Lords Sitting of 4 May 1972

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

IRAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will draw the attention of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations to the allegations of inhuman treatment of the opponents to the régime in Iran.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I do not know of the specific allegations to which the noble Lord refers. But I would point out that we are restricted by the United Nations Charter from interfering in the domestic affairs of a member state.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the noble Marquess aware that I shall be glad to send him evidence? Is it also not the case that while we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries we have the right as a Government to bring such matters to the attention of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations? Is the noble Marquess aware that when I send him the evidence he will probably find that Iran is a greater offender in this respect than any country in the world, Communist, semi-Fascist, African or Asian?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I shall be glad to receive any details of evidence that the noble Lord cares to send to me and I will pass them on to my right honourable friend. I should also like to confirm what the noble Lord says: we participate fully in the discussions in the Human Rights Commission. As for the noble Lord's specific question, as I say, if he cares to let me
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have any details I will see that they are passed on to my right honourable friend.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, although the noble Marquess says he has not received any information about these allegations, did not Her Majesty's Government receive documents from Amnesty International at the end of last year, including a complaint about the detention of Amnesty International's representative who was sent to Iran to investigate the conditions of the detainees? In view of the fact that foreign citizens are involved as well as the citizens of Iran, is this not a matter which should legitimately be placed before the Human Rights Commission?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I will certainly look into what the noble Lord has said.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who know Iran would not agree with the very severe strictures uttered on Iran by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway?
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for his reply—which has become almost a daily expression—may I ask him whether it is the case that the Federal Government of Germany have shown concern about this matter, following the visit of Chancellor Brandt? Have there been any communications from that Government to other Western Governments on this matter?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot answer the noble Lord on that point without notice; but I will certainly look into the matter for him.

POLYESTER IMPORTS FROM JAPAN
3.11 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Rhodes I desire to ask the Questions standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Questions were as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they recognise that the high level of imports into the United Kingdom by Japanese polyester producers

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is a major threat to the United Kingdom fibre-producing industry.
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the threat to employment in the United Kingdom through imports of polyester filament yarn from Japan.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I shall answer together the two Questions on imports of polyester filament yarns from Japan. Representations about these imports have been made to Her Majesty's Government by the principal United Kingdom producers and are currently being urgently considered. Among the factors which my right honourable friend will necessarily be taking into account are the employment outlook and the extent to which these imports may have displaced home production.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, in view of the fact that the two Questions have been answered together I hope your Lordships will agree to my supplementary question being in three parts. When does the noble Lord expect a decision to be arrived at in the discussions that are now taking place with the Department of Trade and Industry to effectively deal with the dumping by Japan of this product in this country? Is he aware that this dumping process has had an important bearing on the increase by Japan of their share of this trade to the United Kingdom from 2 per cent. in 1970 to 20 per cent. in January of this year? What steps are the Government taking to deal with the dumping that took place when America, by their 10 per cent. surcharge and by their quota system, refused to allow Japanese goods to be offloaded in America? The goods were sent to Cherbourg and the customs officers refused to allow them to be unloaded there. They were then dumped in this country. Is the noble Lord further aware that what is now taking place is responsible for the loss of at least 1,000 jobs which will not be available in the future in this country, chiefly in Northern Ireland?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord's first supplementary question, as to when the decision is likely to be taken, I said that this matter was being urgently considered,
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and it will certainly be within the next few days. On the second point, as to how far imports from Japan have increased, I think that the figures the noble Lord gave were correct. He asked what steps the Government were taking to deal with the imports. This is all part of the decision that has to be taken and I do not think he will expect me to give an answer to-day. The same applies to the question of a thousand jobs. I am not aware that a thousand jobs have been lost at the present time.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, arising out of the Minister's reply, is this not a case where Her Majesty's Government might already have either introduced anti-dumping duties or, alternatively, better still, invoked the safeguarding clauses of the 1962 Anglo-Japanese Commercial Treaty? Could not such action have been taken already, and if it has not been taken may we have an assurance that it is going to be very soon?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the invoking of these clauses would of course depend on Her Majesty's Government's being satisfied that dumping has taken place within the meaning of the Act, and that is one of the matters being looked at.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say how much of the yarn is at present introduced duty-free? Furthermore, can he say that he is assured, according to the Act, that it is in the national interest that that percentage should in fact come into the country duty-free?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, all these questions are being looked at, but I am sure my noble friend realises that duty-free imports are allowed only where the imports are used for the manufacture of goods which are going to be exported, and it may be in the national interest to maintain this.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, while I think the House would say that my noble friend Lord Popplewell is absolutely right to put these questions on a specific industry that is causing him and other people great anxiety, may I ask whether it is not a fact that over the past few years the balance of trade between

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Japan and the United Kingdom has been very satisfactory, in the sense that frequently the balance is in our favour? I am speaking about trade as a whole.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords. I agree that in general it is in the interests of this country not to prevent imports, because if we did so we should lose exports.
VISCOUNT BOYD OF MERTON: My Lords, may I declare an interest as a director of Imperial Chemical Industries and ask my noble friend whether he is aware that, of the four firms making these yarns in the United Kingdom, one has one of its major plants in Northern Ireland and is currently paying out about £5 million a year in wages and salaries, that the other three have their only plants in Northern Ireland, and that these imports have now reached crisis dimensions?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am aware of the facts that the noble Viscount has given as to where the production takes place. But as to the question of whether these are crisis levels of imports, I hope he will allow me not to make any statement about that to-day.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, in the light of the concern expressed in the House, I wonder whether, in the consideration of what I am sure all noble Lords agree is a difficult and complex subject, the noble Lord would consider letting the House know, by means of a Statement, what the results of that consideration are, particularly in relation to the obligations of international and our own laws in the matter? It is difficult to judge now.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords, I shall be very glad to consider that suggestion. But I must make it clear that it must be completely without commitment. It will depend very much on the circumstances.

PROBATION OFFICERS' LONDON WEIGHTING ALLOWANCE
3.18 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: 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 a decision in respect of London weighting allowance to probation officers in the Inner London area has yet been made.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, I regret that the Answer to the Question is: Not yet. A new proposal was recently put to the Joint Negotiating Committee for the Probation Service, but they found it unacceptable. Her Majesty's Government are at the moment considering the position further.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Viscount, the Minister, for his reply. May I ask him whether he would point out in no uncertain manner to his right honourable friend in another place that this matter has been going on for several months now; that the typists and clerical assistants employed by the probation officers in these four London boroughs are receiving a London weighting of £144 a year, yet the probation officers in these boroughs are not to have more than £105? This really is a ridiculous situation when the sum involved, as there are only 111 probation officers in the area concerned, amounts to just over £4,000.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not need to point out this matter to my right honourable friend; he is very well aware of it. He answered a Question on this very matter on April 27 in another place. He said that he knew it was irritating to a large number of people and he wanted to get it cleared up as soon as possible. I know that he means that. As to the facts the noble Lord has mentioned, these are, so far as the other grades are concerned, quite correct; but the whole point is whether the weighting allowance of £105, or some other figure, shall be applied to the probation officers, and that is at the moment under negotiation.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I hesitate to pursue this matter but I know the extent of feeling that exists in the Inner London Probation Service at the present moment. May I ask the noble Viscount whether he would point out to his right honourable friend that if the Criminal Justice Bill becomes an Act

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its success will depend largely on the Probation Services, and at the present moment they are in two minds about operating it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, this is a most serious point. Again I do not think I need point it out to my right honourable friend, and certainly I do not need to point it out to myself, who will soon be dealing with the Criminal Justice Bill. But I will bear in mind what the noble Lord has said and I can assure him that we are aware of the urgency of this matter.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, does my noble friend realise that some of us on this side of the House have similar feelings about the Probation Service and we are equally disturbed about this delay?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount this question? In view of the fact that the probation officer is a key figure in the prevention of crime, why does not the Home Office recognise this and give him priority?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think there is any question of the Home Office not recognising it. The specific figure of London weighting is a matter for negotiation at the moment. It is a detailed point; there is a joint negotiating committee and I hope that your Lordships will agree that these matters must be handled carefully. At the moment the probation officers have refused the latest suggestion that has been put forward, and we must process the matter from there. I am well aware of this, and of the feelings mentioned by my noble friend and the noble Baroness.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his predecessor also showed considerable sympathy in this matter? Is he further aware that we expect that the present occupant of this post will show his considerable powers of persuasion to get this matter to a satisfactory conclusion much more speedily than has so far been the case?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am obliged for the suggestion that I should be able to add speed to a matter which is already being under
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taken with a great deal of urgency, but I will pass on what the noble Lord has said, and if there is anything further I can do I will do it.

THE WHITSUN RECESS
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships I should like to make a business statement. Subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Whitsun Recess on Thursday, May 18, and resume on Monday, June 5.
CLYDE RIVER PURIFICATION BOARD BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

LAND CHARGES BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the registration of land charges and other instruments and matters affecting land. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 13a, and to be printed.

COMPANIES (FLOATING CHARGES AND RECEIVERS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

PERFORMERS' PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
3.27 p.m.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I think I should declare an interest in that since introducing this Bill I have reflected that I am a director of two or three companies that might conceivably in the future benefit by the consequences of the Bill, but none of the companies would have been concerned to promote the Bill and it would not have entered their heads to do so. Nevertheless, I think it right to say that commercial interests might conceivably arise.
My Lords, I can be very brief indeed. I do not think it would be right to describe this as a benevolent Bill because I do not think any Bill which merely serves to increase penalties can appropriately be so described. I think it may be described as a highly salutary matter. Before I go into brief details, perhaps I might describe the purpose of the Bill and why it arises. It has been discovered that a number of enterprising gentry are pursuing what, to them, is the profitable course of manufacturing what are known, I believe, as "blackleg" recordings. The method they use is to tape recordings from actual radio or television performances or film reproductions, or actually to extract tapes from recording studios and to produce illicit and unauthorised records which are put on sale to the public at highly competitive prices, since they are absolved from many of the costs and fees that would arise if their business was of a more legitimate and less enterprising nature. Not unnaturally, they can charge less for the recording. I do not think anyone could approbate this practice, which is of course particularly obnoxious to the commercial recording companies who make the recordings and whose trade is thereby unfairly affected, and, perhaps more from my point of view, it is particularly obnoxious to the performers who fail to receive the legitimate payments and royalties which often come their way in respect of such recordings. Hence, discouraging any such practice is, I think, a wise and desirable thing to do.
There is a small legislative code which has operated and is designed (and, so far as the actual substance of the offences
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is concerned, effectively designed) to prevent this sort of thing happening. But as so often happens with penal measures, the penalty has become almost derisory. People do not mind paying a fine of £50 when (as not so long ago happened in one case) there have been pressings of some 13,000 recordings of a particular unauthorised and illegal recording, of which only 4,000 are destroyed when they are seized by the police and 9,000 have already been sold at a profit to the manufacturers of some thirty shillings per recording. If one could achieve a transaction of that kind a penalty of £50 a time levied on someone who is otherwise unemployed might well be considered an advantageous field in which to operate. Certainly people with fewer moral scruples than noble Lords do consider it a profitable field in which to operate, and the hope is that the suggested substituted penalties in this short Bill which makes no change to the substantive law, since no change is required, will be a sufficient deterrent to prevent people from doing it.
Needless to say, the Bill has the support of the performers; it has the support of the reputable and respectable commercial record manufacturers; it has the support of the Musicians' Union, of Equity and, in the somewhat ambiguous phrase, of those who briefed me for this purpose, it has the "moderate support of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A." I must leave it to noble Lords to construe that. I can only interpret it myself as meaning that if they could have seized some honourable opportunity to make a slight use of these misdemeanours, they might have done so! Confronted with this situation they are apparently not opposed to this measure.
All in all, I cannot think of anyone who is likely to be opposed to such a measure, except on purely technical grounds. I doubt whether there are any interests in this House which represent the actual malefactors. Some noble Lords may think that the penalties proposed are too moderate. The amendment of the previous Act is slightly anomalous in the sense that the major and more severe combined penalty is reserved for the making of recordings; and for other infringements of the Act, although the penalties are increased, there is not a suggestion

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that there should be an alternative prison sentence. My own view is that the alternative of a possible sentence of imprisonment is really indispensable if this measure is to have "teeth". I do not think that one can impose financial penalties that will have sufficient reality to enable them to be an effective deterrent. Often the people doing these things are not, at an early stage of their criminal activities, sufficiently prosperous to make a financial penalty have any real meaning, so that the deterrent of a possible sentence of imprisonment is, I think, indispensable, and although in a way something that nobody is particularly enthusiastic about, I think unavoidable if we are to protect the interests of one of the most deserving sections of the community and in many ways one of the least rewarded.
I think on the technical matters there is really nothing more I need to add. The previous measures which the Bill amends make perfectly clear the actions that constitute offences which are covered by the Act. They protect very thoroughly infringements against performances which ought to be protected, excepting those which are made for purely domestic or private use. I do not think anyone would suggest in those circumstances there was any particular vice in allowing it. What has gone wrong is, of course, that the money penalty is inadequate, and therefore there is, I am told, an increasingly prevalent practice of regarding the Act as being no very effective safeguard when people want to make a quick penny at the expense of their fellow men. Hence I have no hesitation in commending this Bill to your Lordships and asking that you give it a Second Reading, so that it may in due course pass into law and become an effective method for preventing some small inadequacy in our legal system that we are so simply able to repair. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Goodman.)
3.33 p.m.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I imagine that every Member of your Lordships' House will want to support this modest measure. It has the support of all the trade unions—Equity, the Musicians' Union and all others con
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cerned; it has the support of every reputable producer. It is in the interests of performers. What we may have to look at on Committee stage is whether we think the deterrents to piracy are adequate. But as this is a Second Reading, and as Lord Goodman with his usual lucidity has stated the main points of this measure, I hope that without further ado we can agree to give it a Second Reading, and if any noble Lord wants to make any modification there will be ample time to do so on Committee stage.
3.34 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT or TRADE AND INDUSTRY (THE EARL OF LIMERICK): My Lords, as you have heard, this Bill seeks to curb the making of sound recordings without the permission of performers. I propose to use the colloquial term "bootleggers" for those who take part in this activity. I noted that Lord Goodman referred to them as "blacklegs", but I do not think we need cross swords on that point. I think the proposition that will command the support of the House is that both blacklegging and bootlegging are reprehensible activities. It is perhaps appropriate to draw a distinction here between the bootlegger and the pirate, both of whom prey upon performers and upon the record industry. The nature of the former's activities we have heard described; the latter, the pirate, also much in the news in recent years, makes and sells copies of existing records without the permission of the copyright holder. Fortunately, record piracy has not so far been a major problem in this country. On the other hand, as we have heard, bootlegging is on the increase, particularly where performance of popular music is concerned, and the penalties under the Performers' Protection Acts are insufficient to stop an illicit trade whose rewards are likely to exceed by a wide margin any fine which may currently be imposed under the Acts.
At the time when the Acts became law it probably could not have been foreseen that the ready availability of recording devices, coupled with the increase in the number of concerts of popular music held under informal conditions, would cause the production of bootleg records on a

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substantial scale to become the reality which it now is. But this indeed is what seems to have happened. It is also said that there is an assured market for the products of these operations, because the public taste for the novel and the unusual in popular music results in a certain cachet attaching to bootleg records, notwithstanding the fact that they are likely to be much inferior in quality to what is produced in recording studios. In these circumstances, and particularly if "bootleg" performances of records reach the market before authorised records of studio performances of the same work, performers are deprived of the payments which they would normally receive for the recording of their performance and for the subsequent sale of their records to the public. The record industry, too, is adversely affected by the sale of "bootleg" records in competition with records legitimately produced and paid for by the industry.
Thus there seems to be a case for strengthening the protection which the performers enjoy, and I accept that the penalties which may be imposed under the Acts are insufficient for the purpose of deterring "bootleggers". I accept also that the proposal in the Bill to make the Acts apply to officers of bodies corporate could make the Acts more readily enforceable against offenders who might otherwise escape the full consequences of detection. The Government therefore see good in the Bill and hope the strengthened Acts will go at least some way to enabling those who suffer to put the "bootleggers" out of business.
3.36 p.m.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I have not put my name down to speak on this Bill, and I will not detain your Lordships for more than a moment. I entirely support this Bill. It deals with an important right of performers. The present situation has really made the penalties derisory; therefore I should have thought that the case for some increase in the penalties is overwhelming, particularly bearing in mind—and this is a point which has to be remembered—that under the existing Acts, and of course as amended, there is no civil right of action on the part of performers if they are injured in this way.
The only point I wish to make in addition is on the new section which it is
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proposed to introduce; that is, the new Section 4A, which refers to the liability of directors. I am wondering whether the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has fully considered the exact form of this provision, which provides for liability if the directors consent or connive on the one hand, or, alternatively, if an act committed is attributable to any neglect of theirs. Of course most of the offences under these Acts are offences committed knowingly, and it seems to me, for the moment at any rate, that there may be some inconsistency if we are going to make directors liable for a mere neglect in regard to an offence which, so far as the corporation itself is concerned, has to be made knowingly. I may be wrong, but I should have thought that a little reflection on the exact form of this section would be justified and might perhaps be made before the Committee stage is reached. But, subject to that small point, I warmly support the provisions of this Bill.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I can be very brief indeed. As to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, I think it does call for consideration, and I am much obliged to him. Perhaps we shall have an opportunity of considering it at Committee stage. It seems to me inconsistent, now that he has pointed it out, that you can have an offence of absolute liability which relates to the commission by someone else of an offence of which he must have knowledge. I think that is a point where correction should be made. I am most indebted for the observations that came from the Government Bench, and I trust, in consequence, that we may hope to see the Bill passed in a reasonable space of time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TRADE DESCRIPTIONS BILL
3.40 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Second Reading of the Trade Descriptions Bill. Before I talk about the Bill, there are three things that I should like to say in connection with it. First of all, this is not a Party political Bill, and in the other place the sponsors were Members from both sides of the House.

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Secondly, I have read the debate in another place with some care, and I think that there were no Divisions during the passage of the Bill, and the list of sponsors contained names of Members of both political Parties. There were criticisms, of course, during the Second Reading debate and the Committee stage, and I hope that in your Lordships' House there will be constructive suggestions put forward, which the Promoters of the Bill will be very pleased to consider. Thirdly, the Bill will be treated as part of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, and will be operated by the weights and measures authorities, who have a statutory duty to enforce the clauses of the Bill. Any penalties incurred under the Bill will be dealt with as in Section 18 of the 1968 Act. In effect, there is nothing very new in the Bill, but I hope your Lordships will agree when I have presented the Bill that it does a useful piece of work in connection with consumer protection.
This Bill is a Bill to clarify the law to prevent people selling goods or articles in this country under false indications of origin. It is in fact a small addition to the consumer protection legislation which began as far back as 1887 with the Merchandise Marks Act. Forty years later, there came another Merchandise Marks Act. This was the Act under whose provisions Orders in Council were made making it necessary for goods brought into this country to bear the name of the manufacturer and trader, and an indication of origin. Then in 1953 the Merchandise Marks Act recognised that over the whole field of trade descriptions there existed a possibility that certain marks could not be interpreted as a direct or indirect indication of origin, but were likely to be construed as such by the shopping public. In fact, there was some uncertainty in the legislation. This was the background which led to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, then at the Board of Trade, appointing a Committee on consumer affairs, the famous Malony Committee. Out of their Report came the 1968 Act which your Lordships debated at length and which is now the law of the land and approved by all political Parties.
Now we come to the present Bill which I am presenting to the House. The case for this Bill is to give greater precision
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and certainty to the marking of imported goods so that the public will know for sure whether the goods are really made in the United Kingdom. It is not the object of the Bill to insist that all imported goods should have the mark of origin, but only those which might masquerade as British manufacture when they in fact are not. There is no doubt that there is a threat of foreign goods being passed off under United Kingdom trade names to-day. I can give your Lordships just two examples. One country with low labour costs advertised in this country that they had been exporting fine quality goods for years, but the fact is not known here because when the goods arrive in Britain they have on them a British brand name. Another firm in another country has written to a number of British manufacturers offering to supply them with goods to their own standards, and in their own form of presentation, so that they could be sold as if they were made in the United Kingdom.
It is to meet this threat, as well as the one whereby imported goods bear names or marks which, although not actually United Kingdom names or marks, are likely to be taken as such, that Clause 1 of the Bill provides that any United Kingdom name or mark, or anything likely to be taken for a United Kingdom name or mark, applied to imported goods must be accompanied by a conspicuous indication of the country in which the goods were manufactured or produced. Therefore, that clause would meet an important threat of that kind to manufacturers.
Clause 1(2) excludes from the Bill blends and materials and mixtures of the same kind. It seemed to me that this was the part of the Bill which in another place was more closely questioned. It may well be that we in this House may find a suitable Amendment to clarify the clause if any of your Lordships feel that it requires to be so clarified. Clause 1(3) excludes containers and labels used for other goods which are to be supplied commercially. The consumer is concerned with the origin of the goods and not with the packaging or the labelling. I feel that any label—and we used to be very strong on this in Consumer Council days—must give adequate information, and that is the important matter in connection with labelling. Clause 1(4) gives

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the Secretary of State power, by Statutory Instrument, to waive or relax certain matters if there are any particular circumstances which might cause difficulties.
There are some matters deliberately not covered by the provisions of the Bill. For instance, it is not practicable for the provisions of the Bill to embrace every kind of indication of origin. That would be an enormous task. Nor do I think it would be desirable so to do. For example, the inference the public would be likely to draw from finding goods in a container of all-over tartan pattern would almost certainly be insufficiently negatived by a statement of origin. It has been suggested that imported goods bearing any English words should also be required to bear an indication of origin. To do so, however, would present considerable difficulties. Here again, I think one must depend upon the label, because consumers in the present day hope to get very adequate labelling on all they buy; and also if the label is in a foreign language that there should be a translation of that language so that people can understand it. I think that the importance of labelling is very great indeed.
The important thing about this Bill is that it picks out things which are particularly likely to deceive the consumer, but much in the 1968 legislation will catch those people who deliberately try to deceive the public with the indication of origin, or in any other way. There are those who would like to see imported goods which bear no name or mark at all being required to bear an indication of origin. We do not think that that is necessary. If goods bear no name or mark they will not, of course, attract the provisions of this Bill as masquerading as United Kingdom products. In the absence of a name or mark people will not, or should not anyway, interpret them as goods made in the United Kingdom.
Clause 2 of the Bill deals with defences. I said at the beginning of my speech that this Bill will be part of the Trade Descriptions Act and anyone breaking the law will be subject to the penalties under that Act, but there are two special defences in Clause 2 of this Bill which I should like to bring to your Lordships' attention. The first is that the name or mark had not been applied by the person charged,
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"and that he did not know, and could not, with reasonable diligence, have ascertained that the goods were manufactured outside the United Kingdom".
This is the closest possible equivalent to Section 24(3) of the Trade Descriptions Act, which provides for the comparable offence of supplying goods to which a false trade description has been applied. The second defence is that the person,
"did not know and had no reason to believe, that the name or mark was, or was likely to be taken for, a United Kingdom name or mark."
This provision is necessary to take care of the special problem of names which, although in no way British sounding, are the names of traders carrying on business obscurely in the United Kingdom and whose presence it would be very difficult for other traders outside the area to know about.
Under subsection (2) of Clause 4, a period of six months is laid down before the Act comes into force. This is to allow traders to dispose of goods already in the pipeline, or of imported goods of unknown origin which are in their hands. Obviously, people must have an opportunity of disposing of goods which they have obtained, but they will not be able to take in goods of a similar kind once the Bill has become law. This is a short Bill, which I think has the approval of all those Members of another place and here who are interested in consumer affairs. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
3.52 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships would like to thank the noble Baroness, whose interest in consumer affairs and consumer protection is so well-known, for the way in which she has introduced this Bill. If what I say seems a little ungracious it is directed not at the noble Baroness but at the content of the Bill itself. As the noble Baroness has explained, this Bill will be embodied in the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. In that Act, there is a section which empowers the Board of Trade, now the Department of Trade and Industry, to make new origin marking orders if they think that that is in the interest of the person to whom the goods

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are to be supplied—in other words, the consumer—and it is in the consumer's interest that I speak on this Bill.
During the recent debate on consumer affairs it was made clear from all sides of the House that shopping to-day is a very skilled and complex business, with the seller being highly organised and the shopper having to make an arbitrary selection of goods or services in self-service establishments with very little back-up knowledge. Therefore labels and descriptions on any materials become vital. I heard recently of a group who visited a certain flour mill. They were somewhat taken aback to find that three well-known brands of bread—the advertisement for one of which shows a very large lady who, every now and again, comes along with a team of gentlemen to pat the bread—were all manufactured in the same factory, though displayed under separate labels. This was very disturbing to the shoppers, because they felt that it destroyed the illusion that an "own label" would provide something different. I quote that example to show how important to the shopper is the information on the label.
To take the example of textiles, the chain stores are displaying more and more imported garments. These do not at present need to hear any mark to show the source of origin, and even under this Bill the origin would not have to be revealed to the customer by the chain store. The customer would not know whether the garments had been imported or manufactured at home, and the store would decide what label to put on the goods it sold. So this Bill would be no solution to that problem. But I think that the intention behind the Bill is good and I do not intend in any way to obstruct it. At present there is nothing which specifically prevents goods from being sold under well-known trade marks which a shopper has always identified as being from British manufacturers, and the Bill will not deal with the misleading effect of goods not bearing names or trade marks. The noble Baroness made this point. It is rather reminiscent of the old days, when the butcher who put on his meat a label showing the price per pound and the weight could be caught if he put on the wrong weight; whereas the butcher who did not put anything on his meat could
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not be caught, because there was nothing to catch him on. That seems to me to be a complete analogy. If you put nothing on the goods, nobody can catch you; if you put something on them it must comply with the Bill.
In my judgment, the Bill does not go far enough. Will the Bill deal with goods of an overseas country using not a United Kingdom mark or name, but the name of another foreign country? For example, if one had a garment which was made in Israel and which carried a name like "Rivoli", which one associates with France, would that be caught by the Bill? Or is the phrase "Warranted to comply with the British standard", which is a very popular one, caught by the Bill? There is a very small point, in addition, on which I should like some clarification. It is not clear whether the source has to be mentioned every time on every packet. In other words, will the information relating to origin have to be stated more than once? In the case of a packet of cigars it appears that the same information would have to be stated ten times. I shall be glad to know about that.
The Sunday Times recently had a feature which it called, "The tarnishing of the 'Made in Britain' label". It gave details of a survey which was carried out by its Opinion Research Centre for its Insight Consumer Unit. It was interesting to find that 94 per cent. of those interviewed said that they wanted to know the country of origin—not merely whether something was made in the United Kingdom, but the country of origin. The opinion poll researchers said:
"Such a high percentage is very rare in polling."
I have a letter here which is very typical of those which I receive all the time from women's clubs. This is from a group of young women shoppers living in Berkshire. The letter states:
"Our members are very concerned about the anonimity of our purchases. We feel that we are being deprived of our freedom of choice. If we buy items which we do not like and therefore we want to avoid them again, we would find it difficult, especially where food is concerned."
I know that in another place the Minister has made a comment on food. The letter goes on:
"If things are not marked with any country of origin I think we are lulled into believing that they may be British, whereas in

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fact it could be a cheap imitation of an established British product being sold with a large margin of profit, thus conning the consumer and damaging the reputation and sales of the manufacturer of the original."
That seems to me an overwhelming case for stating the country of origin.
In his reply, following the debate on consumer affairs, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that for most consumer goods there is no convincing evidence that quality or other characteristics can be reliably deduced from origin; there are good, bad and indifferent goods from every source. That may well be true, my Lords, but surely over the years the public have come to associate the country of origin with certain qualities; for example, Swiss watches and French perfume. I seem to recollect a certain chain store which said very proudly, "Ninety-nine per cent. of the goods in our store are British", and that is why many people purchased them. It seems to me that if a country produces merchandise of good quality and value, it will not mind its origin being stated. On the other hand, if the country of origin is not stated—that is, excluding the United Kingdom—those who have been producing inferior goods will be delighted to see the end of the origin Order. I do not accept the argument that as an exporting country we have to make sure we do not erect barriers. If an article has quality, and if the price is right, it will sell whether it is in a village store or in the international market.
I shall, at the Committee stage, try to widen this Bill. I would only say to the noble Baroness that I am grateful to her for introducing it in this House and for giving us an opportunity to air our views about it. But I still believe that it is a very small and a very narrow Bill, and in no way helps the point about which I am particularly concerned; that is, that all goods should be marked with their country of origin.
4.1 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, this seems to be a Bill regarding which we must keep in focus the fact that it applies to a great variety of imports. Therefore, to deal with it in a short time one is required to indicate more particularly the angle from which one approaches it. I say candidly that I approach it from
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the point of view of the textile industry. With regard to the general aspect, if we were discussing the highest grade of sporting guns nobody in the world would suggest that there is any other country's products which would be better than British. If we were discussing comestibles of all characters, well of course people may have different views as to the origins of the products they eat. If it were an object made of wood, I suppose that, if it was cedar, it would probably be much better if it was imported than if it was made in Britain. Or again, if tobacco were permitted to be grown in the United Kingdom and used for the making of cigars, it is unlikely that anybody would be deluded into thinking that the British-made cigars were better than the best of the imported types.
This Bill has passed through all its stages in another place (and I have taken the trouble to read the whole of the debates) and it produced no Amendment. But in coming here it enjoys the entire blessing of the Government. It has been introduced as a Private Member's Bill, and we all admit that no one is more qualified to pilot it than the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, with her varied public services, among which she has included much contact with consumer interests. That brings us to the fact that this Bill is frankly presented by the Department of Trade and Industry as motivated by considerations of the consumer and not of the manufacturer. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, helped us a good deal by going over the reasons why this Bill has been introduced, and by explaining its provisions; and, not surprisingly, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, gave us good reasons why she thought it contained omissions. Of course, the Bill provides only partial coverage; it is a stopgap. It does not cover the point which Lady Phillips emphatically made, that all imported goods should be marked with their country of origin. From the point of view of textiles that is very desirable. It is emphasised that it is only a small category of goods that would be marked.
The curious thing is that the Government do not recognise at this moment that since the Bill was first introduced things have changed a good deal. This afternoon we have heard from Lord Boyd evidence of why imports of low-cost

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origin are increasing at a fantastic rate. I think the latest figures show that from Japan alone there has been a massive increase of more than 100 per cent. Therefore employment is vitally affected; and the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, speaking from the Opposition Benches, if I correctly understood her, naturally recorded disagreement with the Bill—not, I take it, with all its clauses, but because of its incompleteness and inadequacy. Speaking of employment, my Lords, I should like to remind the House that in. one industry, the wool textile industry (though I am not attributing this reduction entirely to imports), in the last twelve years, I think it is, the total number of employed persons has fallen from 180,000 to 102,000. That is to say, nearly 80,000 people have been taken out of one industry. That is a substantial drain on the income of the trade unions. That is one reason why, should this Bill apply to all imports, it would be achieving something that would protect labour in that particular field.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, said, there has recently been an opinion poll, and I think it is recorded that consumers, for whose protection this Bill is intended, have recorded over a 90 per cent. vote in favour of requiring all imported goods to be marked. That is the object of my intervention, because I believe most emphatically that they should be. Lady Phillips gave a very good instance. Naturally, large multiple stores prefer to have a larger proportion of imported non-marked goods on their shelves because presumably the profit would be greater than the likely profit on home-manufactured goods. It is argued that to impose such a requirement would be a masked tariff. What nonsense! Other countries look after themselves. Why should we not look after ourselves and protect our own labour? The cost of marking is negligible. This Bill requires all garments to be marked. I understand that suits are pouring into this country, sometimes at £5 for a man's suit, without a mark of origin. Would the average householder buy those goods if it was realised that they came from some origin about which the purchaser had misgivings?
The problem has already been provided for by the different Orders that
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followed the disastrous experience of the cotton industry. The wool textile industry is seriously perturbed, and has taken all steps open to it. But let us remember, if I may recapitulate, that the old Merchandise Marks Act, which was followed by the Trade Descriptions Act, required that certain arrangements then in existence should be continued for a certain number of years, and that they automatically lapsed in November of last year. There was anxiety by the industry that in the interval between that time and the time when anything could be done there would be this serious inflow of merchandise—and that has proved to be the fact: this increase of imports has been of a massive character.
To turn to the arguments as regards the steps taken to protect our industries, I rate those quite high, for the reasons that I have given. The Questions raised in this House this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes (put on his behalf by the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell) which were supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, emphasise the seriousness of the general situation and lead me to make these remarks. It may be that when all things are considered some Amendments may be suggested at the next stage; but I urge the Government to use all their available powers (and if they do not have enough to take steps to get more) to secure the fullest knowledge by the consumer of the character of goods displayed on sale. I submit that in making the case that full consideration be given to the position of manufacturers there should be adequate protection of the consumer.
4.12 p.m.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, this is a short Bill but one which has very far-reaching effects on some trades. I have been asked by the National Committee of Canned Food Importers, the London Chamber of Commerce and the canned goods section of the London Provision Exchange to oppose this Bill in its present form. As I am involved in companies which import canned goods I wish to declare my interest. I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lady Elliot on the reasonable way in which she introduced this Bill. Unfortunately, the trade has not received the same type of consideration from the Department of

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Trade and Industry. We in Britain import more of our food in proportion to our population than any other major country and we are therefore much more affected by the proposed regulations. For instance, we import over £300 million of canned goods all of which will be affected by this Bill. The Trade Descriptions Bill will, as I understand it, make it mandatory to state on the label the country of origin of the goods. On the face of it, and as expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, this seems reasonable enough; but it cuts right across long-established methods of trading which for practical reasons it is essential to maintain.
For instance, all canned salmon is imported and to the public it is known not by the country of origin but by its brand, John West, Libby's and so on. The housewife knows when she buys a tin of John West red salmon what its quality will be—irrespective of whether it comes from the U.S.A., Alaska or Japan. The quality is controlled most carefully by the owners of the label. Unfortunately, the salmon pack is unpredictable and it will now mean that the importers will have to amass millions of labels, printed in advance of the season, for each country of origin. This will increase costs. Under the old Merchandise Marks Act 1926 it was necessary to state only whether the product was "home produce", "Commonwealth produce" or "foreign produce".
This principle has been raised and discussed over the years, and in the past the practical difficulties have been recognised and accepted. I can assure the House that the canned goods trade is well aware of the situation and recognises that produce canned in the United Kingdom should be so marked. But after most careful consideration they have come to the conclusion that the Merchandise Marks Act, which has proved for almost 50 years to be satisfactory, should not be changed on this point. I am, of course, well aware of the argument that in the U.S.A. they state the country of origin on the label and that therefore it must be right for us to do so. First, I do not accept that what is good for America is necessarily good for this country; secondly, the U.S.A., which produces most of its own foodstuffs, has a very different situation. Again, taking canned salmon as an illustration, they may, in
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the U.S.A., wish, as they usually do, to protect their own salmon canning industry. The only argument which the Department of Trade and Industry can advance is that some consumers are interested in knowing the actual country of origin—a point which was made very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. This knowledge may be of interest to some people; but, on balance, is it worth increasing the cost of the product and disrupting the trade? I may be old-fashioned, but I still like the old description "Empire produce" which was subsequently changed to "Commonwealth produce". With our possible entry into E.E.C. and the lessening of our former preferences and ties, "Commonwealth produce" still has a pleasant ring.
May I give your Lordships one more example of the practical problems. My company is involved with the Citrus Company of Jamaica and British Honduras in the manufacture of grapefruit sections. Our cans are made and lithographed here in the United Kingdom and are then shipped out flat to the West Indies for reforming. This printed can has to be ordered at least six months before the packing season. At that stage we do not know how the crop will turn out in each of these developing countries. Quite often there is a catastrophe (such as the hurricane in British Honduras last season) and we have to switch some of the production to other territories to offset shortages. Our cans at present are marked so as to be interchangeable; but when this Bill becomes law this whole operation will not be permitted. This could have a very serious effect on these West Indian countries. This matter is not just an academic issue but vital to the trade, involving changes in millions of labels and printed cans. I do not accept that some importers or retail chains are trying to mislead or to hide information from the housewife. This would not work. The retailer in question would soon go out of business; and the owners of the nationally-known brands have to guard most jealously the quality of their products or they will lose their reputation and their business.
My second point is on the question of timing. Assuming that your Lordships decide to pass this Bill in its present form, then all labels must comply within six months. This illustrates a complete ignorance of the position. Goods packed

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in, say, Australia or in other far-distant countries take a considerable time to reach their final point of retail. Furthermore, most canned goods are bought with a spread delivery over a 12-month period. But if this Bill is approved as it now stands, six months after its enactment it will be an offence to retail goods not marked in accordance with this new law. Never before in the history of the canned goods trade has this sort of time limit on label changes been accepted in this country or, for that matter, any other country. Possibly in the past our Ministry experts knew something of the difficulties in the distributive trade, or at least they respected the advice of people who had spent a lifetime dealing with this problem. The manufacturers and importers recommend an absolute minimum of two years, and a longer period should be considered, in order to allow importers and home producers to use up some of their stocks of labels and for the goods to be cleared from the shops.
It must also be borne in mind that labels are printed many months in advance of the actual packing season. As already explained even more so with the printed cans which are produced and printed in this country and then have to be shipped abroad. The answer from the Department of Trade and Industry to the very reasonable request of the trade for a longer time limit is that they advised the trade 12 months ago that they intended to have the law changed. Just because a Government Department decides to change the law it now expects everybody to accept that as if the law had been changed. To me this is monstrous. Is our democratic Parliamentary system supposed to rubber stamp all their proposals without alteration? Up to now the trade and the public have not acted on this type of legislation until it has been passed by your Lordships and become law. I, as well as a great many other people would be most interested to hear from my noble friend Lord Limerick—and I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating him on his new appointment—whether the British public is now expected to take note of, and assume as law, recommendations which Parliament has not even considered.
I therefore suggest, my Lords, that imported canned goods, provided that they
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are clearly marked as such, be excluded from the proposed legislation. I am happy that, with the help of the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, suitable Amendments may be moved in Committee to adjust the position of importers, who do not wish to mislead anyone but who have genuine practical problems.
4.23 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, the object of this Bill could be achieved under the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act, 1968. Whether those objects can be achieved more easily under the proposed Bill is a matter of political controversy. This was very fully ventilated during the Second Reading in another place and I do not propose to renew it. The plain fact is that our manufacturers and workers have a right to be protected against goods made elsewhere being passed off as British. Furthermore, there is a large body of citizens which expresses its patriotism not so much by waving flags but by giving high priority to British goods. Those people have a right to be protected against misrepresentation. Therefore I support this Bill. But, like my noble friend Baroness Phillips, I would go much further. I should like to see the name of the country of origin on all goods, because I want the consumer to have as much information as possible.
There is one point of detail which I should like to raise. It refers to the defences which may be made under Clause 2(1)(a). Under that subsection anyone who is charged with an offence has to show three things: first, that he did not apply the United Kingdom name or mark; secondly, that he did not know that the goods were imported; thirdly, that he could not have ascertained that the goods were imported by exercising reasonable diligence. I should like the House particularly to note that the word "and" is used and not the word "or", because that makes a very great difference. It means that a retailer who did not apply the United Kingdom mark or name himself, and who did not know that the goods were imported, could nevertheless be convicted on the ground that he did not show reasonable diligence. After long years of experience in a magistrates' court I have no doubt at all that it would be possible for different courts

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to come to different conclusions on the question of exercising reasonable diligence on the basis of the same facts.
The most obvious way of exercising reasonable diligence would be for the retailer to ask the supplier whether the goods were imported. But Parliament, surely, does not intend that the retailer should ask the supplier whether goods are imported in respect of all the hundreds of commodities which he may sell. I venture to suggest that what Parliament really expects is that the retailer shall show reasonable diligence, and that if he has reason to suspect that the goods were imported he should make his inquiry to the supplier. I suggest that if that is what Parliament intends then Parliament should say so and give proper guidance to the magistrates' courts to avoid the precarious position in which an innocent retailer might be placed if the Bill is left in its present form. During the Committee stage, therefore, I shall put forward an Amendment to Clause 2(1)(a), and I hope that the noble Baroness, with her collaborators, will give it sympathetic consideration.
4.29 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Baroness Elliot and my honourable friend the Member for Leicester, South-East for having brought forward this valuable little Bill. Some of its shortcomings have been pointed out and I suppose one of the difficulties about any Private Member's legislation is that it is always possible to pick holes in it. But, taken as a whole, I think this may be regarded as a useful piece of legislation. This debate also provides me with a chance—although he has already spoken in a major debate—to congratulate my noble friend Lord Limerick on his well-deserved promotion to the Government Front Bench. It is very useful to have someone with practical experience of working in the City of London occupying his particular post.
In a sense, my Lords, this Bill is not dissimilar to the legislation which we were debating yesterday. I recall the very interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, who mentioned City Guilds. As a past Master of one of the livery companies of the City of London, I can remind your Lordships that it was largely through the City Guilds that the
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quality of British manufacture made its mark. In another place, my honourable friend the Member for Hallam, Sheffield, mentioned the question of steel in Sheffield. We all know that there have been difficulties over the protection of steel from imitation. I hope that this Bill will do something, in addition to the extensive consumer legislation of recent years resulting in the large-scale Molony Report, to give a reasonable protection to British manufacturers.
Quite a lot has already been said about the textile industry, which, in a sense, is most vulnerable. There was a case not many years ago of an Eastern country manufacturing, or attempting to manufacture, socks under the guise of a well-known British manufacturing firm. This kind of thing is quite intolerable. What I am not sure about under the Bill is the problem of component parts. On the market now there are a number of transistor radios. Some of these have on them, "Made in Japan". It could be argued as to which parts are made in Japan. Are the component parts made in Japan or elsewhere? Is the outer case made in Japan? The same argument may be raised on tape recorders. Mechanical and electrical goods present difficulties on this issue in these days.
Then there are the vagaries of what are Empire made goods. Nobody wants to split too many hairs on this, but "Empire" these days covers a very wide field. This is particularly true in the case of footwear. Some of these goods may be manufactured in Hong Kong, some in other parts of the Empire: some are well made, and some are distinctly shoddy. It seems unfair that the Commonwealth countries which produce the quality goods—and I speak as a strong supporter of the Commonwealth, old and new—should be branded with those who make the inferior goods. Therefore I think there is a case here for the country of origin being marked on Commonwealth goods.
The problem exists, too, in relation to men's suits, particularly lightweight suits. There are all kinds of materials with odd-sounding names nowadays—trevira, dacron and so on. Some of these suits presumably are manufactured in this country, but no doubt the material comes from elsewhere. What is the legal situation here if they are manufactured in

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Leeds, as many are, or in other parts of Yorkshire? They are British-made suits, although not all the cloth is necessarily manufactured in this country. This is a problem which I think will have to be considered within the ambit of this Bill.
One of the problems facing the Bill may well be, as in so many Bills, the question of enforcement. Where do we draw the line? Nobody in this country wants to be ultra protectionist. At the same time, there is an unwelcome move afoot to denigrate goods made in this country. We hear all kinds of snide remarks about British-made cars and British-made electrical goods. Of course some are faulty. But so are foreign cars and foreign electrical goods. If this measure does something to promote the quality of British goods, while at the same time making it quite clear that substandard goods will not be tolerated, then I think it will be worthwhile.
4.35 p.m.
LORD MOUNTEVANS: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood for bringing forward this Bill, which I am sure, after Committee stage, will have the support of the House. I am, however, a little concerned at certain implications which may have been overlooked, but which could have most unfortunate and unintended results in the publishing industry.
The Bill requires certain goods manufactured or produced outside the United Kingdom to be accompanied by a conspicuous indication of the country of manufacture or production. In the case of magazines or books published in this country (and here I must declare an interest, being myself concerned with publishing) there are, and have been for a long time, cases of publishers who print abroad—for example, in European countries such as Holland or Italy. Under present practice, it is usual and accepted that such publications bear a notation, "Printed in Holland"—or Italy or where-ever it may be. In the case of magazines, such an inscription generally appears inside the title page or on the back cover, and in books the printed notation appears on the appropriate page inside. My interpretation of the requirements of this Bill—and it is an interpretation that several
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publishers also feel could be read into the Bill—is that it would need the origin notation to be printed conspicuously, and this could mean in heavy print, on the front cover itself. Clearly, this would be ridiculous. I feel sure that it is not the intention.
In the absence of any definition of the classes or categories of goods, I feel that I must ask my noble friend Lady Elliot that magazines and books should be exempted or safeguarded, otherwise we shall have a most difficult situation here. I apologise for raising the matter at this stage, but it affects several publishers and publications, and I hope that the point can be more fully examined.
4.38 p.m.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Elliot, in introducing this Bill, has given a very clear explanation of its purpose and operation. I should like to congratulate her and to thank her on behalf of the Government for her initiative in promoting this brief and valuable measure. As my noble friend has explained, its main aim is to reinforce and clarify the safeguards which the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 already provides against false indications of origin. That Act was a most effective and wide-ranging measure, the success of which has fully justified the support which it received from all Parties in 1968. But, of course, an Act which sets out to deal with so wide a range of possible abuses cannot hope to deal with every one of them in absolutely precise and specific terms, and one is apt to find out later that there is some particular point on which it is helpful—to business and to the enforcing officers—to be a little more specific. This question of United Kingdom names and marks applied to imported goods is one such point, and I am sure that it is desirable to establish—as the Bill seeks to do—a simple rule to cope with it.
I listened with much interest to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, but in my view it is one of the merits of the Bill that it does not set out to impose compulsory origin marking on imported goods either on doctrinaire or on protectionist lines. Discrimination against imported goods spreads rapidly. We need always to bear in mind that British exports are other countries' imports. The Bill singles out for marking

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only those cases in which someone has chosen to put a United Kingdom name or mark on the goods, and has thereby created—whether deliberately or inadvertently—the likelihood that people will wrongly suppose them to be British. Marking to counteract such a possibility is of course both desirable and internationally acceptable.
I am glad, too, that the Bill does not make the mistake of trying to tie up the whole problem of misleading indications of origin by some simple formula of marking. There are many ways in which a false impression of origin can be conveyed, and while that impression can effectively be countered by a statement of the true origin if it stems from the use of a United Kingdom mark, there are many other cases in which a mere marking with the name of the country of origin would be a wholly inadequate remedy. I have in mind, for example, imported goods such as my noble friend, Lady Elliot mentioned, in a carton gaily decorated with an all-over Scottish tartan pattern. But the fact that the Bill wisely restricts itself to certain specific forms of potentially deceptive marking certainly does not mean that protection stops there. We already have the Trade Descriptions Act's prohibition of "anything likely to be taken for" an indication of origin which is false, and deception as to origin which is untouched by the present Bill cannot escape that wider net.
We have something of a problem with Clause 1(2), which excludes from the Bill's requirements blends and mixtures of materials of the same kind. This closely follows some of the provisions in the Merchandise Marks Act 1926 on which the Bill is modelled. However, although no difficulties seem to have arisen under the earlier legislation, reconsideration in the light of criticisms made during consideration of the Bill in another place has cast serious doubt on the suitability of this subsection. The only real justification for some such exclusion arises not because the goods which bear a United Kingdom mark or name are mixtures or blends but because there is something which makes it unreasonably difficult to comply with the Bill as regards the particular blend or mixture: for example, where its constituents originate in several different
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countries or where the materials fed into an automatic blending and packaging plant are varied according to availability. It would be very difficult to frame a blanket exemption which dealt satisfactorily with these intricacies, and the proper course, which could be considered in Committee, might be to delete Clause 1(2) and to leave those specific cases which may merit exemption to be dealt with as and when they emerge by directions under Clause 1(4).
I should like to say a few words about subsection (4) of Clause 1, the exclusion provision. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I recognise that under a measure like this, which is necessarily framed to apply right across the board, particular cases are bound to arise in which the difficulties of compliance are so great, or the benefit to buyers of the goods so slight, that it would be right to make exceptions to the general rule which the Bill would impose. Clause 1(4) allows us to make such exemptions and relaxations. Of course, in considering action under that clause we shall have to bear very much in mind the basic intention underlying the Bill—namely, that people shall not be led to suppose from the use of United Kingdom names and marks that the goods which bear them are British. And the more serious the risk of that misunderstanding in any particular case, the more severe we shall have to be in judging what degree of practical difficulty for the trade suffices to merit a relaxation.
On the other hand, I am sure that we shall find some classes of goods—for example, tropical or sub-tropical fruits—which no one could possibly suppose to be United Kingdom produce. Other goods are essentially for industrial use or consumption by trade buyers who, in so far as they are concerned about origin, are likely to establish it by specific inquiry. Or again, there may emerge particular circumstances in which, although the United Kingdom name or mark is technically "applied" to the goods by virtue of Clause 3, it is clearly unrealistic to believe that any customer would take the name or mark to have any direct connection with the goods—as, for example, where imported beer is served

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in a glass bearing the caterer's name. A blanket definition of exceptions and exemptions would clearly be an impossibility, and therefore such problems are going to arise and must be judged according to their merits. However, though the legal definition of an elephant might pose formidable problems for a lawyer, most of us would reasonably rely on being able to recognise an elephant when we meet one in the street. Other problems may not be so easy, but we shall simply have to do our best to reach sensible conclusions on them.
We have had welcome contributions from noble Lords who have had a lifetime of experience in very relevant fields. At the same time, I cannot help remarking that this debate has well illustrated the sectional interests which inevitably become involved whenever legislation is contemplated. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and the noble Lords, Lord Jacques and Lord Barnby, would like to see all goods marked with the countries of their origin, whereas my noble friend Lord Macpherson of Drumochter wants no marking at all—at least not for two years.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend would allow me to correct that statement? I am not against marking: what I said was that if goods are marked as from the British Commonwealth, or as British or foreign produce, that is one thing. It is just marking with the actual country of origin that is the problem.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that correction. The trouble is that the law is universal and must be applicable equally to all. Points have been raised this afternoon which we shall obviously need to consider in Committee, and there will be time to do this before we reach that stage. But, subject to that comment I am glad on the Government's behalf to commend this Bill to your Lordships.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the noble Earl the Minister sits down, may I ask him whether what he has said means that the Government will not be contemplating introducing any marking Orders relating to country of origin?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: No, my Lords. There is power under Section 8 in the existing Act; and this remains very much in force. This can be invoked whenever a case is made for it to be so invoked.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am sorry, my Lords, but may I come back on this? Have we any idea of the Government's intentions? This is a small Bill, a very narrow Bill, even if it passes. Does this mean that for once this is all that we are going to get, or is there any possibility of enforcing the section in the 1968 Act which gives power to make marking Orders?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, there are cases currently under consideration under Section 8, and this, as I have said, remains very much an operative section. It will be invoked whenever a case is made for this to be done.
4.48 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I should like to thank all those who have taken part in this debate, and particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, whose knowledge of these subjects is tremendous. It has been interesting that we have had from each side some speeches which have, so to speak, contradicted themselves. I entirely support the desire of Lady Phillips to see very good labelling—I am sure that is very important—rather than saying just what the goods are. However, I would not go so far as to say that in every single case goods imported into this country should be labelled with their country of origin. I do not think this would be possible; furthermore, it would probably be a rather retrograde step. Also, as we are a country with great trading propensities, it might recoil on us in some other way. I do not feel that it is necessary to have everything labelled.
Here I should like to take up what the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, was saying, because I think that he has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The object of the Bill is not to ensure that all imported goods should bear a mark of origin, but only those which might masquerade as British-manufactured when in fact they were not. I do not think that anybody could

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think that tinned fruit of the citrus variety could possibly have emanated from this country, since we do not grow oranges, lemons or grapefruit here. Therefore it would not be necessary for the interests which Lord Macpherson represents to bother to say that these should not come into this Bill, because nobody would say that they are United Kingdom-grown. If I may say so, I think the noble Lord is a little overanxious about the effect which the Bill would have on his particular interest of canned goods, since, unless they are masquerading as British goods in this country, they will not come within the scope of the Bill.
I will look into the matter of the printing of magazines abroad. If the magazine was a British magazine, published here but printed abroad, all that would need to be said was that the printing, the paper, or whatever it was came from abroad. So far as I know, this point would not be involved under the Bill. On the matter that my noble friend Lord Auckland raised about component parts, objects that are labelled "Made in Japan" and have a number of component parts manufactured here, I do not think that they would come under the Bill, since they would be labelled "Made in Japan". If there were no Japanese label and they came here purporting to be British goods, then they would come under the Bill.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and other noble Lords have said, this is a small Bill, but it fills in a gap in the 1968 Act. We should study carefully all that has been said by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Barnby, is enormously experienced in the textile trade, and anything he says will certainly be studied very carefully. I think I can say that no one who has spoken is against the Bill. Therefore, when it comes to the Committee stage I hope that noble Lords will co-operate and see that if we amend the Bill we amend it so that it will be improved and not made narrower or more restricted. My Lords, I hope you will now give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CHILDREN BILL [H.L.]
4.52 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This is a very short and straightforward measure. Its purpose is to keep at 13 the minimum age at which schoolchildren may undertake employment outside industry for brief periods before and after school, and for limited hours in the school holidays—for instance, as paper-boys or girls. The Bill has no bearing at all on the minimum age at which young people may work in factories or workshops, or in the mines. Work of that kind is prohibited to children of compulsory school age, not by the Children Acts but by a variety of enactments which govern employment and conditions in industry.
But underpinning these enactments there has been since 1918 a provision, first in the Education Acts and then in the Children Acts, prescribing a minimum age for all forms of employment not governed by a more stringent limit. Until 1944 this age was fixed at 12. But in the 1944 Education Act, when the school-leaving age was raised from 14 to 15 and eventually to 16, Parliament provided that the minimum age for employment should in future be raised in parallel with any rise in the school-leaving age. When the school-leaving age was raised to 15 the minimum age for employment went up to 13—and it is still 13 to-day. This year, on September 1, when the school-leaving age goes up to 16, the minimum age would, if nothing were done, rise again, automatically, to 14.
The experience of the past 25 years has led no one seriously to suggest that part-time work done by 13-year-olds, outside school hours and in accordance with the law, has done them any harm, physically, morally or educationally. On the contrary, there have been signs of a developing view that such work is often of positive value in encouraging independence, initiative and responsibility. Attitudes towards children's part-time jobs have become more flexible over the years and children themselves are generally recognised to be maturing progressively earlier.

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Throughout the country there are probably at least 150,000 13-year-old children—about one in four—with regular jobs outside school hours, if we accept the findings of some recent research among a sample of schoolchildren in England. In the Government's view it would not be right to let all these children find themselves suddenly excluded from employment on September 1 simply as an incidental consequence of raising the school-leaving age. Raising the school-leaving age has no obvious bearing on the question of how far part-time work done by children of 13 is harmful or valuable; this issue needs to be considered on its own merits.
The previous Government announced early in 1970 that they would be undertaking a review of the whole of this branch of the law, with particular reference to the effects which raising the school-leaving age would have on it. When we came in we thought that this was a useful exercise and decided that it should go ahead. Towards the end of 1970 a consultative document was therefore issued to a wide range of representative bodies, and all interested were invited to send in their comments. In particular, they were asked to express a view on whether or not the minimum age for employment should rise from 13 to 14 when the school-leaving age was raised.
Overwhelmingly, the view of those consulted was that it would be a mistake to let this happen. There were a few who disagreed. For instance, the teachers' organisations were pretty evenly divided, for and against the idea that the age might be fixed at 13 and the T.U.C. was totally opposed to the idea. But even this opposition appeared to be directed to employment of children in general and made no case relating specifically to the position of children between 13 and 14. On the other hand, those who thought that the age should remain at 13 deployed some very pertinent arguments; and the Government found them convincing. This short Bill is therefore designed to sever the link with the school-leaving age. It does not affect in any way the powers of local authorities to make by-laws fixing a higher age locally, nor does it interfere at all with existing by-laws. I com
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mend this Bill as a necessary stabilising measure which will meet the wishes of the large majority of people concerned, including the children. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
4.58 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for the clear exposition that he has given of the Bill. Perhaps note might be taken this afternoon of the newspaper reports of last Saturday with regard to some proceedings at Dudley Magistrates' Court, Worcestershire. Those proceedings show how very necessary it is that we have legislation to cover the employment of young people of compulsory school age and equally essential to be certain that that legislation is observed. I appreciate what the Minister said about employment in industry; nevertheless, what happened at a factory belonging to B. Kettley and Sons Limited of Quarry Bank, near Brierley Hill, is a matter of some concern.
The firm were fined a total of £1,100 after admitting 13 offences of employing under-age workers and two offences for failing to notify accidents involving boys. One was a 13-year-old lad, John Jones, who worked after school and on Saturday mornings. In his first week he was sweeping up around machines. In his second week he worked an automatic wood-turning lathe, and while so employed his thumb was injured. He was rushed to hospital; he needed to have 16 stitches in his hand, and he was off school for a number of weeks. The other boy, Michael Cadman, was aged 14. He was injured while feeding square pieces of timber into a handle rounding machine after receiving only 10 minutes' instruction. He would have lost a hand but for his own presence of mind. As it was he had to have 35 stitches and the hand was so badly lacerated that he was kept in hospital for a week. Another lad, aged 13, worked a 54-hour week for £5·40; yet another, aged 14, was paid £4·50 for 45 hours—in each case a rate of 10p an hour. While I do not wish to represent these incidents and accidents as being common, I do say, even if they occurred as a result of ignorance, it is intolerable

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that such things can happen at this present time.
As the Minister has said, the Bill seeks to amend the law in regard to the employment of children of compulsory school age in one respect only; that is to say, the age at which they may be employed. By so doing it brings an additional age group into the pool of juvenile labour available for part-time employment. Particularly having regard to what the Minister had to say about the replies that were received as a result of the issuing of the consultative document, I should like to ask whether this increase is necessary, and where the demand for making it available comes from. We should like a little better indication that there was a review in depth, and I very much regret that a little more importance and a little more notice was not paid to and taken of the representations of the Trades Union Congress. If I may say so, I am not surprised that teachers appear to be divided. Some teachers have been very long in the profession and they think that what was good enough in the past is good enough now and for the future. I am pretty certain that that does not represent the view of the younger teachers. I began by quoting, what I trust are very exceptional cases. Few will think that the rate of pay those boys received was very generous. Indeed, it seems to me to smack of cheap labour. I think that probably they were doing work that should have been done by adults and paid for at trade union rates of pay.
This Bill, or this Act, as it is likely to become, offers. I suggest, an opportunity for a re-examination by local authorities of their regulations covering the employment of children and a further opportunity for central Government to satisfy themselves that the regulations of the various local authorities meet the needs of the present time. I suggest that a look at such matters as milk deliveries might be undertaken. It is not just a matter of delivering newspapers. Under the terms of the Education Act 1962 a child who attains the age of 15 or 16, as the case may be, in the period from September to January inclusive, is deemed to remain of compulsory school age until the end of the following spring term. A child who becomes 15 or 16, as the case may
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be, in the period from February to August inclusive is deemed to remain of compulsory school age until the end of the summer term of that year. I should like to ask the Minister whether the position will be the same when we have the one school leaving age.
I should like to raise the question of the responsibility of any employer of child labour to give the local authority written notification stating his own name and address, the name and address and date of birth of the child, the occupation in which and the place at which the child is employed and the times at which the employment begins and ends, this notification to be sent within 24 hours after the employment begins, and a similar notification to be sent on the first days of January and July every year in similar terms in respect of each child employed by him. This requirement ought to be enforced in all parts of the United Kingdom. If it is the case that the Minister can give an assurance that this is in point of fact being done, then I think this is an opportunity to ensure publicity to educate those who may be unaware of the position. But I do not think that these are matters that ought to be left to the discretion of local authorities.
There are many other matters that fall for consideration: perhaps more important, a regulation that the health of the child is sound and will not suffer from the nature of the employment. That ought to be certified by a man who is medically qualified. Then, again of the greatest importance is an assurance from the school that the ability of the child to benefit from the education being offered it will not be diminished. These involve the times and the totality of hours when such work is undertaken, since these things can affect the young person's ability to face the school day and profit from the opportunities it should offer. I think that many of the young boys and girls who deliver newspapers come from what is known as the Newsom class; one does not find that many of them are boys and girls and young persons who attend grammar schools. It may well be that those who are undertaking these part-time employments really, as would be found if the matter were studied seriously, do not benefit as much from the education they are

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being offered as they might do if they were not getting up quite so early and if they were not expending quite so much energy before they go to school.
I frequently get my own newspaper from the newsagent, and I have fetched newspapers from newsagents in other parts of the country. I do not think anybody who visits many newsagents' shops early in the morning can be wholly satisfied. I have sometimes been a little disturbed that newspaper shops also sell cigarettes and many of the young people can all too easily purchase cigarettes which do them no good at all. One has the feeling that too often regulations are noted rather in the breach than in the observance. So I should like to ask the Minister whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that all local authorities' regulations concerning the employment of children of compulsory school age meet current requirements. We are perhaps too easily inclined to take for granted that we need this pool of part-time child labour. Certainly many of the tasks they perform appear to be socially helpful. But, if I may make the point, some of those tasks could, with advantage to themselves, occasionally, if not quite often, be undertaken by some of those people who have retired from full employment.
We shall not oppose the Second Reading. If we feel that the Bill can be improved by Amendment we shall attempt it at Committee stage. But what would be helpful, and would perhaps assist us in making up our minds on that matter, would be an assurance that this little Bill would be made the occasion for a close look at local authority regulations to make sure that they have the "teeth" that will bite and are relevant to the present time.
5.10 p.m.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy in all that he said, but as an agriculturist I think that child labour helps the family. Most potato picking is done under contract, at so much per hundredweight. If the children can leave school and go into the fields and help their mothers—because most potato picking is done by female labour—it increases the hundredweight yield
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and thus increases the amount earned by the family. I am all for that. I hope that this factor will be realised by both sides of the House.
5.11 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy insisted that this question of the employment of children should be well regulated and kept under close inspection, but I do not feel quite so indignant as he did about the dangers that might affect children who are employed in delivering newspapers and in similar occupations. I am more inclined to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who said that this work is calculated to cultivate independence, initiative and responsibility.
At the age of 10 I had a newspaper round in one of the suburbs of Birmingham. That certainly cultivated initiative on my part. At the age of 11 I was a chemist's errand boy in Birmingham and I made such an impression upon the manager of the chemist's shop that he wanted to have me apprenticed to the pharmaceutical profession. Unfortunately, family finances would not permit this. At the age of 12 I became a boot boy in the house of the local J.P., where I had many duties to perform, not merely cleaning 12 pairs of shoes every morning, but also cleaning all the knives and forks, scrubbing out the kitchen, getting in the coal, mowing the lawn on Saturdays and then rolling the lawn, and I do not think I have suffered very much as a result of that experience.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, it has certainly taught me how to be independent. It probably meant that I was a young man when I ought still to have been a boy. All the same, I do not think that my noble friend's suggestion that old-age pensioners might be made available for this work is a good one. A newspaper boy has to go out in all kinds of weather. I remember that I used to be out at six o'clock in the morning to catch the bundle of newspapers as they were thrown from the horse bus into the gutter, and I also remember that I had to go out in snowy, wintry, icy weather as well as wet weather, and that would not have been suitable for an old man of 65 or 70.

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Incidentally, my Lords, it was on this newspaper round that I first made my acquaintance with that doctrine known as Socialism. I used to walk round Edgbaston and deliver newspapers to the Bishop of Birmingham, the late Dr. Charles Gore, to the house of the Dockers and to a number of other notable people. It so happened that on the same round there was a lamplighter—those were the days when a lamplighter went round with a pole and put out the lamps—and he used to lecture me on the virtues of Socialism during this hour when we walked round together every morning. We cultivated a kind of division of labour and co-operation as well, because when we had to digress from a main road up a side road I would put out his lamps for him in the one road while at the same time he would go up another side road and deliver my newspapers.
My Lords, I think newsboys are a pretty good crowd of people. I would not like to see them deprived of their occupation. They are not condemned to do it if they do not want to do it. There is no conscription about it. There are many youngsters who feel that they want to have five shillings in their pockets which they can call their own. I remember the first month's pay that I earned as a newspaper boy—I used to get only two-and-six a week and sometimes there were deductions from that on Saturday night because some customer complained that his newspaper had not been delivered, so it was stopped out of my pay. I can remember that I used my first month's wages to buy a set of boxing gloves, much to the disgust of my mother, who thought I might be knocked about.
This activity does give a child independence; it gives him some money in his pocket which he has earned himself. Youngsters of that age are full of energy and I do not think it does them much harm to attain this state of independence and to have something to occupy their minds. If they were not doing that they might be parading with hippies. Who knows? I agree with my noble friend and commend him for having insisted that there should be close regulation of child employment, but I do not think we want to get too afraid of what might happen to these youngsters when they go out in this way.
5.18 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this Bill. I am particularly grateful for the most helpful contributions made by the noble Lords, Lord Nunburnholme and Lord Leatherland, in stressing the positive side of the employment of children in part-time jobs at this age. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for telling the House that he will not be opposing this Bill; and of course we shall be only too willing to look at anything he may want to suggest which would improve it at the Committee stage. He began by drawing your Lordships' attention to a recent case at Dudley magistrates' court. I think he fully realised that in doing so he was being a little naughty, in that this particular case has nothing whatever to do with the Bill.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: But only a little, my Lords!
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I would not say even "a little". It was a case of a flagrant contravention—
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, if I may say so, I meant that I was only a little naughty.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord he is never more than a little naughty. But I think I ought to make the position quite clear because it might have influenced some of your Lordships who think that these most deplorable happenings were in some way connected with this Bill. They were, of course, offences under the Factories Act and we certainly deplore them as much as the noble Lord himself did. If I may make one more correction in what he said, he then referred to an additional age group being introduced into the pool of labour. This is not so; it is keeping the age where it is at present, at 13.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I appreciate that; but may I put it to the Minister that instead of children from the ages of 13 to 15 we are now to have children from the ages of 13 to 16, which means an additional age group in the sense that there is one more year.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I appreciate that. I had not quite grasped

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the point. It is perfectly true that three years of the school age will indeed be covered. In fact, what tends to happen is that as children at school get older and they have to work for more exacting examinations they tend to drop out of the pool of part-time work. Nevertheless, I appreciate what the noble Lord was saying. I should also like to assure him that we went very carefully into all the representations that were made from a great many different organisations that replied to our circular. There were 53 organisations which gave us comments on the consultative document we sent out, and of those 53 only nine opposed the idea of fixing the minimum age at 13 throughout Great Britain, and they varied in their approach. We looked at the matter extremely carefully. We took fullest account of the views of the T.U.C., as we naturally should, but the weight of opinion lay on the other side, and we thought it right to keep the age at 13.
I think I can give the noble Lord the assurance that he wants with regard to the difference of provision by different local authorities through their different by-laws. As it is at present, we have sent local authorities guidance on this matter; we have sent a model by-law. But we have also in mind to take further legislative steps to make the matter the subject of statutory regulation rather than of entirely separate by-laws. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find time for this in the present legislative Session, although it is something which we will introduce when we can find time for the necessary legislation. If I may draw the noble Lord's attention to a Written Answer that was given in another place on April 18 by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, he will see that it says:
"Other legislative proposals designed to improve and standardise the regulatory framework for administering this branch of the law, in particular the substitution of regulations for the present control by local by-laws, will be put forward as soon as Parliamentary time permits, but not during the current Session."— [OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), 18/4/72; c. 63.]
I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord that we are aware, as he is, of the different kinds of provision that at present exist between different local authorities. He asked me another rather technical
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question about school leaving day. I should like to write to him on that point; I would not commit myself straight away. I think I have answered the other questions he raised.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme. I quite appreciate that some of these children work in the country in farming communities. I must say I was deeply moved by the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, almost to the extent that I felt we ought to reduce the age to take account of the magnificent effect it had on him, starting at 10 years of age. I hope your Lordships are satisfied with those answers, and that you will give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ROAD TRAFFIC (FOREIGN VEHICLES) BILL [H.L.]
5.24 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (55) as first printed for the House of Commons]
[Nos. 1–15]
Clause 1, page 1, line 14, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 1, page 2, line 15, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 5, page 6, line 25, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 7, page 7, line 10, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 7, page 7, line 26, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 7, page 9, line 1, leave out subsection (7) and insert—
"(7) Any reference in section 1 of this Act, or in subsection (1) of this section, to section 160 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 shall be construed as a reference to that section read together with section 5 of this Act."
Clause 7, page 9, line 17, leave out subsection (8).
Clause 8, page 9, line 26, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Clause 8, page 9, line 27, leave out from "operation" to end of line 28 and insert "on such day as the Secretary of State may by Order made by statutory instrument appoint."
Schedule 1, page 10, line 4, column 3, leave out from beginning to end of line 18.
Schedule 1, page 10, line 14, column 1, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Schedule 1, page 10, line 16, column 1, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Schedule 2, page 10, line 21, column 3, leave out from beginning to end of line 53.
Schedule 2, page 10, line 44, column 1, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
Schedule 2, page 10, line 49, column 1, leave out "1971" and insert "1972".
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1 and, if I may suggest it to your Lordships, Amendments Nos. 2 to 15 inclusive as well. I think it will save your Lordships' time if I invite you to consider all these Amendments together because they all flow from one factor; that is, the relevant timing of this Bill and that of the enacting of the Road Traffic Act 1972. When we were considering this Bill in December last year, it was drafted with the possibility that the Road Traffic Act enacting all the other relevant legislation with which this Bill is connected would come into force in 1971. As it has turned out, it will in fact come into force on July 1, 1972, and there are a number of Amendments altering the date accordingly. The fact that this happens enables us to introduce a number of simplifications in the Schedules of the Bill. These are included in Amendments 10 to 15 inclusive. Opportunity has been taken at the same time to introduce a measure of flexibility as to the scheduled day on which this Bill should come into force and to enable the Secretary of State to give it the maximum international publicity which, if your Lordships remember, was such an important feature of this particular Bill. All the Amendments hang round these three points and they all arise from a change in the timing which we had in mind when we first dealt with the Bill.
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I hope that that brief explanation will satisfy your Lordships and enable you to approve Amendments Nos. 1 to 15, inclusive. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 1 to 15.—(Lord Sandford.)
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I rise to say that certainly I have no objection to the course proposed by the noble Lord. I have looked at all these Amendments. They clearly are a tidying up exercise and certainly they simplify the Bill as it would have to be read by foreign operators in this country. Certainly that will be well worth while. These Amendments having been made in the other place with the consent of all the Parties and Members there, I think we ought to accept them en bloc.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EGGS (PROTECTION OF GUARANTEES) ORDER 1972
5.27 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move, That the Eggs (Protection of Guarantees) Order 1972 be approved. The Order merely allows to continue the existing support arrangements for eggs, but permits subsidy to be paid on all eggs, including those in the category of extra small which previously were excluded. This category accounts for less than one per cent. of all first-quality eggs. That is the purpose of the Order, and I beg to move that it be approved.
Moved, That the Eggs (Protection of Guarantees) Order 1972, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: the Order made on February 8 last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.

Upper Avon Navigation Bill [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: the Order
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made on February 7 last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past five o'clock.