Secretary of State's Order taking powers under Clauses 76 and 90.
Amendment moved—
Page 83, line 9, leave out subsection (14) and insert
("(14) An order under subsection (13) above shall be made with the concurrence of the Treasury by statutory instrument subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament and may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order under that subsection.")—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 76, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 77 agreed to.
1.55 a.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR moved Amendment No. 119Z:
After Clause 77 insert the following new clause—
Housing for Students
".—(1) The expressions 'housing society', 'housing association' and 'housing trusts' shall include a society, an association, a body of trustees, a trustee, a corporation or a company which is established for the purpose of, or amongst whose objects or powers are included those of constructing, improving or managing or facilitating or encouraging the construction or improvement of residences for students and which otherwise complies respectively with the following statutory provisions, namely:
Section 1(7) and (8) of the Housing Act 1964,
the definition of 'housing associations' in Section 189(1) of the Housing Act 1957, and
the definition of 'housing trust' in the said Section 189(1).
(2)(a) the following amendments shall be made to the Housing Act 1957, namely:

(i) in sections 119 to 124, the expressions 'houses', 'housing accommodation' and 'dwellings' shall include residences for students;

(ii) in section 128 and in the definition of a housing trust in section 189(1) the expression 'houses' shall include residences for students and the expression 'the working classes' shall include students; and

(iii) in the definition of housing associations in section 189(1) the expression 'houses' shall include residences for students.

(b) the following amendments shall be made to the Housing Act 1964, namely:

(i) in section 1(7) and (8) the expressions 'house' and 'houses' shall include residences for students; and

(ii) in section 1(7)(c)(i) after the word 'letting' there shall be inserted the words 'or for the provision, by letting or licence, of residences for students'.

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(c) for the purposes of Part I of this Act the expression 'dwelling' and 'dwellings' shall include residences for students; and in this section of this Act the expression 'students' means those persons who are engaged in a course of study which is prescribed by the Minister by order for the purposes of this section."

The noble Lord said: On behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, with whom I have been in touch, I beg to move the new clause, Amendment No. 119Z. It is in fact in virtually the same terms as a later new clause of mine, Amendment No. 122, and I suggest that it might be for your Lordships' convenience if we considered at the same time three further Amendments standing in my name—Nos. 123, 140 and 142. I think I should also observe that there are four other Amendments in the Marshalled List, Nos. 119ZB, 126A, 139E and 141A, which all bear on one or other aspect of this general subject of student housing. As those four Amendments stand in the names of other noble Lords, I cannot ask that they should be considered together, but it may be convenient for your Lordships to have a general debate on the whole subject. It seems to me to be a subject of great importance, and I venture to think that it is considerably less controversial—at any rate in the Party sense—than many of the other Amendments which we have been discussing on this Bill in the last seven or eight days.
I want to make a wholehearted appeal to the Government to approach far more actively this problem of student housing. At this time of night I do not think there is any necessity for me to quote to your Lordships facts and figures showing how acute the problems of student accommodation already are and how much more acute they will become with the further growth of universities and colleges. My second point is that there are many student housing associations—I believe some 30 of them—which are anxious to prove that students are prepared, by means of self-help, to make a contribution towards solving their own problems and I submit to your Lordships that this is something which Parliament should support by every possible means. Thirdly, in so far as this problem cannot be solved for students, that is bound to have an adverse impact on the general housing situation in all those places where there are universities and colleges. It is vitally

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linked up with the general housing problems of those towns and cannot be considered in isolation from them.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, and I moved or supported Amendments very similar to these when the Labour Government's Housing Bill of 1969 was under consideration in your Lordships' House. We received friendly reactions from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who was in charge of the Bill, though he explained why not much had happened until then. Afterwards we met another of the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, who was very sympathetic, but it did not result in any marked improvements, so far as I could see, in the way of Government action.
Let me say here that the student housing association with which I was at that time in close touch seemed to me a most responsible, level-headed body. I have had in my time to read countless memoranda and presentations of cases, and I have seldom seen anything that was better argued and more carefully set out than the written material produced by that body. I believe that this has been recognised also in the Departments. So this is not a case of a few students trying to extract some advantage for themselves from public money; rather it is a case of students getting together and being prepared to work extremely hard and carefully in order that students can, by self-help, be enabled to do something practical to solve their own problems of accommodation.
These new clauses and the related Amendments are designed to make it absolutely clear on the face of the Statutes that student housing associations are included within the general category of housing associations that can qualify for Government assistance. The case of both Governments—the present Government and their predecessors—has been that there is no need for amendments in the law because the present law is wide enough to permit local authorities to extend the benefits of housing association law to student housing associations. That may well be so, and in that case these Amendments of ours may be otiose. But this seems to be the one way in which to seek to bring home to the Government the necessity of doing something by adminis-
782
trative action which the Government itself state the law allows.
I was somewhat discouraged by the words of the present Minister, Mr. Amery, in Standing Committee E on March 28, when he said, in answer to similar Amendments moved in another place:
"There is nothing in the Bill which … discriminates against students. They are entitled to receive allowances or rebates and nothing in the Bill would prevent a student housing association from being subsidised. … It has been hitherto an administrative decision not to do so. Nothing in the law prevents it."
That may be, and doubtless is, the position; but it does not seem to me to be a position that your Lordships' House can accept. We must press further. We must by some means or other obtain action. In any event, the local authorities have in the main been slow to believe that they were empowered to assist housing associations, and that is one reason for making it plain on the face of the law that they can. They have been further discouraged by the Department of the Environment's refusal of approval even to schemes agreed between student housing associations and the local authorities concerned. I know that this happened in Brighton in respect of the University of Sussex, and I believe that it has also happened in Southampton in relation to the University there, and may be elsewhere, too.
The reason given by the Department is that it has now been decided that student housing is the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science and not of the Department of the Environment. My first comment on that is that the Department of the Environment, as the Ministry with overall responsibility for housing, cannot opt out of this. In so far as adequate provision is not made for student housing accommodation, it simply means that the pressure on general housing wherever there is a university or college or polytechnic will be so much the worse. The students will be the more sharply in competition with others like themselves, but outside the student field, for cheap accommodation: in particular, families with low incomes, people like nurses and apprentices who are living on their own away from home, and so forth. And that kind of accommodation is in short supply, and is not increasing; in general, with the pressures on private landlords, its

783
availability is diminishing. So this problem of student needs, unless it is solved by the Government as a whole, is going greatly to worsen the general housing shortage in the places affected. In saying all this I am not singling out the present Government for attack; I would have said just the same kind of thing about its predecessors. I am not doubting that there is good will; what I am doubting is whether there is sufficient readiness to act.
That brings me to my second comment on the decision of the Government to leave responsibility for all this to the Department of Education and Science. My second point is that that Department does not seem seized of the urgency of the matter. I believe I am right in saying that about three months ago—nearly three years after your Lordships had agreed in debate on the 1969 Bill that problems of student housing associations were truly urgent—the Department of Education and Science told the local authority associations that it had started thinking about a research project on the problems of student housing associations. It would not surprise me at all to know that the reaction of the local authority associations was that these problems were urgent and certainly could not await the outcome of research projects belatedly started.
My object in tabling these Amendments is to ventilate the whole subject afresh and to try to stimulate action, and also to rebut the view that it is reasonable for the Department of the Environment to wash its hands of this integral part of the housing problem and leave it to the Department of Education and Science with its more academic and apparently non-urgent approach. I beg to move.
2.8 a.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I am certain the whole Committee is grateful to the noble Lord for staying to this late hour to raise this important issue. He said he would not weary your Lordships with figures, but I would like to give two figures to indicate the size of the problem. In 1970 there were just under 500,000 members of the student population. Ten years later it is expected that there will be just over 700,000, an increase of 200,000. I would remind your Lordships that the age of majority
784
these days is 18 years. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has pointed out, there is an exercise in "buck passing" going on between the Department of the Environment and the Department of Education and Science. We know that it is administratively possible for the Department of the Environment to assist student housing associations. We know also and have learned that the will is lacking.
I think there is a complete misunderstanding of the situation. Every one of us is two separate beings; we employ ourselves by day and we are a householder as well. But whereas it is perfectly possible for a young man married at 21 to get a house within a housing association, a student of the same age and also married finds it extremely difficult; and really there is no difference in their situations at all. One happens to be working in a factory; the other is setting out to prepare himself for an occupation of a somewhat different kind, although he, too, might finish up in a factory.
It is as nonsensical to say that student housing is a problem for the Department of Education and Science as it would be to say that industrial housing was the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry. This is an exact parallel, and if one states it in this way one can see what a nonsense the whole situation is. All I wish to do at this late hour is to support most strongly the appeal made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and ask the Department of the Environment to recognise the fact that students in these days are mature beings. Many of them are married and most of them are responsible, and they are as capable of taking part in and running specialised housing associations designed for students as are any other social groups in this country.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I well remember the occasion referred to by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor when we had a debate in which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, expressed great sympathy but also said that other priorities came before students, rather suggesting that if the resources were devoted to students it would mean suffering for other classes, such as the elderly. I cannot believe that is true to-day. The position is really quite different. One Party has the same

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arguments directed against it by the other Party, and so it goes on. From what I remember of this question, and having discussed it at considerable length with the Federation of Housing Associations, I would agree that a real effort ought to be made now to put the matter on a new footing.
2.12 a.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke, and the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for their constructive speeches. They have put their points very cogently and succinctly. I am grateful also to my noble friend Lord Gage for supporting them. I took the precaution of looking up the debate on the 1969 Act, as it is now, and noted what was said there. I should like to summarise the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. He said that for housing purposes students were treated the same as anyone else. Certainly that is the case so far as the law is concerned. If they are in housing need, they may be housed, like anyone else, by a council, especially if they are married and have a family. If they want to form a housing association, as the law now is they could enter into an authorised arrangement with a housing authority, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for the Environment, to provide housing and to get housing grants. Under the Bill the situation changes a little since for subsidy purposes a student housing association would deal directly with the Department of the Environment, so that there would be only one discretion to be exercised and not two.
My noble friend Lord Brooke referred to schemes which housing associations had agreed on with local authorities and for which the Secretary of State had refused to make grants. I can tell him that the Brighton case is not closed and that the Department of the Environment has told the local Member of Parliament that it will consider further approaches from the local authority and the University of Sussex about the actual need for student accommodation in Brighton and how it might best be met. I am not certain I quite agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, when he drew the parallel between the steel workers being the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry if students were to be regarded as the responsibility
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of the Department of Education and Science. The reason here is that the periods are different. A man who takes a job in the steel industry would hope and expect to remain there for several years, whereas the term of a student, even a research student, is apt to be limited. There is also the fact that only a limited number of students regard the university town in which they reside as their home.
I would not myself decry in any way the idea of a research project on student housing, because that would be the best way of determining a national policy on this matter. So far as there is a national policy at the moment, it is that the Department of Education and Science is responsible for student housing and it has done a good deal in this field. In the years 1966–67 to 1970–71, there was an increase in the number of students in residence from 35 per cent. to nearly 40 per cent., and in terms of numbers there was an increase of one-third or 22,750. The number is expected to grow by one-third of the 1970–71 figures in the present quinquennium. So it is not that the special needs of students, as students, are being neglected. The question is really whether in particular areas the pressure on accommodation through the growth of students is becoming too much for local authorities to meet. This can really be said to be a local problem and that is the way it is being regarded at the present time.
I assure my noble friend that this matter is being taken very seriously, and the mere fact that the Brighton case—where student housing associations have been in touch with the local authority and the Secretary of State—is still open indicates this. I hope I have said enough to show that this issue is not being neglected in any way. The Department of the Environment has always accepted that married students have the same claim on housing provided by local authorities and voluntary bodies as all other married members of the community. At the moment, as part of the study of student accommodation issues, Ministers at the Department of Education and Science have been holding talks with a number of organisations, including the National Union of Students, concerned with such matters. Once the Secretary of State for Education and Science has completed her consideration of the various points put

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to her, she will be better able to judge in what ways further accommodation might be provided. If she thinks it appropriate, she will be free to propose solutions which would involve providing accommodation for students under existing housing powers. Meantime, she is currently considering the University Grants Committee's advice, both on the general development of the universities in the 1972–77 quinquennium, and on the provision of further residential accommodation related to it.
What comes out of this, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said in the previous debate, is that there is no legal impediment so far as student accommodation is concerned. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor said that what is required is an Amendment to make it clear in the face of the law that student housing associations are not debarred. They are not debarred. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, explained why, in his view, it would be a mistake to make special reference to students. All I can say is that the Department of the Environment as well as the Department of Education and Science are looking at these problems on a place-by-place basis and the Secretary of State for Education and Science is consulting those concerned and considering the University Grants Committee's recommendations. I hope that I have said enough to show that this problem is very much on the mind of the Government. But I am bound still to take the position that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, took in 1969, that it would not be appropriate to make special mention of students' housing needs in the various Statutes, nor would it necessarily be effective to do so.
This debate has drawn the attention of the Government, if this needed to be done, to these problems once again. The powers are there. What is not yet there is the wider study that is necessary before a national policy can be formulated. But I hope that from the discussions and consultations that are going on we may reach a decision on whether it is better to treat this problem, as it is being treated at present, on a place-by-place basis or on the basis of a national policy. But I can assure my noble friend that it is being treated on a place-by-place basis at the present time.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Before the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, comes to reply I want to make two points. First of all, if there is to be a research project (and I have no objection to it), cannot a date be fixed by which there shall be a report? It could be 18 months or two years. It is a very old device to set up a committee or a research project in order to postpone an unpopular or unpleasant decision. Let us give it even two years, but that is the longest time it should get in which to report. A second point I want to make is that the Minister's speech reminded me of a couplet of Pope's:
"Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
"Officiously to keep alive."
That seems to me to be the attitude of the Government at the moment.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn for the trouble he has taken to reply to my remarks on this new clause; but it would be an exaggeration to say that I am satisfied with his reply. I intend to withdraw this Amendment and not move the others standing in my name because I must accept that technically there is nothing in the law to exclude students. The fact is that up until now, in practice, they have been generally excluded from these facilities.
In 1969 the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, replied to a similar Amendment. He said that at that time his right honourable friend was giving advice to local authorities based on the general idea that these student housing associations ought to provide housing for the same sort of people as councils themselves normally housed. He went on from that to argue that councils did not normally house young single men and women—although some of them do—and that therefore there would not be very much chance under his Administration for the single student. But what my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn said to-day proves that in certain towns and cities special action has got to be taken for single students. I was not quite sure that I followed his argument about having a national policy yet basing it entirely on local inquiries in certain places. I welcome the local inquiries; it may be that this problem must be settled bit by bit, but we cannot drift on having one local investigation after another and no national policy.

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My noble friend referred to the University Grants Committee. He quoted some figures of the number of students for whom accommodation had been provided. I guess—though I cannot be quite sure—that those figures related solely to university students and did not include the students at non-university colleges—the polytechnics and so on. That part of the problem is certainly unsolved. I must give notice to the Government that I shall continue to press this matter even when this Bill has reached the Statute Book. I have served as Minister for Housing, and I know that one has to look ahead and take administrative if not legislative action well before a problem festers so badly that it needs surgery. I hope I have satisfied your Lordships to-night that there is a real difficulty here which can be solved only by much greater application of urgency in the Departments concerned. Having said that—
2.27 a.m.
LORD BESWICK: If the noble Lord is going to withdraw his Amendment, I wonder whether he would allow his noble friend opposite first to give some answer about the time-scale involved. My noble friend asked whether there was to be any time by which these researches would be concluded. I should like to ask whether all these talks about which we have been told are going to lead to some sort of decision within a measurable time; and, if so, what is that time.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am sorry that I cannot answer the question about how long a research project would take; nor do I know when the consultations will actually mature. But, of course, plans have to be made for the next quinquennium—the 1972–77 quinquennium—so that decisions on expenditure for the next quinquennium by the Department of Education and Science can be made; and it is on this side, I suppose, that the special provisions for single students would lie. But I should like an opportunity to go into this further, and if the noble Lord cares to put down a Question on this I will gladly try to answer it.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am grateful to my noble friend for saying that he will go into this further. I hope he will go further not only into the ques-
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tion of date but into the whole subject in all its aspects. I see that in the discussions on the 1969 Bill I poured rather cool water on a suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that a working party should be set up. I said:
"I confess I am sometimes suspicious of working parties, which spend a lot of time working but may not produce expeditious results."
I think those words of mine have been justified by the history of the past three years. Nevertheless, we cannot take the matter further tonight, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I think perhaps we have gone as far as we need go tonight. I beg to move the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.