Lords Sitting of 30 November 1972

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

FRENCH AND RUSSIAN ARMS TESTS IN PACIFIC
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 have protested to the Government of the Republic of France, on behalf of British colonial territories in the Pacific, against the projected explosion of a hydrogen bomb of megaton strength above Muroroa; whether they will initiate common action with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand on this matter; and whether representations have been made regarding the current Russian rocket tests in the Pacific involving the daily exclusion of ships and planes from the test area until the end of the year.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, the French Government are well aware of our views. We hope that France, in common with other countries that have not done so, will in due course accede to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which prohibits nuclear testing in the atmosphere. It is not therefore necessary to take common action with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand.
Her Majesty's Government have not made representations about the current Soviet rocket tests. It is a recognised practice of countries from time to time to announce danger areas for such purposes on and above the high seas.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I welcome back the Minister and apologise for interrogating her so early? Is the Minister aware of the depth of feeling
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in New Zealand and Australia, as indicated by the announcement by the New Zealand Prime Minister that he will send frigates into the area with Cabinet Ministers on board, and a rather surprising endorsement of that by the temporary Prime Minister of Australia? Does this not show that if we wish to associate with New Zealand and Australia we should act with them in this matter?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we voted for a resolution sponsored by New Zealand, Australia and Fiji at the United Nations which called for the suspension of all atmospheric nuclear tests, and in that way we took action with them.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in regard to the second Dart of the Question, may I ask whether the Russian decision is not a repudiation of the freedom of the seas and of the air; and is this not a serious matter which our Government should take up?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I understand that international legal opinion tends to regard that particular practice as not unlawful by virtue of customary observance.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, did we hear the Minister aright in her first Answer when she said that it was because we hoped that France would sign the Test Ban Treaty that we were not taking common action with Australia and New Zealand? If so, what is the ground for the Government's hope that France will do that?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we have no particular grounds for knowing that the French will immediattely accede to the Test Ban Treaty; but we took common action with New Zealand and Australia at the United Nations, and so far as we are aware France has not confirmed those particular tests.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, we are all grateful for the Answer given by the noble Baroness. We are aware of her humane attitude to these problems and of the difficulties that we all are in over this problem of the explosion of nuclear weapons. Would she not suggest,

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as a magnanimous gesture of the Western world, that instead of exploding its weapons in the Pacific Ocean and destroying the food and life of some of the people there, we use the Atlantic Ocean for a change?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, having just returned from a certain area of the Atlantic Ocean (and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Brockway for welcoming me back) I do not think, despite the difficulties, that I would go quite so far as has been suggested.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that it is extremely unlikely that the Government of France will accede to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963? Can she tell us whether Her Majesty's Government have made any representations to the French about this latest in the series of nuclear tests in the Pacific?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we have not made any specific representations because, as I said in my original Answer, our views are well known and because the French Government have not yet confirmed that these tests are to take place. If there were any question of tests taking place, we should certainly do as we have done in the past—consult the French authorities—because we have a duty of health monitoring in relation to our dependencies.

LEAD POLLUTION AND HEALTH
3.13 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what new plans they have to reduce pollution from lead.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, the Government have already announced plans for the progressive reduction of the lead content of petrol, for the reduction of the permissible amounts of lead in baby
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foods, and for the reduction of the lead content of writing implements and other household articles. All these measures will reduce significantly the quantity of lead to which people are exposed.
Research into many aspects of lead pollution is continuing: there are at present some fifty Government or Government-sponsored projects under way, including surveys of airborne lead at roadside sites in five major cities. The Government are also concerned about the possible dangers of lead contamination in the vicinity of lead works, and have encourage the relevant authorities to investigate the situation around works for which they are responsible. As your Lordships know, my right honourable friend is examining this problem urgently and will be announcing such further measures as may be necessary as soon as possible.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, may I thank the Minister for that voluminous reply, and may I redirect his attention to the original Question, which asks for the new plans that the Government have to reduce pollution? Could he, for example, illustrate the activity of the Government by telling us what is going to be done for the future protection of children from lead?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the particular regulation that affects children is the regulation enforcing the reduction of permissible amounts of lead in baby foods.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as the noble Earl who answered the Question about lead yesterday appeared to take the matter less seriously than the noble Lord who has answered to-day, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, always to answer Questions about lead? It would be much more helpful.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, could the noble Lord explain why, of the nine surveys of lead pollution announced by the former Minister for the Environment earlier this year, none was connected with children and young people; and whether he really feels that this small token advance in the case of lead in baby foods is enough to protect children in youth from processes which can cause permanent brain damage?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, it may seem a small matter but the fact is that the hazard to human beings from ingested food is much greater in the case of infants; and if you take steps to regulate and reduce the maximum perm content of lead in baby foods you re acting in an important sector.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, is the noble Lord asserting that the only way in which infants imbibe lead is through baby foods? Do they not breathe?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, I believe that they do, and some of the research which I indicated will help us to take action if necessary on airborne lead. Young children also suck pencils, and the regulations which the Home Secretary intends to introduce to deal with the lead content of pencils will also help.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether the figure to which the Government are going to reduce the lead level in petrol is a final figure, or if they are proposing to go still further? Can the noble Lord also say what further work the Government are doing to see what is the limit to which the lead in petrol can be reduced without introducing further sources of pollution?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that is one of the items into which further research is being done. The next step proposed is a reduction to 0·45 grams per litre by 1975.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the Minister say whether there has been a complete prohibition on the use of lead paint on children's toys.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, this is one of the matters covered by regulations to be introduced by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, may I ask one final supplementary question? Has the Minister seen the research from Birmingham University which shows that—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but we do have a rule against reading supplementary questions.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, may I ask that supplementary question unread,
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as I did the first time? May I ask whether the noble Lord has seen the research by Dr. Stevens, of Birmingham University, which showed that young children could ingest a dangerous amount of lead from household dust alone; and may I ask whether the Government are taking steps to find out whether this sort of dangerous ingestion is stopped?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for drawing my attention to that matter. I shall certainly study it and ensure that it is drawn to the attention of my Department, if they are not already aware of it.

POST OFFICE TELEPHONES AT TAXI RANKS
3.17 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: 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 it is a fact or not that, in London, the telephone authority charge full rate for telephone installations at taxi ranks although these are not available for outward calls, and if so whether they regard this as an equitable arrangement.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, this is a matter for the Post Office, but I can confirm that it charges rental for telephones installed at taxi ranks at the standard business rate.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Would he agree that any facility that would contribute, or tend to contribute, towards the increased use of public transport in London would be a contribution to solving the traffic problem? Furthermore, is the noble Lord aware that up to eight years ago these facilities were provided free; that the cost of an installation to-day is £26 per annum, and that since there are fifty-three of these installations I work out the cost at something like £2,400 a year?
LORD DENHAM: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of the figures quoted by my noble friend. Even if what my noble friend proposes would contribute to a solution of the traffic problem in London it would not be fair, I think, to ask the Post Office to pay for it. I think it would

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be a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, and my right honourable friend does not consider that providing free telephones would help to solve the traffic problem.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, since the instruments operate only one way, half of the rate would not be a more reasonable charge?
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, charges are a matter for the Post Office, but they tell me that the average cost of installing a telephone without outgoing call facilities is little different from that of providing an ordinary telephone. Furthermore, these telephones at taxi ranks are very much exposed to the weather and to vandalism, and the maintenance costs can be higher than normal.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, if the cost of a two-way telephone is virtually the same as for a one-way telephone, why not have two-way telephones?
LORD DENHAM: For two reasons, my Lords. In the first place, it would he very difficult to stop members of the general public from using them, and therefore getting free telephone calls at the expense of the taxi drivers; and secondly, if there were facilities for outgoing calls, every time one wanted to ring up for a taxi the telephone would he engaged.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, may I congratulate the noble Lord on the instantaneous reply which he "cooked up" to that supplementary Question?

IMMIGRATION CONTROL
3.19 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose taking for the early introduction of legislation to review and correct the present procedures which would apparently permit a further large inflow of people of alien races.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, the new 1971 Immigration Act, which comes fully into force on January 1, gives the Government more effective control over immigration than has ever existed before.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, has the Minister taken notice of the widespread anxiety, as reflected in the Press, at the possibility, apparently, under existing legislation, of a further large inflow of people of alien races into this country; and the Statement made in this House, I' think, that some 300,000 or more people might suffer the same circumstances as the Ugandan incident and could possibly have a right to cone into this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords, the Government are very well aware of the great public anxiety about this situation. We hope and believe that no such further event will happen. But the best and most satisfactory solution, if people were to find they had nowhere to go, would lie in international co-operation, international understanding, on the widest scale. After all, this has stood us in such very good stead in the case of the Ugandan refugees.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, do I understand the noble Viscount to say that the Government propose a review of the procedure affecting the incursion of people of alien races to this country? And if there is to be a review, will this provide for a revision, or perhaps a modification, of the provision in the Treaty of Rome which provides for the free movement of labour?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord misunderstood me. I did not say anything about a review. As for the control of entry of people from the rest of the Common Market countries, this is a matter which is under consideration at the moment as a result of events in another place.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, recognising the serious situation, may I ask whether it is not desirable that there should be a conference with representatives of the Commonwealth countries concerned, to come to an agreement on this issue?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, I think, has asked this question on numerous previous occasions. He will to some extent be reassured by the announcement quite recently of the fullest consultations which are planned with some of the Commonwealth countries. We are of course in close touch with other Commonwealth Governments on all these matters. I do not think that anything will fail through lack of communications between us and our partners in the Commonwealth.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, would the Minister agree that, in view of his statement just now that the Ugandan incident was unforeseen, it is logical to assume that some other similar instances at present cannot be foreseen? Would he therefore urge the Government to reconsider the position, and review the question of the necessity for some clearer indication of what type of papers give permission of entry into this country? I ask this particularly in view of the repeated statements in another place in the debate last week on the completely confused situation existing to-day. May I also ask him to what the Statement of the Secretary of State on October 23, that no specific undertakings were given, had reference? If it is the wish of the House, I can read out the complete Statement.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, as to the latter part of my noble friend's supplementary question, I am not quite sure to what he is referring. As to the first part, I am all in favour of clarity at all possible points. I have no doubt that my noble friend is right in asking for this. The matter is a little too general perhaps to answer at this stage, but I should be glad to look into it, and I am sure that we can return to it on another occasion.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, is not the anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, completely unnecessary because ultimately is it not the right of any Government to control immigration in certain circumstances?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I suppose it is the right of Governments to control emigration and immigration, but I think one has to take account of the real anxiety about this
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matter at the moment and not to underestimate it. As I have said, the Government do understand public feeling on this and have it very much in mind.
LORD WADE: My Lords, should not some care be taken in using such expressions as "alien races"? Is there a precise definition of an "alien race"?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I did not use that expression. I answered the Question in relation to the Immigration Act 1971, and I think the House is fully aware that this covers, I think, everybody who wants to come into this country for the first time on a uniform basis. I make no distinctions of wording of this sort.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, in connection with immigration, is any consideration given to the existing and absolutely uncontrolled immigration from Southern Ireland, which in the last war desired to be regarded, and did still regard itself, as a foreign country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the position of Southern Ireland is slightly anomalous, even within this subject matter. There is a different procedure under the British Nationality Act for dealing with citizens of Southern Ireland than for any others. It really is another Question from that on the Order Paper.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I, with the indulgence of the House, ask my noble friend whether, in view of the confusion that exists, to which his attention has no doubt been drawn, it is to be understood that there is no likelihood of any intention to try to rectify it?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am not quite sure what it is that I am supposed to be asked to rectify. I do not think I can add to what I have said this afternoon. If my noble friend is not satisfied with that, I am afraid he will have to return to it on a specific Question on another occasion.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, is it not the fact that we are going to debate this matter in a few days? Would it not be better to leave the debate until that occasion?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, from the growl of assent I think that what the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has just said is sage advice. Perhaps, we should now pass on, as we shall be debating this issue next Wednesday.

BUSINESS: ICELANDIC FISHERIES STATEMENT
3.28 p.m.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir will be making a Statement at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. about the Icelandic fishing dispute.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the Government Chief Whip why, when we have the responsible Minister in this House, we should have to wait until after 3.30 o'clock and wait on another place? I am sure that the noble Baroness has her Statement ready. Would it not be possible for this House to take the lead in this matter?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, this is a Statement which, as I understand it, is basically being made by the Foreign Secretary. The Foreign Secretary is the Head of his Department, and although he may have sent one of his assistants to undertake these negotiations he is responsible for his Department and therefore has the prior claim to make the Statement.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, if I am correct, the Statement is not the same, because it begins, "I met Icelandic Ministers". Perhaps I should apologise to the Government for revealing that; but it is no secret. May I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that this is a difficulty that used to confront us when we were in Government, and that we used to try to split the difference? Whereas noble Lords opposite usually wait for the Miinster in another place to get up, if the Minister who was responsible for the negotiations was in this House I always used to get up sharp at 3.30, whatever went on in another place; and if I might go on for another thirty seconds I would suggest that the precedent which we established then might well be adopted on this occasion. But if that is going to get the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the Government Chief
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Whip into great trouble, we will not press them. However, it would seem that since it is so near the magic hour now—
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition was going a little too far in divulging the fact that he was conscious of the contents of the Statement which was going to be made—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I apologise for that.
EARL ST. ALDWYN:—but I do not think we should alter the arrangements, certainly on this occasion. I have no objection whatever to going into this question through the usual channels, to see whether we can reach a satisfactory arrangement. Unlike the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, I have not seen the Statement yet so I do not know what it contains and to what extent the words differ from those which will be used in another place; but I suggest that we might carry on as I have indicated and wait for a suitable moment after 3.30, which means when the Foreign Secretary gets up in another place. One cannot guarantee that it will be at 3.30; that will depend on the business preceding the Statement given in another place.

ABERDEEN HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
SCRABSTER HARBOUR (VEHICLE FERRY TERMINAL ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
PENSIONERS AND FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT PAYMENTS BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

COUNTER-INFLATION (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
3.33 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, I beg to move that this Bill be now considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be now considered on Report.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 2 [Prices, pay, dividends and rents]:
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 5. at end insert—
("This subsection shall not apply to increases in remuneration of £2·60 per week or less to the extent that such increases do not bring the remuneration up to a figure in excess of £22·60 per week.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an opportunity to consider again a matter on which we had a wide amount of agreement on Committee stage. When I moved a similar Amendment on Committee stage there were doubts about the way in which we should set about this matter of making some arrangements for the lower-paid workers during the temporary freeze, but many, if not most of us, felt that we ought to try to do something in this interim, temporary period. There is one point which has strengthened the case which some of us tried to make. Although at the beginning there were hesitations by some people about making exceptions, before we got through the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, made it quite clear that exceptions are to be made to this freeze and he listed some of the categories. May I remind your Lordships of some of the people concerned? He said that exempted from the freeze would be those in white-collar employment, for example, employees in insurance companies, banks and those industrial concerns with large office staffs, as well as civil servants, teachers and others in the public service. All these were to be exempted from the freeze.
I am quite sure that when some noble Lords voted against our Amendment at the beginning of our discussions on the Bill. on the grounds that they thought
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the freeze should apply equally to all—that was the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn—they were unaware that the Bill made exceptions to the list. The noble Lord himself made it quite clear that a considerable number of people were in fact exempted. I pointed out to him at the time that although he spelt out this list then, which included lower-paid people, he might also have spelt out the higher salary ranges which were included in the list and the fact that we were specifically exempting many people with very considerable salaries.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord proceeds, would he tell me exactly where I stated that these categories of people were exempted from the freeze?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords, in col. 1206 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. These exemptions, I must say, make it all the more important that we should try to do something for the least fortunate. May I make quite clear what I am suggesting? It is not that there should be a blanket increase for all earning under £20 a week. The position, if this Amendment is accepted, will be that any wage settlements arrived at after proper negotiation between employer and employee, or awarded by a wages council as was the case with the agricultural workers, will not be caught by the freeze if the employees concerned have less than £20 per week. This seems to be morally and socially right, and it cannot be economically wrong. It cannot be economically wrong, because I hold it to be a principle that what is morally and socially right cannot be economically wrong. In any case, this is well within the limit laid down by the Government itself. The Government itself, in the official package, proposed that, without upsetting our economy, we could afford to make a wage award of £2·60 to all the salary ranges. I am limiting this proposal to those who have less than £20 a week.
The wording of the Amendment has been revised in detail so as to meet the difficulty put by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. It will be recalled that when we discussed this matter before he said that there were difficulties in the transition period, as it were. He pointed out

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that—and perhaps I might remind him of what he said at col. 1112—
"… a worker whose earnings averaged £19·50 might go up to £21 or £22, while a worker who averaged £20·50 would remain at that level, and might even fall below £20 if his £20·50 had included overtime."
It was a fair point which the noble Lord made, and I have tried to meet it in the revised wording which I now place before your Lordships. It may still not be perfect, but if the noble Lord has any other point which he feels we ought to include before accepting the principle of this Amendment, we can of course put forward a manuscript Amendment, as we did before on Third Reading. I am sure the noble Lord wishes to meet us on this point. I beg to move.
3.40 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I should like to say one word in support of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, because this Amendment is very much in line with the policy which my Party has been expressing over a considerable period of time. Some of your Lordships may be aware that we have had an extensive campaign on behalf of the lower-paid worker to show how badly he has done in relation to the rest of the community over the past few years. These conditions have been borne out by independent studies, such as that of the Child Poverty Action Group, which showed that during the period of the Labour Government between 1964 and 1970 the relative position of the lowest decile of those people in employment had deteriorated relative to average earnings in industry and employment as a whole—a serious indictment of the performance of the Labour Party while they were in power. But at least they expressed the opinion that over a period of time something should be done to redress the average situation as between the lowest paid and those in employment as a whole. Because we failed to do this when we had a Government in power that was dedicated to such an objective, we now face a situation where it is grossly unfair that the people about whom the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. is speaking should be deprived of the opportunity of redressing their position just a little during the processes of the freeze.
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My right honourable friend the Leader of the Liberal Party wrote to the Prime Minister during our campaign on behalf of the lower paid and those with low incomes generally suggesting that we should try to increase wages relatively quickly for those earning below £20 a week. I will attempt to paraphrase the Prime Minister's answer. It was to the effect that if you allowed people who were earning less than £20 a week to receive increases of, let us say, £2 a week, then all the way up the scale you would get the effect of people trying to copy this and asking for a percentage increase equivalent to that which had been obtained by the lower-paid workers. So in the end we would worsen the inflationary situation that we are faced with. That argument does not apply if we are going to have a freeze lasting for 90 days, or some additional period as may emerge in due course. While this freeze lasts, the Government have a splendid opportunity to allow the wages of these people earning below £20 a week to increase without at the same time encouraging other groups of workers to follow their example. I hope that the noble Lord will accept this opportunity on behalf of the Government, and will do something at long last for the lowest paid people in this country who deserve this help.
3.43 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, unless the Government are willing to accept this modified version of a previous Amendment which they rejected, there are serious doubts about the sincerity of the Government concerning the situation in which the lower-paid workers find themselves. The Government have expressed their desire that the lower-paid workers should have their rates of pay raised to a higher level. There is no doubt about that. No Member of your Lordships' House would challenge that. That was a declaration made by the Prime Minister, and supported by other members of the Government. Then the Government decided to enter into negotiations with the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. They actually offered a norm of £2·50 across the board. This was not acceptable for various reasons (and there is no reason for one to discuss that at this stage) and the Government decided upon a freeze. Nevertheless, their desire to assist the lower-paid worker stands.

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Here is an opportunity. Let us be quite clear as to what is being asked. We are not asking in this Amendment that the lower-paid workers, whatever their rates may be, £15, £16, £17 or £18—or even to refer to what was said in the course of the previous debate, £19·50—should have a rise of £2 across the board; all that we are asking is that the lower-paid workers, whatever the rates may be at the present time, should, as a result of negotiations entered into between the employers and the workers, be allowed to have their wages increased proportionately to bring them up to £20 a week. I understand that that is the submission made by my noble friend Lord Beswick. Surely, no Members of your Lordships' House who have expressed any anxiety (if I may use the term "anxiety") to assist the lower-paid workers could object to that. In any event, it does not encourage inflation; if there is any inflationary effect it is surely a modified form. I do not see why the Government cannot accept this Amendment.
I should like to direct attention, looking ahead and envisaging the future after the ninety days' period has expired, to what will happen. Are the Government going to come to a decision which will provoke more resentment? These people earning under £20 a week are affected by the cost of living. There is no doubt about the rise in the cost of living and how it impinges upon the standard of living of those who are described as the lower paid. At the end of the ninety days' period, there is no declaration by the Government that the freeze will be terminated. Indeed, it has been suggested that it may be necessary—and I rather suspect it will he necessary—to continue the freeze. In that situation the lower-paid workers, whom we are anxious to help, are not to receive a single penny by way of increase in the rate of pay, not only for ninety days, but may he for several months ahead. Surely that is not the desire of the Government, or Members of your Lordships' House.
I do not want to indulge in a repetition of the content of the Second Reading debate, but I must confess that I am horrified at the inability of this Government—and I will say a word about the
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previous Government in a moment—to create a situation where we can bring together both sides of the industry and come to a decision, either of conciliation or arbitration, which will put an end to the situation in which the lower-paid workers find themselves, and, at the same time, help in a modified way—and I will not say more than "help"—to prevent further inflation. I was very much interested in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in the course of the Second Reading debate. The noble Baroness referred to Professor Clegg who had suggested the creation of an economic council, or something of the sort, which would investigate rates of pay for all classes and categories of workers, and make a recommendation.
I think the noble Baroness had conceived the notion that this was the first time that this had ever been mentioned. In point of fact, I do not know whether Members of your Lordships' House are aware that a submission was made to the Attlee Government—and that is a long time ago—on two occasions for the creation of a national wage policy which provided for the setting up of an economic council who would investigate, inquire and probe and then come to a decision. But they would not be vested with the right to decide what the actual rates of pay would be; that would be a matter for the Government to decide. The matter of prices and a variety of other matters associated with a national wage policy was to be considered. In fact I, as a member of the Cabinet, submitted a Cabinet Paper which put forward the proposal for a national wage policy. It contained practically all the proposals Professor Clegg made quite recently. It was rejected, I regret to say, because of the opposition of the trade union members of the Government who thought that this would impinge upon their proprietary rights to indulge in collective bargaining which had been customary for many years. Later on it was rejected by no less a person than Sir Stafford Cripps as Chancellor of the Exchequer because it would promote more inflation. In point of fact, if it had been considered at the time it would have been realised that it would solve many of our problems in relation to rates of pay; it would have counteracted against inflationary effects which perhaps

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have been exaggerated to some extent in relation to rates of pay. I do not want to refer to that because it is really part of a Second Reading debate; but the matter has been discussed over and over again.
There is one further point. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has referred to what the last Government, the Wilson Government, did. The Wilson Government in fact left it to the trade unions, along with the employers, to decide whether the rates of pay of the lower-paid workers should be increased. The Prices and Incomes Board postulated a norm; and that norm, if it had been accepted across the board, would have improved the position of the lower-paid workers. Although there were perhaps justifiable criticisms of the proposal of the Prices and Incomes Board, and the principles associated with it (I do not want to enter into that argument), nevertheless it was left to both sides of industry to help. Very little was done in that regard. Now there is an opportunity for the Government to help. They are not asked to do much. It is not a violation of the principle that the Government have laid down in connection with the freeze. A much modified improvement is asked for, and I hope that the Government will give it their consideration.
3.52 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I briefly, but very strongly, support this Amendment? It should apply, as it does now, to all the lower-paid workers, but I want to remind your Lordships once more of the plight of the largest group of those lower-paid workers; that is, the farm workers. I know that it is perfectly true, as the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, pointed out in the Second Reading debate, to say there are some farm workers (I do not know what proportion it is) who in fact have been receiving more than the present minimum of £16·20. Those, of course, if they were receiving much in excess and were over the minimum laid down in this Amendment, would not in any way he affected by it. The Amendment would apply only to the lowest paid and those who are receiving under the £22·60 mark—in my opinion the great majority of farm workers.
Your Lordships know full well the record of farm workers. Not only are
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they the lowest paid of all our important workers in this country; not only are they among the most important producers of this country, but they also have the most enviable record when it comes to strikes and industrial disputes. They have, further, the most enviable record, one of which any other industry could be proud, of increases in productivity over the years. It cannot be just that these people should be condemned always to remain at the very bottom of the scale. They have recently received a very modest rise, which was due to come into force on January 22. If this Amendment is accepted that rise will be allowed, and for six weeks before the end of the freeze—a very small amount of time—they will be receiving what they have been awarded and what every person in this country must agree is the minimum, in fairness, that they should have.
This is a time of year when the lowest-paid workers, especially the farm workers, are particularly hard hit. On the farm to-day, because of shortage of daylight, there is a minimum of overtime. Very few farm workers receive overtime at all: they have to subsist on their basic minimum. It is not as in the summer and spring when they can, by working long hours, earn an extra £5, even £6, a week. Not only are their earnings, therefore, restricted to this basic minimum, £16·20, but their costs rise—as indeed do the costs of everybody, but of course the lowest-paid workers are affected most. Food is costing more because of many factors, of which we are all aware, including the seasonal factor which always strikes food prices harder during the winter months. The weather is colder. More has to be spent on fuel for warmth. More has to be spent on clothes for warmth. More has to be spent on electricity because the hours of daylight are shorter. All these factors are of insignificant importance to, I daresay, every one of your Lordships in this Chamber to-day, but they are of overriding importance to the farm worker and his wife living on £16·20 a week.
I beg your Lordships to support this Amendment on grounds of common justice; on grounds of gratitude to a body of people to whom we owe far more than we are ever willing to acknowledge or to pay; and on grounds of expediency for

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the Government themselves. Allowing this rise for the lower-paid workers, and so creating a measure of good will, will in no way, as has been pointed out, run counter to the Government's professed and even offered policy in the past. It will have no significant effect upon either the cost of food or the cost of living, but it will make the atmosphere for the vital negotiations and agreements which we hope will come after this freeze far more favourable. So I ask your Lordships, no matter on which side of the House you sit, to ponder these questions and to support this Amendment, if necessary in the Lobby.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I wish to put the point to the Government that this is a very necessary Amendment. The price of food is going ahead by leaps and bounds. The price of beef and fat cattle in the market has gone up by 10 shillings a cwt. per week during the past two weeks, and by Christmas it is anticipated that the price for fat cattle will be £20 a cwt. I am not disagreeing with the rise in the price of fat cattle—I myself have fat cattle—but it means that my labourer, who is receiving under £20 a week, cannot buy beef; he cannot buy mutton or lamb. I urge the Government to accept this Amendment because it would to some extent ameliorate the vast rise in the cost of food and the cost of living.
LORD MILFORD: My Lords, I should very much like to support this Amendment. May I remind noble Lords on the other side of the House that we in this House, by coming here three days a week, for perhaps half an hour, and "clocking on", earn more in those three days than the lower-paid worker who has to work five or six days a week?
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, while I do not wish to detract from the noble Lord's arguments, I think he should realise that there are also a large number of farm workers in Scotland, and therefore his figures are quite wrong. In Scotland we work on a five-day week, but cows require feeding seven days a week; therefore the argument that, because of short daylight, workers get no overtime, or little overtime, in winter is completely fallacious. The basic wage of a cattleman in Scotland is little
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enough—I am not denying this at all. It is too low; but it is £18·50, not £16·50. The other point which I think should be made is that my cattleman has managed to acquire from his pitifully low wages a colour television set. He is not starving. If there is a good programme, he invites me in to watch his television. I do not want to detract from the argument, but I do want us to have our facts right.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I do not want to detract from the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, but he did not mention that every farm servant has a tied house. This is worth at least £3 a week to him.

ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE
4.0 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, if it is for the convenience of the House perhaps I may now repeat the Statement on Icelandic Fisheries which my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary is at this moment making in another place.
My Lords, I met Icelandic Ministers in Reykjavik on November 27 and 28 in a further attempt to reach an interim settlement on the fisheries dispute. I am very sorry to have to inform the House that our efforts were unsuccessful.
Since our earlier discussions in July, the International Court of Justice has given an interim order, under which Iceland is not to enforce her regulations against British vessels outside the 12-mile limit, and we should reduce our catch to a maximum of 170,000 tons a year. Our policy is based upon this order. However, to reach an interim agreement we did not insist on catching 170,000 tons, and we were prepared to consider any reasonable method of limitation.
The proposal which, with the support of the British fishing industry, I put to the Icelandic Government, was based on a report made by British and Icelandic officials in October. This suggested a negotiating bracket between 17 per cent. and 25 per cent. below the British catch of 1971. We suggested that one-third of the waters round Iceland should be closed to British vessels at any one time. We also accepted Icelandic conservation areas and recognised that there might be

1425
a need for special arrangements for areas containing fixed gear. Our industry was also prepared to give an assurance on the future composition or tonnage of the fishing fleet. We offered to negotiate on the midpoint of the bracket proposed by officials; namely, a catch of 163,000 tons—about 21 per cent. below the 1971 figure.
The Icelandic Government proposed that half the area should be closed at any one time. They also wanted further extensive areas to be reserved for the smaller Icelandic vessels and pressed for the exclusion of all our freezers, as well as trawlers over 180 feet in length or 750 to 800 tons in size. This would have excluded our most modern vessels and constituted a damaging precedent. We estimated that the total effect of these restrictions would be to cut our catch by at least 60 to 70 per cent.
In an attempt to bridge the gap, we suggested a different approach in the form of a 10 per cent. reduction in the actual fishing effort—the number of days fishing—by British vessels in the disputed waters. We estimated that this would have resulted in a 25 per cent. reduction in the catch, giving us perhaps 158,000 tons, compared with 208,000 in 1971. However, the Icelandic Government was not prepared at this stage to accept this suggestion as a basis for further negotiation, and suggested no alternative.
I offered to extend my stay but the Icelandic Government did not consider we could take matters further at this stage. I hope, however, that when they have considered our latest proposals further, they will recognise that they meet their twin requirements of conservation and coastal state preference. This method would still preserve the livelihood of our own fishermen. For our part we are ready to resume negotiations at any time. Meanwhile we will continue the proceedings before the International Court.
We continued to keep in touch with the Federal German Government throughout these negotiations.
LORD HOY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating this Statement which she drafted to be made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in another place. One or two items arise from it: first, may I ask the
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noble Baroness to make quite clear what the final negotiating figures were? As I understand it, our final proposal was that we were prepared to sustain a cut of some 25 per cent. in our 1971 catch, while Iceland was insisting on making a cut of 65 per cent. If these are the figures (which I worked out rather quickly) then, quite obviously, I think even to the most biased person they appear to be grossly unfair, and I hope she will make this clear to the Icelandic Government.
With regard to the final offer made by the Government, as I understand it this offer is still being considered by the Icelandic Government and rumour has it that Iceland does not want to prolong these negotiations. Is there in tact any hint that the negotiations may be reopened much more quickly than was anticipated when the noble Baroness left Reykjavik? If they are, may I ask her to convey to Iceland, for whom we all have a great warmth and friendship, that we are not prepared to sacrifice either the livelihoods or the lives of British fishermen merely to retain that friendship.
With regard to the conclusion of the Statement I should like to ask what is meant by the sentence,
"We continued to keep in touch with the Federal German Government throughout these negotiations".
Quite obviously the House knows that Germany has an interest in these grounds, just as we have. But does that sentence in fact mean that not only is Germany being informed about the negotiations, but that through Germany her present partners in the E.E.C. are being kept in touch with these negotiations? If the noble Baroness can tell us what response she may have had from West Germany as a result of these negotiations, and what information she may have collected through West Germany with regard to the E.E.C., I am certain that the House will be grateful.
LORD TANLAW: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness the Minister for her Statement, we have two points that we wish to make from these Benches at this stage. First, is there not a danger that, if Iceland insists on preserving the 50-mile limit, there will be such a weight of fishing by all nationalities just outside

1427
British territorial waters as will deplete the stock to such an extent that the whole future of fishing just outside our territorial waters may be seriously jeopardised? The second point on which we should like clarification is this. If Iceland is successful in preserving, legally or illegally, a 50-mile limit for fishing, would it also affect her mineral and oil exploration rights in these waters?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I wish to thank both noble Lords who have commented on this Statement. In answer to the first question put by the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, he was perfectly correct in thinking that our final offer on what we hoped was a negotiating basis would have amounted to a cut of 25 per cent. in our catch in 1971. We said all along to the Icelanders that one must look at the agreement as a whole and that if we took all four main elements of their proposal it would, on a conservative basis, have amounted to about a 65 per cent. cut in our catch. Therefore of course there is a very wide difference indeed. However, the negotiations were not broken off. The Icelandic Government said that they would like to consider our final offer further, possibly even with a combination of something else which they might suggest. We are therefore hoping that they will communicate with us when they have given more thought to the final offer.
The sentence about the Federal German Government was included because we have kept in close touch with them throughout as their problem is very similar to ours. We both had agreements with Iceland in 1961 and both of us, under those agreements, agreed that where there was a difference of opinion there should be recourse to the International Court. The position at the moment with the European Communities is that they will not bring into operation their special relations provision with Iceland until on this fisheries question there is an agreement which is acceptable to all the existing and acceding States of the Communities.
Turning to the first question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, I should like to say to the noble Lord that of course if we did not dispute this question of Iceland extending her jurisdiction
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to 50 miles, and if we kept outside the 50 miles, it would certainly have a serious effect upon our other fishermen because, for example, those who fish off the Farces would find that boats from Iceland would come down to fish there and there would be general pressure on all the fishing grounds. On his second question, this particular dispute is concerned only with fishing rights and not with basic mineral deposits on the floor of the sea.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether during this interim period, before the negotiations are, as we hope they will be, resumed, our fishermen will receive protection if they fish within their legal rights?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, they would receive naval protection if they really needed it. I understand they are having a meeting to-day to discuss the question, and I should like to say how much I appreciated the help that was given to us by our two observers, Mr. Hudson from the British Trawlers Federation and Mr. Shenton representing the Transport and General Workers' Union. Our fishermen have, in the absence of an agreement, an absolute right according to the interim order of the International Court to fish within 50 miles and as long as there is no harassment of our vessels there will be no need for naval protection. I would hope that as we are still in a state of suspended talks, if I may put it that way, there will be no question of harassment of our vessels.
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to take that one step further? In regard to our position vis-à-vis West Germany, do I assume that when these negotiations have been carried out West Germany will in fact accede to an agreement which we feel to be acceptable and will not make a separate agreement? I do not want to cast doubt on the matter, but we are bound to be aware that one other country in Europe did come to a unilateral settlement which has not in any way strengthened our position.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the noble Lord has asked a very important question. Until now the Federal Republic of Germany has always been perfectly satis-

1429
fied with our negotiating position and so far as I am aware is still so satisfied. I believe that they have asked for consultations with the Icelandic Government before Christmas but I am not aware that any date has been fixed. I hope very much that they would not come to any separate agreement because we are both in a similar position under the 1961 Agreement.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the noble Baroness is always most helpful and gives full answers at Question and Statement Time. Is she aware that our difference with Iceland is becoming a matter of such broad impact, as the last supplementary question asked by my noble friend Lord Hoy showed, that it concerns not only fishing rights but fish conservation? As any difference with an ally must also concern general questions of foreign policy, may I ask the noble Baroness to agree that this is a matter which cannot be gone into deeply enough at Statement Time and whether there might not be advantage in the House having a short debate on the subject at an early date, perhaps achieved by means of an Unstarred Question?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: So far as I am concerned, my Lords, I should be very glad to have such a debate; but I think I must suggest that the matter be discussed through the usual channels.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness a question on a point of information only? Is there any legal or moral obligation on the Icelandic Government to accept the verdicts of the International Court, because I understand that they are not enforceable? In the event of the Icelandic Government actually refusing to accept the verdict of the International Court in this matter, are there any means at our disposal, as it were to maintain the rule of law in international affairs?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, it is perfectly true that, despite having said that they supported the International Court, the Icelandic Government do not recognise the Court at the moment on this issue. The Court has to decide two things. It gave us an indication of interim measures, which is not a final ruling but which has
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I think strong moral force. It has to decide, first, about its own jurisdiction. That decision we would expect at the end of this year or early next year. Secondly, it has, assuming that it has decided that it has jurisdiction in this case, to decide on the substantive issue. If it decided on the substantive issue in our favour and still no notice was taken of its ruling, then I am sure that the noble Lord will know from his experience that there is an Article in the United Nations Charter which provides for a party to a dispute to have recourse to the Security Council.
LORD HOY: And the European Parliament.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BFLHELVIE: My Lords, various methods are open to us.

COUNTER -INFLATION (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
4.15 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, perhaps we can return to the question of counter-inflation. May I begin by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that having serious doubts about the sincerity of Government is an occupational disease of Oppositions. All I can tell him is that, as he himself said, it is the Government's policy to seek to improve the relative position of low-paid workers, and that is part of the policy which we are at present working out with a view to bringing it into effect without any interval between phase 1 and phase 2—in other words, immediately at the end of the standstill.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, started by appearing to quote what I had said. In fact, he was paraphrasing my remarks, because I have carefully studied column 1206 and can find no reference to what he said I had said about exemptions being made and some categories being exempted. It may have been a paraphrase because, for one thing, I have carefully avoided using the word "freeze".
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for allowing me to intervene.

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He always gives way when there is a difference of view as to the facts and I am sure that the House will want to know what the facts are about whether certain categories are excluded. Column 1205 is next to column 1206. In fact, it is on the same page. It is therefore easy to make a mistake when giving a column number and to give the number of the column on the right instead of the one on the left. The noble Lord is reported in column 1205 as having said:
"The next subsection states:
' This section shall not apply to an increase in remuneration which is in respect of age, or length of service, or length of service in employment of a particular kind, or in employment in a particular grade.'
I think I should tell the noble Lord what are the areas that are covered by this particular subsection. The numbers involved can be divided into four categories. First, there are employees in the public sector who receive regular increments in predetermined scales. These people include nurses, teachers and the police, as well as clerical workers in the nationalised industries and local authorities. Second, there are comparable workers in the private sector…Third, there are many workers, including large numbers of manual workers…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28 / 11 /72; col. 1205.]
Surely my noble friend was making the simple point, which cannot be denied, that the noble Lord said on behalf of the Government that the effect of the Bill was to exclude a large number of workers.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I thought it only right to say that the words I was quoted as having said I did not say. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, returning to his place. I am not making a point of this because I shall come to it later in my remarks. I am merely saying that I did not say the words attributed to me. Later in my speech I will make it clear to the noble Lord just where he has misunderstood this whole matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, tried in Committee to persuade your Lordships to accept an Amendment which would have permitted increases in pay for any employee whose average weekly remuneration during the 13 weeks before November 6 was below £20 a week. One of the reasons why I advised your Lordships not to accept that Amendment was because it would have given rise to unfairness between those whose average
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remuneration was less than £20 and those whose average remuneration was just over £20. That is not, of course, the only reason; it is certainly not the main reason. The main reason is that the whole purpose of this Bill is to effect a 90-day or at most a 150-day standstill, as complete as is practicable, which can serve as a breathing space in which the policy for the future can be worked out, discussed and carried into effect, so that, as I have just said to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, it will come into operation immediately the standstill comes to an end. That is the main reason. What the noble Lord plainly wants to do is to exempt from the standstill the lower paid, up to a certain level of remuneration. He has now realised obviously that the particular way of exempting them which he suggested on Committee had flaws in it and would not work out fairly in practice, so he is having another shot. I am bound to show exactly what this Amendment would do and what its effect would be, otherwise noble Lords will not be able to make up their minds about it.
Instead of relating the exemption to average weekly remuneration before November 6, he proposes to relate it to a maximum level of remuneration, namely, £22·60, within which it would be permissible to pay increases in remuneration not exceeding £2·60 per week. I think I have that right. What he obviously has in mind is that the person whose earnings have been averaging about £20—because that is the figure he seems to have very much in mind all the time—should he able to get a maximum increase of £2·60—and that was the overall maximum increase that the Prime Minister indicated could be accommodated within the Chequers proposals, after allowing for wage drift. The across-the-board increase that the Prime Minister proposed in wage rates was, I would remind your Lordships, to be £2. What the noble Lord has not yet grasped is that what the Bill is talking about is not remuneration but rates of remuneration. That is a very important distinction. It is the rate of remuneration that must not exceed the rate paid for the same kind of work before November 6, 1972. If you did not have this sort of provision, it would mean that people who were actually doing more work and earning more overtime would not be

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allowed to get any more remuneration, so you have to have some provision of this kind.
The White Paper is quite clear about this, because it says in paragraphs 11 and 12:
"The term ' pay ' covers all rates of pay. In addition to the basic rate, this includes rates al pay for overtime or weekend work, piece rates and all allowances which are normally considered as pay.
The standstill will not apply to increases in earnings resulting directly from extra effort or output under existing arrangements, e.g. increases in piece-work earnings stemming from increased output. Nor will it apply to increases arising from genuine promotion. Where the existing pay is expressed in terms of ranges or scales they "—
that is, the ranges or scales—
"should not be increased".
LORD BESWICK: May I save the time of the House by saying that I will accept immediately what the noble Lord says. and between now and Third Reading we can draft an Amendment between us which will cover this point—that is, assuming that the noble Lord is not against the principle of what I am asking. If he is against the principle of what I am asking would he spare us these detailed arguments.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, Hear!
LORD DRUMALBYN: Noble Lords may say "Hear Hear!" but I must show what this means. Unless I explain this, the noble Lord will not be able to see that a minor Amendment will not cure this problem. That is exactly what I am coming to. The noble Lord's Amendment, as I said, does not refer to rates of remuneration but to remuneration. That in itself would make the meaning of the Amendment obscure and the Amendment itself unworkable. If it is not permissible to bring the remuneration up to a figure in excess of £22·60 per week, there would plainly be difficulties about overtime. The Amendment as drafted would cause serious anomalies between workers in the same employment or industry who are on the same basic rate. One may be working overtime and earning remuneration already of £22·60 or more, so that he would not qualify for an increase under the Amendment. Another, who is perhaps not willing to work overtime and so is earning only £20 or less, could get
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up to £2·60 more without any extra effort. It is one thing to suggest that no one should get more than £2·60 a week, but it is quite a different thing to propose that, in the same work force, workers should receive differential treatment in the way that the Amendment implies. That could surely give rise to trouble and dissension and could seriously prejudice the success of the standstill.
If the noble Lord meant not remuneration but rates of remuneration, and if the Amendment were to be interpreted in that way or further amended to give effect to what he meant, as he is now suggesting, we should be widening both the exemption and the possibilities of grievance very considerably. I ask noble Lords to consider the following example: A worker who was previously earning £20 basic plus, let us say, £8 overtime a week, would be allowed to get not an extra £2·60, but an extra £3·60 or more a week, whereas the worker who was previously earning £28 a week without overtime would not be permitted to get any increase at all.
I hope that I have said enough to show that the noble Lord has not been any more successful in devising a workable Amendment this time than he was last time. But I do not want to rest simply on the terms of the Amendment, although it will be clear to your Lordships how difficult it will be to give effect in this Bill to what the noble Lord and Lord Avebury and Lord Shinwell want. Much as we should have liked to be able to put the Chequers proposals into operation now on a voluntary basis, because talks with the T.U.C. and C.B.I. broke down we now have this Bill. We all understand the posture of an Opposition which is that, "We want more and we want it sooner". The Opposition is hound to press for this. We are all agreed that one of the essential ingredients in future policy should be to improve the relative position of the lower paid. This Bill is designed to Ore us the time and the elbow room to give form and content to that policy. The noble Lord, on the other hand, wants at all costs to take the first step in that policy now, however untidily and however inequitably. But he must realise, I suggest, that by making it possible for individual employers to concede or rot to concede increases up to an apparently

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precise but actually vague amount, he is opening the way to the sort of dissension that this Bill is particularly designed to avoid; dissension between workers and also between workers and employers. I appeal to the noble Lord not to throw the helmet of discord into the field but to withdraw his Amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, quite properly, spoke about the position of the agricultural workers. The position of agricultural workers has the sympathy of everyone. I entirely endorse what he said about what we owe to them, but we do of course have to consider the fairness of letting them through while holding others back. If we implemented the proposals for farm workers without deferment we should, in fairness, have to implement the many wages councils proposals where the position is similar, and there would be a strong case for allowing all the staged agreements referred to in paragraph 14 of the White Paper to go ahead. That would endanger the whole basis of the standstill. May I say to the noble Lord also that, while he was supporting this Amendment, it would not enable the wages council awards to be paid to all agricultural workers. It would result in a division between those who were earning below the minimum expressed in the Amendment and those who were earning above it. I do not think that that would be very satisfactory. He is really talking on the wrong Amendment altogether. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, since it has been shown that wages council employees have done relatively worse than the whole community, as I mentioned in my speech, would the noble Lord agree to an Amendment on Third Reading to exempt wages councils from the freeze?
LORD DRUMALBYN: No; I would not agree to that, for the reasons that I have given. The position, what we are trying to do, has been made quite clear in the White Paper. The general principle we adopted in the White Paper is that any increases paid during the standstill must pass two tests: first, that there was an agreement—an arbitration hearing, a wages council or board proposal
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before the standstill; and. second, that the operative date was before the standstill, and so far as the wages councils are concerned the last increase was 12 months before November 6. The agricultural awards pass the first test, but not the second or third tests. What I should add now is that the new rates for farm workers will come into operation from the date when the standstill ends.
I hope that I have answered the noble Lord's arguments to the satisfaction of the House as a whole. I do not imagine for a moment that I have convinced him. but the one thing of which I hope I have convinced him is that you are not going to get a satisfactory solution by tinkering about with this Amendment one way or another; you either accept the standstill as a whole or you do not. So far as the debate on increments we had the other day is concerned, I say again that we are dealing with rates of remuneration; and if, because of length of service, age or anything else, the rates of remuneration in the scales provide for an increase, then in that case that increase will be given on the date provided in the agreement or the contract. I said that this was desirable because otherwise those concerned would be penalised twice over, partly through not being able to have their scales or rates increased and partly because they were not getting the normal increases within the scales or rates. It is because we are dealing with rates all the time that this is no exception whatsoever. It is part of the general scheme, and it was in the scheme which the noble Lord's Party introduced in 1966.
4.31 p.m.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I had not washed to speak in this debate. because I spoke on Second Reading; therefore, I waited until the Minister had spoken. It seems to me that he is still labouring under several illusions. The first is that there are no anomalies in the Bill and that therefore anything proposed in an Amendment creates new anomalies. But, of course, there are anomalies in the Bill. For instance, there is one big electrical firm where wage increases were negotiated just before the guillotine come down for some of the factories but not for others. The other factories always

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took the first factory more or less as a leading instance in their wage determination. There you have an anomaly. There is the anomaly of Clause 3(3), concerning certain increases of remuneration which are in respect of age and so on. These are all anomalies. It seems to me that the problem ought to be looked at from the viewpoint of which anomaly is less of an anomaly, and you cannot possibly maintain that an anomaly which corrects low pay or helps to correct it—it will not do the whole job, of course—is not a lesser anomaly than the anomalies we now find in the Bill, especially those concerning promotions, which obviously can be only in respect of the higher paid workers.
Again I return to my old theme, that the Government must begin to learn the consequential policies of their new determination—and I accept that they are sincere in their new efforts—to get a consensus. It seems to me that you cannot get a consensus with this sort of rigidity of attitude. Instead of trying to show that there is a moral purpose in the whole legislative process they are proposing, that impression is absolutely absent. This is what I found so terribly objectionable that it prompted me to speak.
May I also take the indulgence of the House in righting a little "fluff" I made at an earlier stage—perhaps it was not a little one. The other day in the Second Reading debate I interrupted the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack. He had quoted my noble friend, Lord Diamond, asking for the so-called Gini co-efficient of inequality, and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said "Wealth" and I interrupted him and said "No, not wealth, income". What I ought to have said is that in this context the Gini co-efficient must be taken as the co-efficient for income. It was quite clear from the speech of my noble friend Lord Diamond, because he asked for the Gini co-efficient which is elaborated each year at the Budget, and the Budget is mainly concerned with income. I should like to apologise to the House and the noble and learned Lord if my explanation is more incomprehensible even than my intervention.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in his answer said that we are here dealing with rates, not with remuneration. He is wrong. We are dealing with what is usually termed pay, wages, the money which a workman takes home at the end of the week. You can call it what you like, but that is what we are concerned about: the ability of a man to make ends meet, to pay his bills. We must have regard to this.
The noble Lord said that I was being unfair when I quoted the list of workers or employees who are exempted. He said that I was wrong; that be never said this. Really, he must re-read again what he actually said. I maintained in moving the Amendment on Committee stage that subsection (3) of Clause 3 states that "This section", which deals with the freeze, "shall not apply to an increase in remuneration" to certain people. I went on to say that these certain people in fact included the better paid, and the noble Lord's argument was that I was wrong when I suggested that we were not freezing the better paid. He said in column 1205;
"… it is fairly clear that a significant proportion of the working population is covered in one way or another by payments of the sort described".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28/ 11 172.]
He listed them, and I quoted verbatim from the list he gave. The noble Lord says that we must have a standstill as a whole. For a number of people—in his own words "a significant proportion of the working population"—we are not applying a standstill. So there is an additional reason why we should try to deal with the particular class of people covered by my Amendment. The noble Lord has again gone into certain detail which shows that there are difficulties here: but I suggest to your Lordships that in this matter we have to deal with a principle. If the Chequers proposal was workable when it was put forward, it is workable now. I am applying the Chequers proposal only to the lower paid, pending the time when we can get agreement for the whole range of incomes; that is all I am doing.
If to some extent my Amendment is not well phrased, I offer to get together with the noble Lord. Let us get another form of words for the Third Reading.

1439
Unless he can offer to do that, I hope that we shall all seriously consider voting for this Amendment. Let us show that this free House in this free democracy is capable of taking a decision on merits. Let us consider the merits of this proposal, and let us come to a conclusion
accordingly. I invite noble Lords to vote for this Amendment on that basis.
4.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 62; Not-Contents, 96.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Rochester, L.Bp.

Airedale, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Royle, L.

Amherst, E.

Gaitskell, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Amulree, L.

Gardiner, L.

St. Davids, V

Archibald, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Seear, B.

Ardwick, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Segal, L.

Avebury, L.

Hall, V.

Serota, B.

Balogh, L.

Henderson, L.

Shackleton, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Henley, L.

Shinwell, L.

Beswick, L.

Hoy, L.

Simon, V.

Boothby, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Snow, L.

Brockway, L.

Kennet, L.

Stocks, B.

Burntwood, L.

Leatherland, L.

Summerskill, B.

Byers, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Tanlaw, L.

Chalfont, L.

McLeavy, L.

Walston, L.

Champion, L.

Milford, L.

White, B.

Chorley, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Williamson, L.

Citrine L.

Ogmore, L.

Wise, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Pargiter, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Diamond, L.

Phillips, B. [Teller.]

Wynne-Jones, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Falkland, V.

Monck, V.

Abergavenny, M.

Ferrers, E.

Monk Bretton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Ferrier, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Fortescue, E.

Auckland, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Moyne, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Gainford, L.

Northchurch, B.

Belstead, L.

Garner, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gisborough, L.

Oakshott, L.

Brock, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Greenway, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Grenfell, L.

Rhyl, L.

Caccia, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rockley, L.

Camoys, L.

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

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Carrington L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Clwyd, L.

Hanworth, V.

St. Just, L.

Coleraine, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Sandford, L.

Colgrain, L.

Hawke, L.

Selkirk, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hewlett, L.

Shannon, E.

Conesford, L.

Hurcomb, L.

Somers, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stamp, L.

Courtown, E.

Inglewood, L.

Stonehaven, V.

Craigavon, V.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Stradbroke, E.

Crathorne, L.

Latymer, L.

Strang, L.

Cromartie, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Strange of Knokin, B.

Daventry, V.

Lothian, M.

Strathcarron, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Loudoun, C.

Sudeley, L.

Derwent, L.

Lovat, L.

Teviot, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lyell, L.

Thomas, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Eccles, V.

Malmesbury, E.

Vernon, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Margadale, L.

Vivian, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Merrivale, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Milverton, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

4.47 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 16, after ("goods") insert ("land and dwellings").
The noble Lords said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2. The effect of this Amendment would be to give the appropriate Minister power to apply this section:
"to any prices for the sale of goods, land and dwellings … being prices or charges in the course of business,…"
I think I had better start my speech on this Amendment by declaring an interest. I am the father of a daughter who is seeking to acquire a house. If anybody asks me whether that is a financial interest, then the regrettable answer is, "Yes, it is". I daresay that I am in the same position as many fathers to-day who find that their adolescent and adult children are totally unable to enter the housing market, because this is where the hardship exists.
This is a much more limited proposal than the one which was discussed at an earlier stage. We are dealing with discretionary and selective powers for the Minister and powers to affect prices and charges in the course of business. Therefore, what we are mainly concerned with in this Amendment is its application to new houses. I want to remind your Lordships of the background to this Amendment, and what has been happening to the price of new houses.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? He has left out one phrase in Clause 2(1), and that is:
"effected by the same person in the course of business …"
Is that not rather important?
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I have said twice "in the course of business". I do not know why the noble Lord says that I have left it out. I have already referred twice to the fact that this is in the course of business.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, by the same person?
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, yes. There is no profit unless it is done by the same person. That is what we are talking about.
1442
Let me direct your Lordships' attention to the facts with regard to the price of houses. In February, 1972, the occasional bulletin, published by the Nationwide Building Society, had the headline, "House prices soar", and it went on to state that house prices rose even more rapidly during the second half of 1971 and that the total increase for the year was 21 per cent. The same bulletin for July, 1972, had a headline, "House price rise continues", and went on to state that house prices, which recorded a very rapid rise in the second half of 1971, continued to rise sharply during the first six months of 1972. The rise for new houses for the first half of the year was almost 17 per cent.—which compared with a rise of 12 per cent. in the second half of 1971; that is, a 17 per cent. rise for the first half of the year, or an annual rate of 34 per cent. That is what has been happening to the price of houses. As we know, this presents particular hardship to those who want to enter the market for the first time, and I know that we are all agreed, on both sides of your Lordships' House, that this is a scandalous situation. It is of course even more scandalous and intolerable for those who have their wages frozen, because they will have to watch the rise in prices, and the profits that will accordingly be made, unless steps are taken to hold back the increase.
But I do not want to deal only with prices. I should like your Lordships to consider what has been happening to house building costs, because it is not the case that they have been rising in a similar way to prices. They were rising in a similar way to prices up to the early part of 1971. Then the costs levelled out somewhat, but the prices of both new and other houses continued to shoot up at an accelerating rate, so that there developed a considerable gap between house costs and house prices—a gap which, according to this graph, had not been there since December, 1965. If costs and prices started off level at 100 in December, 1965, they broadly kept pace with one another until 1971, when this divergence arose. So the situation is that if house prices are frozen, house builders will continue to make a very large profit, a profit which, proportionately, is much greater than they were making in the whole period from 1965 to 1971. So let nobody suggest that there is any hardship on the house builder if house prices are frozen. There

1443
is no hardship on the builder and, therefore, there will he no possibility of houses ceasing to be built and of the market becoming all the more difficult.
The question is: can the Government intervene in order to keep prices down? The Bill mainly excludes houses. As your Lordships know, the Bill freezes prices of goods and services, so that prices of all the building materials going into the house that is being built will be frozen: bricks, piping—everything. So, too, will charges for the services provided by the many sub-contractors—the plumbing subcontractor, the electrical sub-contractor—who are employed to complete sections of the work. They are providing a service, and the charge for that service is caught by this Bill and frozen. The same applies to the wages of all those directly employed in building a house—the bricklayers, the carpenters, the joiners, and so on. Their wages are frozen. So, as your Lordships will see, most of the costs entering into the total cost of a house are frozen, whereas so far the sale price of a house is not frozen. Everybody has admitted that that is a scandalous situation and has said that something should be done about it.
I said earlier that not all houses are excluded—because there are prefabricated houses. If I buy myself a plot of land and say to a sub-contractor, "Will you please lay some foundations and some concrete for me, and do it at the price which was prevailing before November 6?",he will have to do it at that price, because that is a service which is caught. If I then go along to a prefabricated house manufacturer and say, "Will you please put one of those nice houses, which are in your catalogue, on the back of a lorry, drive it to these foundations and fix it to them?" he will have to supply that prefabricated house at the price prevailing before November 6, because it comes under "goods". In those cases the price will be frozen.
As I said when we debated this matter last Tuesday, everybody knows of the typical housing estate where a builder is putting up a number of identical, or very similar, types of house, or two or three different types, which he has advertised for sale at given prices. If the contract for sale was effected before November 6
1444
the houses will be at one price, but if it was effected on November 7, 8 or 9, and the builder and developer so wishes, they can, under this Bill, be sold at a totally different price. That is an intolerable situation because, as I have already made clear, the overall profits of builders are proportionately higher in relation to the cost of building than they have been since 1965, and everybody recognises that the increase in the price of houses creates a scandalous situation.
Do the Government want anything done about this? Indeed they do. When the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was replying to the debate on Tuesday of this week, he said this:
"But it will be possible for the industry to curb the rise, because the Bill provides for the control of building material costs and wage rates in the building industry. Therefore the Government welcome the initiative of the Housebuilders' Federation in urging its members to observe the spirit of the Bill by stabilising the price of new houses. We look forward to seeing full effect given to these intentions expressed by the Federation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28 /11/ 72; col. 1182.]
So here the Government are saying, "We are facing a scandalous situation. We have done our best by controlling the prices of the materials entering into the house, and the wages of those engaged in constructing the house. We think the price of the house should not rise. What are we doing in this Bill which fixes wages, prices and charges for services? What are we doing in this overall freeze? We are inviting the House-builders' Federation to urge its members to observe the spirit of the Bill". That is how the Government propose to deal with the one aspect of the matter which is scandalous, which is, I suppose, the largest irritant of all irritants at the moment, and which would be likely to prevent the Government from succeeding in their longer-term objective of securing an all-round tripartite agreement. So I am saying to the Government that we are all agreed upon what is desired and we are all satisfied that it is something which should be done. The Government have in fact invited the Federation of Housebuilders to see that it is done. We all want the same ends. I am inviting the Government to accept this Amendment so as to give themselves the means to achieve those common ends. I beg to move.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I think I may owe the House some small explanation because I spoke against a very similar Amendment on the last stage of the Bill, but I did not support my voice with my vote. The reason was that I received a telephone call saying that my house had been on fire, so I rushed home as quickly as I could. But I thought the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on the previous occasion was quite impractical, and I am afraid—and I emphasise the words "I am afraid"—that this one is equally so. Of course, it could work in certain instances, where an estate had been developed at early-in-the-year prices, where they were all similar houses and where the man had sold, say, half of them at a certain price. In that case he would be prohibited from putting up the price of he others to a higher level. In practice—in my part of the world, at all events—it does not work out that way, because as fast as the houses are built they are sold. Furthermore, the noble Lord left out of account the fact that there was a very considerable increase in all building wages a few months ago.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord says that this is impractical in certain cases. May I ask him whether it has escaped his attention that in any case the powers are permissive? It is not mandatory to do anything about everything.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I think the field in which it would be practicable to do anything is so small that it really is not worth while having the powers; it would be so seldom possible to use them. There has been a very considerable increase in building costs in the last few months. That means that any house completed just now must cost the man who built it considerably more than exactly the same house completed in, say, September or October. The noble Lord would say that the builder is making a huge profit and is therefore able to meet the difference out of his pocket. Nobody has ever really discovered what profit builders make, but one can say that it is a trade in which there is a great deal of bankruptcy, as always. It has the highest percentage, I believe, in the whole country. It is extremely difficult to compare one house with another. I asked a very big builder
1446
the other day, "What would it cost you to-day to put up a three-bedroom house on a level site—say, a group of 50?" He told me, "Anything between £5 and £8 per square foot, depending on the specifications". I am aware of differences of this sort because I am on a Church committee that deals with these matters. You get these wide variations, and you get particularly wide variations when you come to the question of site costs: exactly the same house situated on a difficult site will cost a great deal more than exactly the same house situated on a nice, level site. Of course, the Amendment could apply only to such groups of houses.
When it comes to the vast number of secondhand houses which are sold—and there is a tremendous turnover in secondhand houses—it could not apply at all. because, as I pointed out to the noble Lord at the beginning of his speech, it applies only to
"transactions of the same description effected by the same person…"
Therefore it would be impossible, unless the man happened to have sold two houses, to say that he must not charge more than a certain amount for the second. In any case, how does he decide who should buy the house if any limit is put on it? Nobody is keener than I am to see the price of houses go down, but I think the only method by which we can ever achieve that is to curb the money supply and have a general tightening up, to squeeze credit and so on, so that there is less money about to pay. I am afraid the noble Lord's remedy is not one which I think would have the slightest effect.
5.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I do not propose, in replying to this Amendment, to weary the House with a detailed repetition of the Government's policy on land and house prices. The question has been thoroughly aired in the House: in the debate on the Address on November 8; in the Housing debate, which I myself wound up, on the 15th; and again in Committee on the 28th of this month. The Government's basic position is I think well known. But I feel bound, as this Amendment has been moved by Lord Diamond, and as everyone is properly concerned about land and

1447
house prices, to restate briefly the Government's basic objections to the Amendment.
We believe, as my noble friend Lord Hawke suggested, that there are very real practical problems attached to any attempt to control land and house prices by direct statutory action. In the debate on November 15 I said:
"The Government do not intend to control land and house prices at the present time. We feel that neither land nor houses are sold as standard commodities, like groceries. There is no standard price applicable to individual plots of land or houses."[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 794.]
I went on to say:
"…if control were applied to home and land prices, it would be necessary to establish a theoretical current value to which prices could be pegged. This would involve a system whereby, if necessary, a theoretical current market value would be established for every piece of land or house offered for sale and caught by the control. This would not be administratively practicable in the time available and would involve a great extension of bureaucratic supervision."
More importantly, we believe:
"It would slow down sales, encourage the establishment of a black market and undoubtedly cause unfairness between individuals."
My Lords, it has been argued that the primary intention of this Amendment as regards houses is to control the price of new houses offered for sale. Perhaps it would be theoretically easier to do this, as new houses form a more homogeneous group than secondhand houses. But, although it was very eloquently argued by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond (and I do not want to be in the unfortunate position of coming between him and his daughter in her quest for a house), I feel that he has slightly over-simplified the position; and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hawke for very clearly, I think, pointing this out. It is true that there may be some new houses offered for sale in the restriction period on developments of standard houses built, say, on the same site, where the same pricing considerations might apply. But I think it can be reasonably assumed that the bulk of new houses offered for sale at any one time are on new sites. For example, about 30 per cent. of private sector houses are built by small builders providing fewer than 21 houses a year. Therefore, as my noble friend pointed out, the degree of diversity is really colossal. Every building site is different, and therefore even a stan
1448
dard house provided by a larger builder can reasonably produce a different market value from that for the same type of house built on a different site quite recently. Many new houses probably will not be standard. They may contain sufficient variations in design, and so forth, to justify altogether different prices.
We feel that the facts of the matter are that, despite the practical objections to control, any system of statutory intervention carries with it the serious risk that it would dry up the supply of land and houses offered for sale. People would simply withdraw houses from the market. The owners of land and houses would defer selling until the end of the restriction period. The net result of this would be to slow down the expansion of owner-occupation and I do not think that any noble Lords are suggesting this. The house market is a complex mechanism made up of sales by existing owner-occupiers and sales of new houses. Any direct statutory intervention would disturb the functions of the market and such a disturbance would not help those in the greatest housing need. First-time purchasers, like the noble Lord's daughter, looking for a home might be worse off if statutory control resulted in fewer houses being offered for sale. Control of house prices would penalise those who of necessity have to move immediately as against those who have some choice in the matter of timing. I doubt whether noble Lords opposite would commend the efficiency, economically, of any reduction of mobility in this country. This would also be grossly unfair because the sale of a house is a transaction of quite a different order of magnitude to the average citizen than any other transaction which he is likely to make at any time in his life. I must therefore ask the House to reject the noble Lord's Amendment.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl said that the Government's position is well known when it comes to the control of prices in houses and land; and I must say that he made his case very conclusively. I accept completely what he says: that the Government position is well known. The Government position is that they can do nothing; and he spelled out in considerable detail why they can do nothing. I feel that the Government are not doing themselves justice

1449
in this matter if they hope to get agreement later on.
How can they say that they are in fact controlling prices of all the thousand and one things in retail shops by this economic structure of telephoning the Department in some place in Whitehall? Why is that administratively practicable with these little items, if they cannot deal with the price of considerable items like houses, estates of houses or land? The noble Earl said that it is difficult because the land may be in a different state from that in which it was sold on a previous occasion. I gave an example in the previous debate of a piece of land that had been sold for £200,000. The same plot of land was later sold at £250,000; now it is for sale at £350,000. Why is it impossible administratively to deal with this kind of profiteering? Surely it is easier with matters of this kind than it would be with all the variety of articles which they assure the Trades Union Congress they can control by voluntary agreement.
The noble Earl then made the point (and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, also made the point, I believe) that if one tried to do anything about houses and land it would dry up the supply. I think that on a previous occasion either the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, or the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said that it would only mean that the land was kept off the market until the end of the freeze period. But that argument, if seriously put forward, means only that the Government do not intend to do anything in the longer term. If the drying-up argument applies in the short term, it applies even more in the longer term. Are we to understand that the Government are not going to do anything in the longer term with land prices?
We have shown that it is possible. In the last six months of the time of the Labour Government we brought down the price of land by 4 per cent. It is possible to do something if there is a will to do it. It may be that we might have done more. I think something more sophisticated than a Land Commission is needed; but we succeeded in bringing down the price of land by 4 per cent. in our last six months in Office—just when the Land Commission was beginning to operate. So far as house prices are concerned there is one thing that can
1450
be done to stop the drying-up process and that is to encourage local authorities to build more. If one takes the figures, one sees that in the worst quarter of the Labour Government's term of Office we actually built twice as many houses as were built by local authorities in the last quarter for which I have figures. This means that we are effectively drying up the supply of houses—again for the lower-paid people. It is possible to do something if you really want to. One cannot get another house building programme in the "90 days plus 60 days"; but cannot we do this as an earnest of intention to do something more later on? Unless the Government are more forthcoming than they have shown themselves to be in the replies given so far, we can only take it that they have absolutely no intention in the longer term in phase 2, of dealing with this undoubted problem.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, by leave, I think I must take up the noble Lord on this point. I do not wish to leave either the noble Lord or the House with the impression that the Government can do nothing. Certainly in my speech I played down the question of practical difficulties. I agree with the noble Lord that practical difficulties can be overcome. I think a more serious objection is the one which I mentioned: that we should create a drying up of supply. The noble Lord recognised in his remarks that we are dealing with a temporary provisions measure, phase 1, and that altogether to change the policy on housing programmes for that period of time would be absurd. As to phase 2, I am not anticipating it and I cannot. The noble Lord will understand that. But what we are doing is trying to counter inflation.
Where the noble Lord and I differ is that I would say that high prices—or, as Lord Diamond, said, "scandalous" prices—of houses and land are the results of an inflationary period. As noble Lords know, and as we are discussing this afternoon, the Government are taking firm and immediate measures to counter inflation. What we are not prepared to do is to set up, as it were, as quack doctors ever ready to prescribe infallible remedies that we believe would not work. It is better to do as we are doing, create a climate in which all sections of our community

1451
can recognise the common need to reduce inflation and the common commitment to a reasonable rate of growth as a long term strategy. That, more than anything else, will ameliorate our present housing situation.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for everything that he has said and I want to make just one little forecast. When we
Clause 5 [Offences]:
5.27 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 3, line 33, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is to leave out subsection (2)
come to phase 2 he will be as sorry that he allowed the word "quack" to fall from his lips as was a right honourable friend of his when he allowed the words "lame ducks" to fall from his lips.
5.20 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 83.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Gaitskell, B.

Nunburnholme, L.

Amulree, L.

Gardiner, L.

Ogmore, L.

Archibald, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller. ]

Sainsbury, L.

Avebury, L.

Gladwyn, L.

St. Davids, V.

Balogh, L.

Hall, V.

Segal, L.

Beswick, L.

Henderson, L.

Serota, B.

Brockway, L.

Kennet, L.

Shackleton, L.

Burntwood, L.

Leatherland, L.

Shinwell, L.

Byers, L.

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

Summerskill, B.

Chalfont, L.

White, B.

Davies of Leek, L.

Milford, L.

Williamson, L.

Diamond, L.

Moyle, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Norwich, V.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Fortescue, E.

Monk Bretton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Mountevans, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Gage, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Auckland, L.

Gainford, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Garner, L.

Moyne, L.

Belstead, L.

Gisborough, L.

Northchurch, B.

Berkeley, B.

Gowrie, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Bolton, L.

Greenway, L.

Oakshott, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Grenfell, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Camoys, L.

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

Rennell, L.

Carrington, L.

Rhyl, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hanworth, V.

Rockley, L.

Conesford, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Cottesloe, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Courtown, E.

Hurcomb, L.

St. Just, L.

Craigavon, V.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Saint Oswald, L.

Daventry, V.

Latymer, L.

Sandford, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Selkirk, E.

Derwent, L.

Leicester, E.

Stamp, L.

Dramalbyn, L.

Lothian, M.

Stonehaven, V.

Dudley, E.

Loudoun, C.

Strange of Knokin, B.

Ebbisham, L.

Lyell, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Eccles, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Sudeley, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Margadale, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Merrivale, L.

Vernon, L.

Falkland, V.

Milverton, L.

Vivian, L.

Ferrers, E.

Monck, V.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Ferrier, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

of Clause 5. We are now on that part of the Bill which deals with offences, and subsection (2) describes what is to happen if an organisation of workers takes
"any action with a view to compel, induce or influence a person to contravene any of the provisions of section 2 of this Act …"
The subsection says that an offender will be liable to a fine not exceeding £400. We have already had a short debate on

1453
this word "influence". We thought the word went far too wide and we invited the Government to remove it, but they were not prepared to do so, although it was impossible to say how wide the meaning of the word was, inasmuch as it had not been tested in the courts.
What we are now suggesting is that the whole of this subsection be withdrawn in the interests of achieving the objectives of the Bill as set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that the purpose of the Bill was to provide for the next stage:
"so that the agreed objectives will not be prejudiced while the main legislation is being prepared."
Those agreed objectives are, we hope, to be achieved by a tripartite agreement, if not entirely voluntarily at all events with broad and wide political acceptability. I want your Lordships to examine what is likely to happen if this subsection remains in the Bill for this short standstill period, and what is likely to happen if it is withdrawn as the Amendment proposes.
If the subsection is withdrawn, the rather slow processes of the law will not be able to take effect during the short standstill period. The impact of that will, I suggest, be quite trivial. For a long-term Bill there is something to be said for these slow-working processes; for a very short-term standstill it is unlikely that there will be any great need to rely on a subsection of this kind. So I am saying that admittedly there will be some reduction in the persuasive powers of the Bill if this subsection is removed, but very little.
On the other hand, I invite your Lordships to consider what is likely to be the position if the subsection remains in the Bill, and is used. We all know what has happened under the I.R.A., which, as your Lordships know, stands for the Industrial Relations Act. In that Act there are provisions which might result in prosecutions, fines and imprisonment of trade unionists, just as there are here: and we know that in the case of the Midland Cold Storage Company the provisions resulted in a small difficulty escalating into a national industrial crisis. If there is not broad acceptability, a provision of this kind is not effective.
That is not the only ground on which I make this plea. I make it on the more important and fundamental ground that we want the Bill to achieve its purpose; and it cannot do that unless all parties to the Bill find it possible to get together. As your Lordships know, the T.U.C. found it nearly impossible to take part in the tripartite talks because of the Industrial Relations Act and what was happening under it. No matter what the T.U.C. wanted to do, it was as near as possible politically impossible for them to take part in those talks. If there are difficulties and this clause is relied on, if we have a similar kind of escalation and irritation, then the Government will find that the T.U.C., which is one of the main bodies to the talks, without which phase B will not be possible, will not be able to participate. No matter whether phase B takes on a legal form, a compulsory form or a voluntary form, we now know that it is just not possible. especially where there are some 8, 9 or 10 million citizens involved, for any provisions of this kind, of self-discipline and restriction in the interests of holding down inflation, to be effective. You cannot legislate against the strong will and strong opposition of a mass of citizenry of that kind.
I am saying that this subsection could make it possible for—and I return to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's words—the agreed objectives to be prejudiced while the main legislation is being proposed. I think the damage to the Government's case by the removal of this subsection is small; I think the damage to their case of leaving the subsection there is great and dangerous. Therefore, I invite the Government to agree with us that it should he withdrawn. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, the noble Lord has presented what I would call a very strange argument in respect of this Amendment. I may be naïve, but what the noble Lord appears to me to be saying is that if we make the necessary ultimate sanctions in this Bill bite against employers and employees alike, the latter will refuse to help us with phase 2 of any settlement or agreement. That seems to me to he dangerously close, not of course to the advocation of blackmail, but to acknowledging that blackmail of that kind must

1455
dictate legislation in this House or in the other place, and I think it would be quite wrong in any way to follow the noble Lord along that path.
The noble Lord must realise—I am sure that he does; and I am here quoting my honourable friend the Solicitor General in another place—that the Bill must be applied fairly and right across the board. The whole principle of a freeze, which no doubt involves elements of rough justice, as I should be the first to concede, is fairness for all sections of the community while its provisions are taking effect. This Amendment would remove the principal sanction that exists for organisations of workers who abide by the standstill, while retaining the comparable standstill for employers. As such, I would say that it should not only be quite unacceptable to your Lordships, but would be quite unworkable as well, and I would ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, the noble Earl can use terms like "blackmail" and so on if he wants to, but I thought that on the last Amendment he was very much concerned with what was practicable. As an experienced politician, and having responsibilities in this field of labour relations, I should think he would have some regard to recent events: that he would have some regard to what we said would be likely to happen if the Industrial Relations Bill was pursued, and to what has happened; to the embarrassment that the Government have been in; the damage that has resulted from that Bill to our economic situation, and the additional days off through strikes which have resulted from that Act. I should have thought that he would be able to remember these very recent happenings and would not wish to see history repeat itself. It is on that basis that I invite the Government to reconsider this matter, and seriously to consider whether they would not be better served, in looking towards the long-term solutions for which we all hope, and in taking a minimum risk on the short-term, where the remedy and the sanction involved will in any event be doubtful and negligible, by deleting this subsection. It is on that ground that we intend to pursue this matter.
5.38 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I do not know whether I am too late, but I should like to approach this Amendment from quite another point of view. I have spent my life in newspapers. I can perceive that this particular subsection might be a powerful weapon in the hands of a dictatorial Government to use against newspapers. For example, it is said that nobody shall attempt to "influence a person". I am not so much concerned with the possible offence of compelling a person or inducing a person, but I am concerned with the expression "influence a person". One of the duties or privileges of a newspaper in a free society is to be able to influence people by force of argument. It appears to me that a newspaper could be prevented from arguing against this Bill, when it becomes an Act, by saying that it is a bad Act; that it is a pity that Parliament ever passed the Act; that it is a pity that certain groups of workers are to be penalised under the Act. If a newspaper used expressions like those, it could be interpreted as though that newspaper was trying to influence bodies of workers, or even individual workers, against the Act and its implications.
A newspaper might also find it difficult to advocate wage increases, let us say, for lowly paid groups of people, because that would be contrary to the Act, and they would be trying to influence those people to renew their wage demands. I might go further and say that if a newspaper tried to criticise this Act, and then took the further step of criticising the Government for bringing about the runaway inflation which necessitated the introduction of the Act, then it might be said that that newspaper was trying to influence people against the Government which had brought about the inflation and which had brought in the Act. I think this is a gross interference with the liberty of the Press in what is supposed to be a free society, and I hope that the Amendment will be accepted.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I was going to say how nice it was to see another face on the Front Bench opposite and to see an equality of sacrifice—someone to share the burden with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. But I am bound to say that the argument that

1457
we have just listened to was the weakest one that we have heard. The noble Earl was being unfair when he said that we were concerned to deal only with the workers and not with the other side of industry. What we were proposing to leave out applies to both workers and organisations of employers: it applies in terms. Of course we are not suggesting that there should be penalties applied to the one and not to the other. It is quite wrong to suggest that. Moreover, we are not even saying that there should not be penalties for a contravention of the law of the land if this legislation goes on to the Statute Book. Clause 5(1) would still remain, and that subsection provides for penalties. No one is saying those penalties should be excluded. What we are saying is that you are getting on to dangerous ground when you are talking about influencing people. If I go to a factory on Monday morning and read out the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in which he says that this Act is going to apply to one section of the community and not, to use his words, a significant proportion of the working population, I shall be liable to a fine of £400 because it would appear that I am attempting to influence the people in the factory.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is distortion.
LORD BESWICK: This is so: and I am suggesting to the Government that here they are dealing with very dangerous legislation. Let us have a law; let us argue it out; let us put it on the Statute Book and have a penalty for breaking the law; but in the present state of politics you will not stop people discussing it. You will not stop arguments on the floor of the shop, and one man will be trying to influence another. Under this Bill, he is liable to a fine of £400 if he engages in the sort of arguments that I hear on the floor of the shop. I suggest to the Government that in their own interests they would do better not to put this on to the Statute Book. They cannot really enforce it. If they tried to do so then, as my noble friend Lord Diamond said, they would have to bring in the Official Solicitor to get them out of trouble. That was the only reason why my noble friend referred to the workers'
1458
side rather than the employers' side, because there have been some unfortunate instances recently in which the Government have got into deeper and deeper water. It is probably impossible to persuade the spokesmen for Her Majesty's Government to change their minds, but I say to them that they will regret this.
5.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, without going over ground that has already been covered, I wonder whether I could ask the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Leatherland, whether they recall the following words:
"If any trade union or other person takes, or threatens to take, any action, and in particular any action by way of taking part, or persuading others to take part, in a strike, with a view to compel, induce or influence any employer to implement an award or settlement in respect of employment at a time when the implementation of that award or settlement is forbidden under the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act, he shall be liable …"
and then it goes on to list certain penalties.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount while he is still on his feet to say that I do recognise those words. I know from where he has taken them. I only say that human beings ought to profit from past experience.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, does the noble Lord and his noble friend also recall those who were liable to be affected by that particular provision? It would be both trade unions and, I should think, employers' organisations, as under the present legislation. They were not prosecuted. I do not think there were any prosecutions under Section 16(4) of the 1966 Act because they had the sense to realise that one does not go around influencing other people to commit criminal offences.
The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, should consider rather more carefully precisely what it is that a newspaper would be likely to do. I cannot envisage the noble Lord, or any newspaper for which he was writing, setting about trying to influence people to commit a criminal offence. If he looks at the words in Clause 5(2) about which he is concerned, he is talking about influencing a person

1459
to contravene any of the provisions of Clause 5(2). Those provisions bite only when orders are made saying that something is illegal. No newspaper worth its salt, no newspaper that the noble Lord would ever dream of being concerned with, is going to try to incite or influence people to commit criminal offences. So far as I know, no newspaper, when the 1966 Act was in force, would have dreamt of doing that. Indeed, so far as I know nobody ever fell foul of the criminal law on this at all. Therefore I think one can say that to have these sanctions in the background is salutory because merely by being there they encourage people not to take part in extreme action. But on the other hand I do not think for one moment that they are going to prevent people discussing the propriety of what the Government are doing and whether it is wise or not. All we are trying to do is to prevent them from influencing others to take part in activities which are criminal under this legislation. I cannot see that there is anything wrong—
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down, may I say that these actions will have to be interpreted in a court of law. They will not be interpreted from these Benches. If a newspaper said that a certain act or action was an outrageous injustice, that newspaper might not have used those words with the intention of deliberately trying to bring about a strike, or some other form of protest. On the other hand, those words might have an influence perhaps on some feather-brained toolmaker in the Austin car factory, and he might have been influenced—and then where does the newspaper stand?
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, while the noble Viscount is still suspended in mid-air, I should like, if I may, to ask him three questions arising out of what he has said. First of all, may I ask him whether he instructed his noble friend Lord Gowrie that the effect of our Amendment was to eliminate organisations of employees but not to eliminate organisations of employers, which is a phrase appearing in the same subsection? Secondly, may I ask him whether it was not the case that the 1966 Act, from which he quoted and which we naturally have in front of us, was there
1460
for the main purpose of setting up the National Board for Prices and Incomes, as will be seen from Section 1(1) of the Act? These words were subsidiary and additional provisions relating to a totally different context. I repeat that it was a totally different context. My third question is: is it his case that the best argument for introducing these irritating and dangerous provisions—dangerous in terms of the relations between the three Parties—into the Bill is that they are not likely to be used?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I think that by now I probably ought to ask for leave. The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, puts the hypothetical case. The truth of the matter is that when one listens to him putting it, one begins to wonder whether the Attorney General (or the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland) who has to sanction prosecutions under this clause is not going to think that the type of activity the newspaper took part in is not so remote from the area which is intended to be caught under this Bill and the connection between the words printed and the actions of the feather-brained toolmaker is so minimal that really no question arises at all. If the Attorney General makes a mistake and authorises a prosecution, does not the noble Lord, with his experience on the Bench, think that there are courts which might be able to see the same point for themselves? I would suggest that this is so.
As for the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, in the first place I am not in a position, fortunately, where I have to instruct my noble friends one way or the other. I think that probably my noble friend Lord Gowrie appreciated that both sorts of organisations were there, and perhaps it might have been better if he had said so. At any rate, we all now know that this is the case.
The noble Lord asked about the context of the two sets of legislation. I think one can speak with legitimacy about a different background. This may be right, but one is here looking at a specific criminal section. I see the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, shakes his head. This is the creation of a criminal offence. If you look at the 1966 Act we are talking about influencing the implementation

1461
of something that is forbidden under the foregoing provisions of this Act. We have there exactly the same concept, somebody influencing somebody else to do something which is forbidden, prohibited, proscribed, criminal. I do not think that the noble Lord can say that for the purposes of setting up a sanction there is a legitimate difference in the construction and in the wording of this as the creation of a criminal offence.
As for the third point, I do not think the justification is that it will not be used; the justification is to have it there because people, if they are in any way inclined to do something silly, will remember,
Schedule [Supplemental Provisions]:
6.0 p.m.
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 7, line 37, leave out sub-paragraph (1).
unless they are wholly and totally irresponsible, that it is after all something which has been made into a criminal offence by Parliament, and surely for 90 days they can restrain themselves from acting in this way. I hope that the House will accept that there are good reasons for having this in the Bill, and that the noble Lord may even see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
5.52 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 26; Not-Contents, 74.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Diamond, L.

Milford, L.

Archibald, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

St. Davids, V.

Beswick, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Serota, B.

Brockway, L.

Gardiner, L.

Shackleton, L.

Burntwood, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Shinwell, L.

Chalfont, L.

Henderson, L.

White, B.

Chorley, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Williamson, L.

Collison, L.

Kennet, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Davies of Leek, L.

Leatherland, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Monk Bretton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Falkland, V.

Mountevans, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L [Teller.]

Auckland, L.

Fortescue, E.

Barnby, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Northchurch, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Gainford, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Belstead, L.

Gisborough, L.

Oakshott, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gowrie, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Bessborough, E.

Green way, L.

Rankeillour, L

Bethell, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rennell, L

Bolton, L.

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

Rhyl, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Rockley, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Hawke, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Kinnoull, E.

St. Just, L.

Carrington, L.

Latymer, L.

Sandford, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Selkirk, E.

Conesford, L.

Leathers, V.

Shannon, E.

Courtown, E.

Leicester, E.

Somers, L.

Craigavon, V.

Loudoun, C.

Stradbroke, E.

Daventry, V.

Lyell, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Sudeley, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Dudley, E.

Margadale, L.

Vernon, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Eccles, V.

Monck, V.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in the Schedule I move to leave out sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 4, which says:
"This Act, and any provision mad,: under this Act, shall have effect notwithstanding anything in any other Act or statutory provision passed or made before this Act."
The noble and learned Lord who has gone so quickly from the Woolsack said

1463
he would answer any legal points that were raised. This was one that I raised on Second Reading, and so far I have not had any information about it. I cannot think that this is really intended. The noble Viscount, who answers questions on legal points so well, has a formula which he uses on various occasions that what is said, although it appears to be nonsense, is not really nonsense if it is read in the context. As I see this, there is no limiting context here. This sub-paragraph in the Schedule appears to have unlimited provision so far as the Act is concerned.
I want to ask this question of the noble Viscount, if he is to reply: what effect will this Bill, when it becomes an Act, have on, say, the European Communities Act? We passed, after a certain amount of rather acrimonious discussion, an Act in which it says:
"All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties … shall be … enforced, allowed and followed accordingly."
What will be the effect on this Act if we do something under the Counter-Inflation Bill, or Act, as it will be? Can we override this other Act? That is the question I put to him as simply as I can. Can he really override the European Communities Act by this provision which we are asked to put into the Counter-Inflation (Temporary Provisions) Bill? If we cannot, then what is the meaning of these English words in paragraph 4?
The other question I would ask the noble Viscount is this. To what extent can any provision passed or made under this Bill have permanent effect upon other legislation? If we use the powers under paragraph 4 to supersede some other Act—to annul another Act, for example—are we not then using an Act which is supposed to have a temporary validity in order to make a permanent change in the law of the land? This seems to me a most extraordinary set of words to put in, as I have said, in small print as an after-thought in the Schedule to a Bill. I hope that we may have some explanation as to why it is necessary to put them in; or, if not, I hope that it will be agreed to leave them out. I beg to move.
6.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, there is a very good explanation and I shall be delighted to try to give it to the noble Lord. The noble Lord realises—I have told him before and I am sure he appreciates this—that any teeth this particular Bill will have will consist of orders and notices. The Bill itself is enabling, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said a little while ago. The effect will be done by orders in respect of specific commodities, prices, products, pay, or something of this kind. When one is legislating to deal with standstills or temporary freezes, or whatever one likes to call it, this Government, just as the Government which the noble Lord adorned, have to take account of some provisions in other legislation which would otherwise enable prices to be put up by statutory authorities.
I hesitate to speak about agricultural wages, but in fact there is that particular provision: there is the Wages Councils Act. Agricultural wages were in fact dealt with in the 1966 Act so that we could have the same effect. There are important provisions relating to transport: fares both on the surface and by aeroplane. I think again that if the noble Lord looks at Schedule 3 to the 1966 Act he will find, for instance, that the powers of the traffic commissioners to raise fares, which would otherwise come into effect by virtue of other legislation, can be suspended. Indeed, the Schedule to that Act (I do not know how up-to-date it would be now) sets out a rather large list of previous legislation, both in England and in Wales, and also in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, which one must be able to override for the purposes of holding prices and charges and so on during the freeze. Schedule 3 is one example; and there are Sections 31 and 32 which deal with the Agricultural Wages Act and the Wages Councils Act. They were spelt out specifically in that because it was a longer-term measure. Here we are using a portmanteau phrase in order basically to save time and complication.
The noble Lord asked me whether this measure supersedes the European Communities Act. In itself, of course, it does not. There is the hypothetical possibility of an order being made which

1465
might. If such an order were made—there is no prospect, so far as I know, of this happening at the moment; it is purely hypothetical—then there would be power to do it. The mere passing of this Schedule, with paragraph 4(1) in it, does not override anything. It would be the orders themselves that would have the effect of overriding it. Therefore we are not in this Bill doing anything effective with the European Communities Act.
The noble Lord asked me, lastly, about the permanent effect. On this also I hasten to assure him. The orders that will be made under this Bill will die, as I understand the situation, with the Bill, save for continuing proceedings that have to continue because of any contravention of orders. Supposing, for example, that something had been done—say a criminal offence had been cornmitted—one would not wish the proceedings to stop in mid course because this Bill, as an Act, itself, and the orders with it, had expired. So there is a little tailing-off procedure in the drafting. But certainly orders that overruled the Wages Councils Act, or cancelled for the moment fare increases or anything of that kind, would not last for ever. The matter will revive when this Bill, and the orders under it, comes to an end, and therefore there will be no permanent effect at all. I can reassure the noble Lord completely on that.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount for the explanation he has given. What he has said, however, is no more than an excuse, if I may say so, for hurried legislation. What he is really saying is, "We have had to do this in a hurry and it has not been done so carefully as we should have liked it to be done. "As he points out—and it was kind of him so to do—in Schedule 3 to the 1966 Act the extent to which the powers run is spelt out. That is the way in which legislation should be done. Although he says that not until the order is made does any trouble arise, it could conceivably be, if we had an order that conflicted with something else, that we should have trouble. But, as I say, I can see that the basic explanation of this is the shortness of time in which the Government have had to rush this piece of policy through Parliament.
1466
So far as the European Communities Act is concerned, the noble Viscount said that such a possibility was hypothetical. But, of course, there is the case of steel prices, which may not be hypothetical at all. What would be the situation if the Commission ordered, or required, the steel prices of the United Kingdom to be raised to the level of the Community prices? We should presumably have to argue that the order had been made; but, as I see it, here we have two pieces of legislation, both of which claim to have a superior, overriding power over the other. This does not seem to me to be the way that we should go about our legislative processes. I shall not invite the House to go through the Division Lobbies, but in order to indicate that we do not agree with this sort of hurried legislation we shall content ourselves with just negating the invitation to be content.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
6.12 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 8, line 12, leave out ("annulment") and insert ("approval").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope it will be convenient to take the following Amendment with this because the two go together. The purpose of these two Amendments is to substitute the Affirmative Resolution procedure for the Negative Resolution procedure. I am not sure, now that I look at it again, that I have it quite right. I am not sure that in Amendment No. 6 it ought not to have said "each House of Parliament" rather than "both Houses of Parliament"; but if, as I very much hope, the Government accept this Amendment we can easily deal with that point by a manuscript Amendment. I hope that the Government will accept the Amendment, partly for the argument which I shall put forward shortly and partly to demonstrate that on this, which is the last occasion when they can demonstrate it because it is the last Amendment before your Lordships' House, the Government have been listening to the argument and are willing to have regard to the merit of the argument, and have not been in the posture that in no circumstances can they admit any Amendment, no matter how valuable or worthy. Your

1467
Lordships will have observed that every Amendment so far has been rejected.
I put forward this Amendment for a number of strong reasons. First, however, I want to clear away a possible misunderstanding which exists as between the wording here and the wording in Clause 1. Clause 1(2) says:
Her Majesty may by Order in Council"—
do certain things—
"as may be specified in the Order"—
and the Affirmative Resolution applies there: that is to say, the Order has to be approved by a Resolution of each House of Parliament. That is an Order in Council which is described as "the Order". Now if we look at the Schedule we see the words "an order under this Act". To avoid any possible misunderstanding, the first question I want to ask is whether I am right in assuming that an Order in Council, albeit it is referred to as "the Order" is not an order under this Act for the purposes of paragraph 6 of the Schedule? Assuming I am right in that, then it is the case that all orders under this Act are subject to the Negative Resolution procedure: that is to say, unless a Prayer is raised and succeeds the Order is effective.
We have just been told how important these orders are. We have been told that they will themselves be capable of overriding an Act of Parliament. That was not in the powers which we discussed under the last Amendment, in paragraph 4, sub-paragraph (1), but it is under the Orders which we are now discussing under paragraph 6 that such power will be exercised, and it is these orders themselves which may override Acts of Parliament. It is seriously proposed in your Lordships' House that orders which override Acts of Parliament shall be effective without coming before Parliament. Let me make my words quite clear—"without coming before Parliament". As we all know, an order which is subject to Negative Resolution procedure may or may not be challenged on a Prayer. Of course you can put a Prayer down in the other House, and down it goes, but whether it is debated or not is an entirely different matter. All those who have been good enough to read the Report of the Brooke Commit
1468
tee, on which I was privileged to serve, will know from the evidence there that there are increasing numbers of Prayers which are never heard.
So I am saying, with complete accuracy, that the proposal in the Bill is that orders which override Acts of Parliament—Acts which did not become Acts until they had received approval under the long processes of going through both Chambers, Acts of Parliament of that kind and of that importance—shall be made on the "say-so" of a Minister or a Secretary of State (whoever has the power), without necessarily coming before Parliament at all. I am saying that in the current circumstances, when we know that not all Prayers are heard and that there are no means before either House at the moment to secure that all Prayers are heard—we know that for a fact at the present time and have had evidence which is published and available to your Lordships—it is surely inconceivable that your Lordships would wish decisions which you have made and which have been approved in both Houses on First, Second and Third Reading, Committee stage, Report stage, and all the rest of it, should be gainsaid on the "say-so" of a Minister: as simply as that. Therefore I am suggesting that this must have been a mistake and that it would be far better to change it and instead of having the Negative Resolution procedure, which may or may not result in Parliament having an opportunity to consider the matter, we should have the Affirmative Resolution procedure under which Parliament, of necessity, will have the opportunity of considering the matter. Only if Parliament is consulted should Acts of Parliment be overridden; and I am putting that very strongly to the Minister.
I am almost encouraged to repeat my argument all over again, now that I see the noble Lord who was the Chairman of the Committee to which I have just referred, in his place; but the evidence that was made available to that Committee has been published and therefore one does not need the witness of the Chairman of the Committee to the accuracy of what I have said. I hope, therefore, that the Government will be willing to change from the Negative to the Affirmative Resolution procedure so that—to say it in one sentence—an Act of Parliament shall not be overridden without Parliament

1469
being consulted. I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
6.20 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am bound to admit from the start that there is force in the noble Lord's argument. We have to choose the best course, however, and it is important to realise the short duration of this measure. It will be limited in duration, as will the orders made under it, and the House will want them to be brought into effect as soon as possible in order to check abuses be they on rents, dividends, prices or whatever it may be. Other orders may be needed to ensure that the standstill on wages is observed, and they will be entirely consequential on the Bill itself. As the noble Lord said, if any Member of either House feels that an order is objectionable, he can pray against it. The noble Lord is right to say that not all Prayers that are laid are debated, but I should think that, at any rate in this House, any Prayers that were laid would be debated; and of course in a case like this a negation in either House would suffice. I am aware that it is not normal for this House to throw out orders but I can only state the position as it is. Any responsible Government would in my view be bound, if there were a Prayer in another place, against an order subject to the Negative Resolution procedure in the sort of circumstances the noble Lord has in mind, to allow time for it to be discussed. I cannot conceive that if it were clearly established, even between the usual channels, that there was serious concern about a particular order, it would not be discussed.
I am bound to point out that the Amendment is defective because it does not specify the type of Affirmative Resolution that would apply. It should plainly not be the type which requires to be laid in draft and which does not come into effect until approved by both Houses, because that is not suitable for an order that is to last for so limited a time. I should perhaps make it clear that it is the intention to lay a number of orders as soon as the Bill becomes law. If each of those orders were to be debated at very great length, or if they had to be debated at all before coming into operation, they would of course be delayed.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am well aware of the procedure with an Affirmative Resolution.
LORD DIAMOND: But—
LORD DRUMALBYN: Noble Lords opposite are unusually impatient to-night. I agree that the hour is late, and I hope that we shall not take too long over this. I have instanced one kind of Affirmative Resolution. Another type, of course, is that which does not have to be laid in draft and does not come into effect until approved; and for the same reason that is unsuitable. The third type is an order which comes into effect at once but lapses unless it is approved within a specified period; and the Amendment does not specify any such period.
Apart from that, I recommend the House to reject the Amendment on commonsense grounds. It is true that to achieve the purposes of the Bill, within the limited powers conferred by the Bill, Ministers may frame orders "in any way whatsoever, "but my noble friend has explained the severe limitations on the powers conferred. It is true that the orders can override Acts of Parliament, but in each case the extent to which they do so will be made plain, and one cannot have a standstill without overriding some Acts. The truth is that it will be necessary, as I have said, to introduce a number of these temporary orders, and no doubt some of them will override Acts. Also to be introduced right away are the regulations to be made under paragraph 7 of the Schedule prescribing the form in which notices are to be given; and this will particularly affect prices because notice to restore a price to the November 6 level will be given in accordance with the regulations to be made under that paragraph. Noble Lords may not be so worried about that because it is not covered by the Amendment. There may be more orders to follow, if they prove to be necessary to make the standstill effective.
I put it to the House that it is not sensible that because one or two orders may have to be debated, all orders should therefore have to be approved individually, each having to be brought before

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the House. It is much better for noble Lords who either object to a particular order or find it hard to understand it to table a Motion to annul it. It is only reasonable to treat these relatively ephemeral orders in this way.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, introduced two phrases which he has not used before. He began generously by saying that we had a point. Later he urged the House to reject the Amendment on what he called common-sense grounds. That was a curious combination—on the one hand to say that we had a point and on the other to invite noble Lords to reject our proposal on common-sense grounds. The Minister did not use the words "common sense" in relation to our other Amendments, on behalf of which we had some good arguments to adduce. The hurried nature of this legislation has emerged clearly from this discussion. It has been admitted that the Government have had to think up portmanteau phrases to cover all sorts of contingencies. It is dangerous when we are faced with such hurried legislation and portmanteau phrases and it is clear that if this type of legislation is to be carried forward into orders, we must study those orders. I agree that we should have been more careful in the wording of our Amendment, but we are open to suggestions from the noble Lord. Unless we are given an assurance that he will consider a manuscript Amendment on Third Reading to meet his criticisms of the drafting of our Amendment, I shall have to invite my noble friends to press the matter to a Division.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to apologise for omitting to mention the noble Lord's first question, when he drew attention to Clause 1 and asked whether an Order in Council would be an order under this measure for the purposes of paragraph 6. The answer is, No: they are separate. All the others have the Negative Resolution procedure. Obviously there would be substance in the
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noble Lord's argument if the number of orders involved were such that within the time-scale it was possible to deal with them. I am arguing that that is not the case and that it is perfectly possible for noble Lords to pick out those orders about which they feel they must protest, or seek further explanations, and call for them to be annulled. This seems to be a perfectly simple and recognised Parliamentary procedure with which I see nothing wrong.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, I am surprised to hear cries of "hear, hear!" from the Benches opposite when noble Lords on those Benches have the same interest as I have—namely, in securing democratic procedures in your Lordships' House. The position as we now know it is that the Government propose, once this Bill is an Act, to bring in orders under it, some of which will override existing Acts of Parliament. That is what the Minister said. It is admitted that if Prayers against those orders are not heard, as some of them will not be, then the Acts will be overridden on a Minister's "say-so" without Parliament having been given an opportunity of saying whether or not it wants its Acts overridden. I think that is a totally intolerable, undemocratic procedure. There is no force whatever in the noble Lord's argument about speed, because, as he finally admitted, after getting there in a devious way, that one type of Affirmative order, the most familiar one (and indeed the one provided under subsection (1) by an Order in Council) is one which has effect immediately and ceases to have effect only if it is not voted on within the period laid down. That is a situation which, I repeat, we find intolerable and we cannot allow this to go through. I hope that there will be many who feel as we do that the democratic procedures of Parliament have to be sustained even in the face of a Government that want to bring in orders overriding Acts of Parliament on the say-so of a Minister.
6.31 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution):
6.39 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move That this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I say, as we come to the end of another Bill, that it has been a concentrated effort and that we have had from noble Lords opposite every consideration and courtesy, falling short of satisfaction. But before we let this Bill go through I think we ought to make a protest about the time in which we have had to consider it. Here we have another example of an important piece of legislation which is being steamrollered through the Parliamentary processes. In the other place it
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 26; Not-Contents, 63.

CONTENTS

Avebury, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Peddie, L.

Beswick, L.

Gardiner, L.

St. Davids, V.

Brockway, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Serota, B.

Burntwood, L.

Jacques, L.

Shackleton, L.

Chalfont, L.

Kennet, L.

Shinwell, L.

Collison, L.

Leatherland, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Davies of Leek, L.

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

White, B.

Diamond, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Milford, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Margadale, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Monck, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Falkland, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Auckland, L.

Falmouth, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Barnby, L.

Ferrers, E.

Belstead, L.

Fortescue, E.

Oakshott, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gainford, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Bolton, L.

Greenway, L.

Rennell, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rhyl, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

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

Rockley, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Carrington, L.

Harvey of Prestbury L.

St. Just, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Conesford, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Selkirk, E.

Courtown, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Somers, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lothian, M.

Sudeley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Loudoun, C.

Terrington, L.

Daventry, V.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vivian, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Eccles, V.

Mancroft, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

had the guillotine. There was a whole clause and parts of this Bill which were not considered at all in the other place. Here, we have given a little consideration to the Schedules which were not considered at all in the other place. That is not the right way to deal with legislation.
My noble friend and I have tried to make the point that at the end of this type of legislation the Government succeed in creating an even more unpleasant atmosphere in industry. It was particularly difficult for them to get agreement in those Chequers talks because of the atmosphere which had been created by a previous Act of Parliament, the Industrial Relations Act. Each succeeding Act dealing with this aspect of our nation's affairs creates a worse and worse atmosphere. The difficulty is now going to be that when we come to phase 2 the atmosphere will be even more sour. We have sugggested that for our part we should like to see a credible prices and

1475
incomes policy. The Labour Party has agreed that something like this is essential in a civilised advanced industrial society. But it means that one has to treat those on the other side of industry in such a way as to get reasonable agreement with them. All that noble Lords opposite and Her Majesty's Government have succeeded in doing is aggravating, irritating and frustrating the other side of industry.
In this very short Bill we have seen a formula for profiteering. The provisions of the Bill make it possible to control everything that goes into the construction of a house except the price of it when it comes to be sold. The wages of the men who build it are controlled; the materials are controlled, and those who make the materials are controlled so far as their wages are concerned. Yet the man who sells the houses has no control at all when he is putting it on the market. We have been told that it is essential to control the price of labour, and yet the Government can do nothing at all about land. We have been told that they can do nothing at all about certain food prices. This kind of thing really does not leave a very pleasant atmosphere throughout industry.
There is a particular case that we intended to raise and so far we have not done so. I have given some notice to the noble Lord and I hope he can tell me something about it. It relates to journalists. Some time ago the National Union of Journalists concluded a very reasonable agreement made up of two stages. The agreement would never have been accepted by the National Union of Journalists had it not provided for further moderate increases on the second stage. Under the agreement, that second stage comes into operation at the beginning of 1973. Can I ask what will be the position of this agreement? Is it frozen by this Bill? If so, how can the noble Lord justify an action of that kind? How can he say, as he has tried to say on various occasions, that the intention is to be fair as between one section of the population and another?
We have discussed the agricultural workers' award which has been turned down. We have seen the position of the National Health Service workers who hitherto have always followed the agreements of the local authority workers.
They have been disappointed in both cases. What now about this agreement with the National Union of Journalists? Are we to be told that that, too, will not be able to apply at the beginning of January simply because it was not in a form of words covered by subsection (3) of Clause 3?
It would seem that in this Bill there is a certain spiteful element. That is not a word that I thought up. It was a word I heard the other day in a discussion of people who have some responsibility in industrial relations. It was suggested to me that because the Government had failed to get voluntary agreement of the package in the Chequers talks they have enforced in this Bill part of that package; they have enforced almost everything in the package save that which gave an increase of £2 or £2·60 a week. This, we are told, cannot be possible. The rest of the package that was put forward is applied. I can only think that this has been done in order to teach the T.U.C. that they really ought to have accepted the voluntary deal that was put forward.
My Lords, in this House we do not vote on Third Readings and we are not proposing to vote on Third Reading today. But I think it is necessary to put on the Record what we think about this nasty, brutish little Bill.
6.45 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am bound to say that I regret the tone in which the noble Lord is ending our consideration of this Bill. I am grateful for the way he started. It is very difficult for a Government to give satisfaction to an Opposition; I do not think it very often happens.
LORD DIAMOND: Not one Amendment!
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord says, "Not one Amendment". But my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack gave the answer to this. We are here considering the national interest and the Amendments must be judged in line with the national interest. Had there been any Amendment where the national interest dictated that we should accept it, we should have done so. But there has been no such Amendment.
The noble Lord talks about our creating a worse atmosphere with this

1477
Bill. Why should things done by us create a worse atmosphere when exactly the same things were done by the Opposition when they were in Government? I fail to understand this altogether. Why should it be so wrong for us to do it when it was right for the Opposition to do precisely the same things when they were in Government? It is true that not everything is the same, because the situations are different. In 1966, the previous Administration was obliged to introduce a freeze as only one of a number of deflationary measures. It was just another phase of their stop-go management of the economy. Their target of 4 per cent. growth—and it was only a target—was never reached and had to be abandoned. To-day the economic situation is very different. Following action in the Budget, output is rising strongly and we are now achieving the target of 5 per cent. economic growth per annum. Unemployment continues to show a marked downward trend. These is no doubt—as Mr. Samuel Brittan of the Financial Times, as well as other independent observers have said—that a reduction in wage inflation could bring with it an unparalleled improvement in living standards for all our people. This is what the Bill is about. This is what we are seeking to achieve.
I should like to put on record one thing. The noble Lord, Lord Archibald, criticised me for representing the improvement in agricultural wages as if it had been brought about by the Government. What I was doing was comparing the rate of increase of agricultural wages under the five years of Labour Government with two years of our Government. I did not mean to say that it was brought about by the Governments. Everyone knows the Agricultural Wages Boards are independent bodies. If I gave that impression I should like to record my apologies for that.
Since June, 1970, real personal disposable incomes per head (incomes after tax adjusted for the effects of price increases; in other words—take home pay in real terms) have increased at an annual rate of 5 per cent. Between 1964 and 1970 the rate was only 1½ per cent. a year—8 per cent. increase between 1964 and 1970, 10 per cent. over the period since June, 1970. At a time when people's expectations of a rising real standard of living are being fulfilled and not frustrated, we
1478
have a very much better chance of establishing arrangements to control inflation on a lasting basis.
What I regret about the noble Lord's approach to-day, and the approach of other noble Lords, is that they are making it more difficult for us to get the kind of consensus that we are seeking to achieve. We genuinely have gone as far as we could possibly go. The noble Lord says that we can do nothing about food prices. If he will look at the White Paper he will see what we are doing about food prices. We cannot control the prices of imported food, but we can see that the margins on it are not increased. This is the sort of step that we intend to take.
The noble Lord asked me about the National Union of Journalists. The answer is—one can only regret it—that it is so: the agreement is caught by the standstill. The reason is quite clearly set out in the White Paper in paragraph 14. There is no doubt about it at all. The White Paper says:
"However, there will be some agreements made before the standstill which provide for specified increases in pay or improvements in other conditions to take effect from an operative date falling within the period of the standstill. The operative date of such increases will be deferred until the standstill conies to an end."
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for looking this up for me. Can he say whether, at the end of this standstill period when the agreement becomes operative, it will be dated as from January 1, 1973?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, such agreements will not be backdated. They will come into effect as from the end of the standstill, although one has to make the caveat that that will depend, as each particular case will depend, on what the next stage should be, which of course we shall be debating in this House.
I must say once again that this has absolutely nothing to do with Clause 3(3). I read out at an earlier stage what the previous Government did on the 1966 standstill. To cut a long story short this read as follows:
"It is not intended that the standstill should interfere with the normal arrangements for increasing pay either with age, as with apprentices or juveniles, or by means of regular increments and specified amounts within the predetermined range of scale."

1479
We have followed that precedent. Obviously there are arguments for and against, and we think that the arguments for following the precedents are more cogent than those against. It is a difficult choice, I quite agree, but we are doing what the last Government thought was the right thing to do, and what we think is the right thing to do in this case, too.
LORD DIAMOND: My Lords, in relation to the National Union of Journalists, as the noble Lord has just said, an agreement entered into before the relevant date of November 6 will not be operative afterwards because it is caught by the freeze, and yet a dividend declared before the relevant date for an increased amount will be operative after the freeze; that is to say, a dividend declared before the relevant date—which is an agreement between the company and its shareholders—will be payable in cash to the shareholders at the increased rate after the relevant date. How can the noble Lord reconcile the justice in those two propositions?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, simply because of the completely different circumstances involved. Where a dividend is declared, that immediately, as I explained to the noble Lord—and he must know it all too well—has an effect on the market and it becomes irreversible, whereas when something is to be done a year from then, it is of course quite a different situation.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, could we get this quite clear? Here we have an agreement which in fact came into effect on January 1, 1972. There is no doubt about this being an agreement which was reached and which was put into effect on January 1, 1972, well before the November 6 date. The point is that it came into effect in two parts, and this was an act which at the time most people thought was one of great moderation on the part of the National Union of Journalists. It was to come into effect in two parts: the first part as from the beginning of 1972, and the second part as from the beginning of 1973; but the two parts were one agreement which was reached a year before this November 6 deadline.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, that is true; but when you are in a situation where you have a standstill, you cannot take an action at one end which is going to affect other things along the line. If you allow increases in wages during the period this, in turn, is going to cause an increase in prices. It will have a snowballing effect before you know where you are. You must have as complete a standstill as possible. May I say something that I omitted to say earlier when we were talking about increments? I am told that, where increments are paid, the additional increments paid are almost exactly balanced, in one way or the other, by salaries that cease to be paid, because as some people go up others retire, and so forth. I am told that, so far as the quantum of salaries paid goes, it remains the same.
Let me conclude with this remark. The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has said that there is a spiteful element in what we are doing. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have, as I said, followed the pattern of the previous legislation. We have not done it in any way in a spiteful way; we have done it purely and simply because there was no alternative to a breathing space during which we could work out the policies for the next stage. It is for those reasons that I ask noble Lords now to give a Third Reading to this Bill.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, and in order to get the Record straight, since he said that his Government were only doing in this Bill what was done in a previous similar Act in 1966, can he tell me to which Act in 1966 he was referring?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords, the first Act that was passed, I think, on July 31, 1966.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, in that case would the noble Lord make it clear that that Bill, which became the Prices and Incomes Act 1966, had for its Part I a provision for the establishment of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, which was to undertake a continuous review of both prices and incomes. The Board was a most constructive element in our economy, and the Government ought never to have abolished it.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY (WEAPONS GROUP) BILL [H.L.]
6.57 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Carrington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Transfer of Atomic Energy Authority Weapons Group to Secretary of State]:
6.58 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES LORD WYNNE-JONES moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 10, at end insert:
("(a) the power of the Authority to manufacture or otherwise produce, buy or otherwise acquire, treat, store, transport and dispose of any radioactive substances pursuant to section 2(2)(c) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act 1954,")
The noble Lord said: This Bill has a very simple purpose, but when one starts looking at it carefully one finds that the purpose is not defined with the clarity that one would expect in a Bill which is going to affect quite a lot of people and quite a lot of work. Throughout the Bill reference is made to the transfer of the Weapons Group of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Now the Weapons Group is a group which works at Aldermaston and deals, as the name suggests, with weapons, but it also deals with a number of other very important activities in connection with atomic energy which have nothing to do with weapons at all. It deals with the production of radioactive isotopes, which is of tremendous civilian, medical, and industrial importance, and further there is work which is done there in connection with the fast breeder reactor. This was all referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, during the Second Reading of this Bill on November 16 at column 828, when he said:
"Civil work at present carried out at A.W.R.E. accounts for about a fifth of the establishment's effort. Part of this is devoted
1482
to the Authority's research and development programme on the fast breeder reactor, most of which, of course, is carried out in the Authority's Reactor Group."
The fact that such a large amount of work is done in this establishment for civil purposes means that there must be about 1,000 people in the establishment engaged on civil work. The proposal is that all these should be transferred to the Ministry of Defence. That is something which I think will raise complications in the future, and because of that I wish to move this Amendment which would have the effect of retaining the civil work under the Atomic Energy Authority.
In the original Act of 1954, one finds that the Atomic Energy Authority were given very clear and specific powers. They appear in Section 2(2), in which there are six paragraphs, one of which I have repeated in my Amendment in order to make it clear that it remains the right and, indeed, the business of the Atomic Energy Authority to deal with this question of the production and distribution of isotopes. If this is not done, it will mean that the production and distribution of isotopes will be effectively under the control of the Minister of Defence. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said on Second Reading, that work could be done under contract for another Department, but the trouble about that is that whenever work is done inside a Ministry of Defence establishment it tends to become secret or classified work. Because of that, even though it may be quite permissible for material to be produced and sold to other bodies, the information is not always clear enough. In consequence, there is a retardation in the distribution of both mater al and information which could be avoided if this activity were clearly transferred to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. If the purpose of this Bill is to transfer the weapons work to the Ministry of Defence, it would seem that it should not at the same time transfer other work to it. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD CARRINGTON: I know that the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, will be glad to know that his Amendment is really unnecessary. First of all, may I tell him that there is no intention whatever to transfer from the Authority their power relating to the manufacture and

1483
disposal of radioactive substances, and indeed nothing in the Bill derogates from this power which they already have. The power of the Authority in respect of radioactive substances is of course only one of many powers which they have under the subsection to which the noble Lord referred. Clause 9(4) of this Bill covers the point, because it makes it clear that nothing is transferred from the Authority, except as provided in Clauses 1 and 6. So there is no need whatever to make a specific exclusion in respect of radioactive substances.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I am grateful for that explanation. The noble Lord opposite will know that I made a brief intervention earlier—having paid tribute to the work of the Atomic Energy Authority over the years—in regard to isotopes, because of my knowledge of their use in a laboratory with which I am linked. At this late hour there is no need for me to make a long speech, but another matter crops up here. Without sounding as though I am teaching anybody anything, may I refer to the analysis, called Ten Year Innovations, written by Christopher Layton in 1968? The Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology asked Mr. Christopher Layton to explore the reasons why Britain appears to be obtaining a poor return for its large investment in qualified scientists and engineers. Ultimately, the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, took a part in this work and P.E.P. published it.
May I ask whether, when these discussions took place with our future partners about our going into Europe and Euratom—which at one time I attended—there was any discussion about this problem and about the hiving-off? I think that such a discussion should take place. My second question is this. I spent some time on a very important Committee in the other place discussing the distribution of radioactive substances and wastes and safety. May we have a guarantee that the same stringent regulations for safety in the movement, assessing or packing of radioactive substances will be maintained? In view of the Minister's answer, I shall not say anything further, but I should be grateful for a reply to those two points.
LORD CARRINGTON: With regard to the discussions, I cannot say precisely whether our allies were notified; but, as I tried to point out in my answer, all that is happening is that the Weapons Group is being transferred to the Ministry of Defence. So I do not think that that will affect the problem which the noble Lord has in mind. With regard to his second question, I can of course give him the guarantee that the same regulations will apply.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said that under Clause 9 of the Bill the position which I am trying to safeguard by this Amendment is fully covered. If he can give me positive assurances about that, then naturally I shall be very happy. But I must call attention to the fact that in the Second Reading debate the noble Lord said:
"I can assure your Lordships that this work"—
the work on radioactive isotopes—
"together with the other civil work at A.W.R.E., will continue uninterrupted: the expertise and facilities at A.W.R.E. will be made available to the Authority and the Department of Trade and Industry under contracts which they will place with the Ministry of Defence."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16/11/72; col. 828.]
That does not suggest that the work is being transferred back to the Atomic Energy Authority, but rather that the work will be retained by the Ministry of Defence, who may be gracious enough to allow the Atomic Energy Authority, or any other Ministry or body, to have the work done.
Clause 9 states that the question whether,
"… property of the Authority was held for the purposes of the Weapons Group, or in the course of carrying on any activities of the Group, shall be determined (in case of doubt) by reference to the Authority's books, and entries in those hooks with respect to any property shall he conclusive as to how it was held at the time in question".
If that means that any property that was being used on work for civilian purposes is to be determined as now belonging to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, then I should be very happy; but it did not seem to me that the statement made by the noble Lord in the debate meant quite the same thing as Clause 9 seems to mean.
LORD CARRINGTON: Perhaps I can reassure the noble Lord and ask him if he will look very carefully at Clause 9(4). That says:
"Except as provided by sections 1 and 6 of this Act nothing in this Act is to be construed as taking away from the Authority any power, right, liability or obligation expressly conferred on them by name by any enactment."
Since neither Clause 1 nor Clause 6 in point of fact takes away that which the noble Lord wishes to restore, the position really is wholly safeguarded. The Atomic Energy Authority would be able to carry on these practices by themselves; they have the power to do so. If they wish the Weapons Group to do it at Aldermaston, then the Weapons Group could do it under contract for them. They have the absolute power to do what they wish.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: Yes, I assumed that they have the power; but, on the other hand, this Bill, if it means anything at all, means that there is to be a transfer of all the property and all the people who are working in this field—that is to say, the field of radioactive isotopes. Am I correct in that?
LORD CARRINGTON: I had hoped that we had got through this barrier at the Second Reading. The object of this Bill is to take from the Atomic Energy Authority the Weapons Group at Aldermaston. Eighty per cent. of the work at Aldermaston is for the Ministry of Defence, 10 per cent. is for the A.E.A. and 10 per cent. for other civil Departments. It has worked very well, the A.E.A. managing the business of the Ministry of Defence. There is no reason at all why the Ministry of Defence managing 10 per cent. of the A.E.A.'s business should not work equally well. If it does not work equally well, the A.E.A. have power under this Bill and under the other enactments to go and make their own arrangements.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I think the noble Lord is really trying to avoid the issue here, because what he is saying is that the Atomic Energy Authority have the power to do it. Of course they have the power to do it. But what I am saying is that the Ministry of Defence is now going to take over the actual physical assets plus the staff concerned. It is very nice to have the power, but if the staff concerned are 1,000 people, as I believe
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they are, approximately, and if there is actual equipment there which is quite considerable, and if this equipment is to be the property of the Ministry of Defence and the staff are to be employed by the Ministry of Defence, as according to this Bill (if I understand it correctly) they are, then it seems to me that whatever rights the Atomic Energy Authority have, the actual fact is that the Ministry of Defence is taking over this work.
LORD CARRINGTON: But the noble Lord's Amendment does not remedy that in any degree. All that the noble Lord's Amendment does is to give the Authority power to do something, which power they already have. With great respect to the noble Lord, I should not have thought that it was really very sensible to say that you should hand over 90 per cent. of Aldermaston to the Ministry of Defence and that the A.E.A. should keep 10 per cent.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: But 10 per cent. is 1,000 people. The noble Lord says it is 10 per cent., but he previously stated it was 20 per cent. We really are getting into the most extraordinary state where, on the one hand, the noble Lord uses a figure of 20 per cent. in order to show how excellent his establishment is. and then turns round and says, "But the baby is really much smaller than this; it is only 10 per cent. "The 10 per cent. is work done for the Atomic Energy Authority directly; but the other 10 per cent. is work done for civil purposes. I am contending that the whole of the civil work should be the business of the Atomic Energy Authority, which is what they were originally set up to do. If the noble Lord says that my Amendment is unnecessary, I should like to point out to him—and he really will have to be patient with me—that according to the terms of the 1954 Act it is quite clear that the Atomic Energy Authority had no right to work on weapons except when they were asked to do so by the Minister of Supply, who is now presumably replaced, under present arrangements for procurement, by the Minister of Defence, and that the Minister of Defence alone can ask the Atomic Energy Authority to do work on weapons. If that was so under the old Act, then there was nothing at any time to prevent the Minister of Defence from ceasing to ask the Atomic Energy Authority to do that work and to

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do it himself. He did not have to introduce a Bill to do this.
LORD KENNET: I think the issue has become clear in discussion. It is this, if I get it right: that the Bill does not prevent the transfer of this civilian work on isotopes; and the Secretary of State has told us that my noble friend's Amendment does not prevent it either. So I would suggest to my noble friend that if he wants to prevent it he might put down another Amendment at Report stage specifically prohibiting that which he wants to prevent, and this could then be debated on its merits.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Does the noble Lord wish to exercise his right of reply and to say whether he wishes to press his Amendment or withdraw it?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I have nothing further to say. I have, I think, succeeded in getting a little information from the Minister on this matter, but it is quite clear that the Amendment would not be carried, and therefore I do not wish to press it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
7.17 p.m.
LORD CHALFONT LORD CHALFONT moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 1 insert the following new clause—
Accounts of Weapons Group
". Notwithstanding any provision of this Act the Secretary of State shall separately in respect of the Weapons Group keep proper accounts and other records and shall prepare in respect of each financial year statements of account in such form as the Treasury may direct, and those statements shall, on or before the thirtieth day of November next following the expiration of the financial year in question, be transmitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General who shall examine and certify the statements and lay copies thereof together with his report thereon, before each House of Parliament."
The noble Lord said: I shall be as brief as possible. The reasons for this Amendment, the effect of which would be to insert a new clause, Clause 2, are simple. The Amendment itself may look rather complicated, but its simple effect is to require the Secretary of State, should this Bill pass into law, to keep and publish separate accounts for the Weapons Group,
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which is now passing from the Atomic Energy Authority to his Department. The reason for proposing this Amendment is that it is extremely significant legislation which is now passing through your Lordships' Committee. Indeed, it is so important that I am astonished at the apparent lack of interest which is being taken in it. We are now faced with a Bill which, if it passes into law, will mean that of the five nuclear Powers in the world Britain will be the only non-Communist country in which the research, development and procurement of nuclear weapons is directly under the hand of the Secretary of State, or Minister, for Defence. In the United States and in France there are Commissions similar to the Atomic Energy Authority which, with certain variations and differences, carry out these duties. I make that point not to say that it is any good reason why the Bill should not pass into law, but simply to emphassise that this is extremely important legislation. This is not just a Bill about administration, a Bill about who handles and who manages what: it is a Bill of extremely great significance for the future of this country.
Even if there are people who have no objection in principle to this Bill, I should like to point out that in the future there may be certain dangers which will arise from it. The psychological effect of placing the procurement of nuclear weapons under a separate commission or authority is that nuclear weapons are quite clearly seen to be different in kind from other types of military hardware. There is a danger, I believe—and a very real danger—that if this responsibility passes into the military Department, into the Department of Defence, that distinction will be blurred, and that we shall gradually move toward a situation in which people come to regard nuclear weapons as simply another military option. It is, I think, extremely important that all decisions regarding nuclear weapons, and particularly the research that goes into nuclear warheads, their development and the improvements made to them, should be a matter of collective decision and not of Departmental decision. The noble Lord said on Second Reading that he could assure the House that this would continue to be the case: that all matters of nuclear policy and nuclear weapons would be the subject of collective decisions and would

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not be Departmental matters. I believe him; I accept his assurance. But there may come a time when there is a Government in power in which a Secretary of State for Defence is tempted to take certain decisions on his own. It seems to me that under this Bill he would be in a position to do so if not legally empowered to do so.
The effect of my proposed Amendment would be to make it much more difficult for him to do so. This is a safeguard for the future. Its effect would be to prevent the accounts of the Atomic Weapons Group from being buried and unidentifiable in the Defence Estimates among the whole mass of Defence appropriations and Estimates. As I have said, it would require that he should keep and publish separate accounts for the research, development and testing of nuclear weapons.
It may be said that this would be dangerous in the security sense. I am sure that this argument will be put forward, if not by the noble Lord to-night then by others. My answer is that I do not believe that the simple publishing of figures in this way would be damaging to the national security. It is not precisely how much money is being spent in any one year on nuclear weapons that is going to be useful to a potential enemy; he wants more precise technical and useful military intelligence than that. It seems to me that even if we are going to move away from the situation in which weapons of mass destruction are dealt with in a different way from the more conventional military weapons, at least we ought to have this safeguard which should prevent any future ill-disposed Government or military Department or Defence Secretary from carrying out work on the development and production of nuclear weapons without a collective decision which could be seen to be taken openly and taken with the full knowledge of its long-term implications.
For that reason, I propose that the Amendment be inserted to have the effect of publishing the separate accounts and therefore of making it apparent if there is any great change in the level of work being carried on in the development research or procurement of nuclear weapons. I beg to move.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, may I crave the indulgence of your Lordships for a few minutes? I rise to support my noble friend's Amendment. I will peg out three points. The first is that I think it essential in this period when we are hoping to get an understanding between East and West, since President Nixon has made visits to the icier parts of the world known as Russia and China and has broken down the attitude to the Eastern sections of the world, that we should not give the impression that we are overtly wanting to encourage a nucleonic approach to our strategy. There is no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. It is rubbish to talk of that. Secondly, it is essential that the Houses of Parliament, and the other place in particular, should have the power of the purse and information. Thirdly, I would remind your Lordships of the quite famous Trend Report of 1955 which asked that the spin-off from nuclear production for military purposes he moved into peaceful purposes. We have the example of the spin-off from space research—everybody knows that it produced the non-stick frying pan—but many wonderful things resulted from the spin-off from military research in the nuclear field.
From that third point there emerges a fourth. Scientists, like politicians, like to talk shop. I do not want to bore the House with figures, though I have them in the Report, The Use of Qualified Scientists and Engineers in Britain and America. But once a man gets into a military area he is afraid to talk shop—in fact, he cannot talk shop because of the classified matters. Believe it or not, because of this we sometimes limit the possibilities of recruiting. I do not want to make derogatory remarks about the brilliant people who are already in military work; but the tendency in our universities and technical colleges is for young scientists to shrink from military jobs because it stops this wonderful exchange of ideas which has built up civilisation; it prevents them from talking the jargon of their subject, particularly if they are dealing with military affairs. Consequently, I think that as much as possible of these matters should be made public and that the Houses of Parliament should in the future have full information

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about the trend which has developed in this new approach.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think I understand what both noble Lords are seeking to do. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, he overestimates the scale and importance of the change which this Bill brings about. What happens at Aldermaston as regards nuclear weapons is only research, and the development and manufacture of components of the warheads. Everything else is now, and has been, under the control of my Department. The warheads, after fabrication at Aldermaston, are in the custody of my Department. The only thing we are doing in this Bill is to change the responsibility for the management of the establishment at Aldermaston. I must say to him that, having now been Secretary of State for Defence for two and a half years, I can conceive of no possible circumstances in which I as a malign or mad Secretary of State for Defence could do the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has in mind. I do not believe that it would be possible to do it. There are so many people in the upper echelons of Government who are concerned with nuclear policy and nuclear matters that I do not think it would be possible for such a thing to happen.
I have sympathy with this Amendment for another reason. It is that I have sought in these last two and a half years, as did my predecessor, Mr. Healey, to give as much information as possible about defence; because I think that the more people know about it, the more they understand it and the more they will feel that what is being done has logic and that although it may be expensive it is worth while. But I am afraid on this occasion in asking the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment, I have to say that I think there are rather good security grounds why one should not single out this particular establishment and require its accounts to be presented separately. I think that the consequences of doing that would be to pinpoint the expenditure on nuclear weapons research and development and warheads in such a way that it would be possible for anybody who cared to do so to see the trend which we are going through; and from the trend I think it
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would be possible for them to estimate pretty accurately the sort of things we are doing. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, wants that to happen. He wanted this Amendment for different reasons, which I understand. But for security reasons I do not think I can accept his Amendment and I ask him to withdraw it.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, before my noble friend comments on what has been said by the Secretary of State for Defence may I say that it is no surprise that the Secretary of State should "pump" security on him about it. I am sure that my noble friend was not surprised. I do not know whether the Atomic Energy Authority has until now published accounts in the detail envisaged by my noble friend's Amendment. Although such a proposal for fuller publication of accounts may not be practicable at the moment, there is in the future a possibility of an international system in which such a thing would be practicable. I believe that the publication of military accounts, and especially the details of nuclear weapons accounts, could in future prove a valuable part of an enduring arms control situation between East and West. In other words, the only point I would make is: let this not sink without trace; let us be prepared to do this when other countries, including our adversaries, are prepared to do the same.
7.30 p.m.
LORD CHALFONT: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his very full reply to my few remarks introducing this Amendment. He is, as I have said elsewhere, a reasonable man. I am sorry that his reasonableness does not extend to accepting this Amendment. I would make three brief points. The first is that of course I realise that what goes on at Aldermaston is restricted almost exclusively to the weapons field and the research and development of nuclear warheads. This is the most important area of research and development in the whole military field, and it is that that I was trying to catch with my Amendment. As to the possibility of some ill-disposed Government or Minister of the future not having the power to engage in a nuclear weapons policy secretly, I can only say that I am

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considerably less sanguine than the noble Lord: I will go no further than that.
As my noble friend has said, I was not surprised that the question of security was the noble Lord's main answer to my argument. He has said that if these accounts were to be published a potential enemy might be able to pinpoint trends in the development of our weapons, indeed they might; and, as the noble Lord has said, that is something that I would not wish to see happen. However, I should like to follow my noble friend Lord Kennet in saying that I believe that if we are ever to bring the nuclear weapon under control, and if we are ever to get any form of sensible nuclear arms control and disarmament, we shall have to have a more open society and more open exchanges of this kind of information. I hope, therefore, as my noble friend has said, that we can bear this in mind. And, perhaps even if the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will not accept this Amendment this evening, we might suggest that this could form the basis of some initiative which this country might take in the arms control field and which might lead to some area of arms control and disarmament that we have not yet examined. I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 [Weapons Group employees]:
7.33 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved
Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 30, at end insert—
("The terms and conditions of service of every person who is taken into employment in the Civil Service in pursuance of the arrangements made by the Secretary of State shall, taken as a whole, be no less favourable than those provided for in his contract of employment with the Authority.")
The noble Lord said: This comparatively simple Amendment arises from a residual disquiet which exists among the professional civil servants who are affected by this Bill. We know that the negotiations have been concluded in a way that is satisfactory to both sides, but the negotiations are only recorded in minutes of meetings and are not under-written by legislation. It may be argued that this is unnecessary, but at a comparatively recent date—it was in 1971—when something similar took place, when two elements of the Atomic Energy
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Authority were transferred to British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Radio-chemicals Centre Limited, it was thought advisable to write into that: particular Act safeguards which I understand would be welcomed by the professional civil servants who are affected by this change.
Section 8(4) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1971 reads:
"For the purposes of the section, in relation to a person who by virtue of subsection (1) of this section becomes an employee of one of the companies. the terms and conditions appropriate to him immediately after the transfer shall be taken to be such terms and conditions as correspond, as nearly as the circumstances permit, to those which immediately before the date of the transfer applied to him under his contract of employment with the Authority."
This is a pretty clear statement of the type of safeguard which would be welcomed by the professional civil servants and which I have tried to mirror in my Amendment.
LORD AVEBURY: I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, is not being modest when he says that there is an element of residual disquiet among the employees of the Authority about the arrangements being made for their transfer, as set out in this clause, which he is trying to spell out in greater detail in his Amendment which I wholeheartedly support. I think there is no doubt at all that a great many employees who work at Aldermaston would welcome an Amendment of the kind which has been tabled as an additional safeguard over and above the assurances given by the Secretary of State for Defence, both in the discussions that have taken place with the employees of the Authority and on the Floor of this House.
One must always remember that whatever is said by a Secretary of State, or by any other Minister, is not binding and cannot be enforced, whereas something which appears in a Statute can be enforced. I am afraid that in the negotiations which have taken place very little headway has been made in this matter. As the Secretary of State will be aware, when it was initially suggested that something of this kind should be written into the Bill, the Staff Side were informed that it would be unconstitutional to do so. The negotiations continued, and in the process of time the Official Side changed

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their attitude and then maintained that it would be contrary to all precedent if such an undertaking as is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, were to be written into the Bill. This is the difference between the situation that arose with The Radiochemicals Centre Limited and British Nuclear Fuels Limited, where the Act was not binding the Crown but was binding a company to be created by Statute. That was the distinction which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his representatives in the negotiations have attempted to make all along. But if we are talking not about something which is prohibited under the Constitution (and as we all know, this country has no Written Constitution) but simply about a matter which is not in accordance with the precedents and customs of this kind of legislation, I cannot see where the difficulty arises, if I may say so, with great respect, to the noble Lord whose integrity in this matter I am not disputing. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, means every word of the undertakings he has given to the Staff Side, and he would save a great deal of disquiet—not residual disquiet, actual disquiet—among the members of the staff were he to write this into the Bill.
The Staff Side have continued to make representations and, as I understand it, the process of consultation has not yet finished. They have been told that if they were not satisfied it would be possible for consultations to be continued even after the Bill had become law. But to have safeguards for the staff which are not justiciable in any way is of little importance, and if this new subsection were written in there would be something on which negotiations could take place after the transfer if it was contended by the representatives of the employees that the terms and conditions, taken as a whole, were not as favourable as those which the employees had been entitled to as employees of the Authority. There would be something in writing in the Act which could be referred to in the negotiations; and if there were a dispute it would be possible to go on to obtain proper advice about how this clause should be interpreted. But a mere statement by the noble Lord across the Floor of the House is not, of course, justiciable—I am using that term in a rather loose
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sense, because I do not imagine that such a dispute would ever come to the courts. I am thinking of how one would conduct negotiations as a representative of employees if one said that in the case of Mr. X or Miss Y, "You have not given this employee terms and conditions comparable with those which he may have enjoyed as a member of the Authority."
The other point which I think is of great importance in the noble Lord's Amendment, and which modestly he did not underline, is that what he is asking for here is that the terms applying to one individual should be comparable with those he previously enjoyed; whereas it seems to me, looking at the undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that we are talking about something far broader. You could take a group of employees who were employed in a section, or you could take a certain class of employees, and say that so long as, broadly speaking, what they had been given in the Civil Service was equivalent to that which they had previously enjoyed as members of the Authority, that was good enough. What the noble Lord is asking for in this Amendment, as I understand it, is that every individual who goes from the Authority and becomes an employee of the Civil Service shall be in a situation not less favourable than that which he enjoyed previously. Of course we should be grateful for additional assurances that the Secretary of State may be able to give this evening on these matters. But I personally believe that he could save himself a lot of trouble in future negotiations with the Staff Side if he were to agree that this should be written into the Bill.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I would ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State to look at this Amendment favourably, because, as he well knows, the work done in any establishment depends very much upon the good will of the workers in the establishment. Where one has a body of people working in a defence establishment, it is most important for the quality of the work done, and for the whole spirit of the place, that they should feel they are being in every way fairly treated. It has been obvious from what the noble Lord said on Second Reading that he has taken a great deal of trouble to see that they are being properly treated, but acceptance of this

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Amendment would underline it and would show clearly that it is the firm intention of the Government to see that this is done.
LORD CARRINGTON: I think all noble Lords who have spoken will know that I agree with what they have said. There can be no doubt that one wants to see that this is done. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, I have said on a number of occasions—I have given assurances twice in this House, and I have written to the staff repeating those assurances—that the staff concerned should enjoy as favourable terms and conditions, taken as a whole, after the transfer as before. Perhaps I may clear up one point. By that I do not mean groups of people; I mean it as applying to each individual employee. "Taken as a whole" only means that it might not be done in exactly the same way as it was before. There is no question but that it applies to individual employees.
That brings us really to the age-old argument which has been raging in Committee stages on every Bill of which I can think; that is, whether or not you have to put it in the Bill. All Governments say that you do not, and all Oppositions say that you do. This is what it comes to. My Department do not feel that it is desirable for the reason advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury; namely, that they believe it is inappropriate (that is the word that has been put into my mouth) that the Crown's traditional freedom to negotiate terms and conditions of employment with the staff should be fettered by Statute. In the light of what the three noble Lords have said, I should like to see how far inappropriate "goes; whether it is so inappropriate that I must resist the Amendment on the next occasion when we debate the Bill, or whether it is not so inappropriate that we might do something about it.
LORD AVEBURY: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I say that he is moving in our direction, because first of all the official side said that it would be unconstitutional; in the second communication to the staff side the words used were "incompatible" and "departed from the long-established principle" et cetera; and now the noble
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Lord has watered that down to "inappropriate". Could he not go a little further and accept the Amendment?
LORD CARRINGTON: It would be inappropriate at this stage to do that.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I should like to thank the Secretary of State for keeping an open mind on this subject. I am certain that his liberal attitude will enable the negotiations, which I understand are still continuing, to go forward in an atmosphere of hopeful expectation from the staff side of the Council. We look forward to hearing what the noble Lord has to say when we come to the Report stage of the Bill. In view of that undertaking, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Powers of Authority in relation to atomic weapons development, etc.]
7.45 p.m.
LORD KENNET LORD KENNET moved Amendment
No. 5:
Page 6, line 8, at end insert—
("() Nothing in subsection (1) above shall prohibit the Authority from engaging in any work, as specified in that subsection, for other than war-like applications in respect of explosive nuclear devices of up to 100 Kilogram TNT equivalent.")
The noble Lord said: The Amendment that I am about to propose is not wholly simple, so I hope the Committee will bear with me for about five minutes while expound what it is all about. The clause, as drafted, says:
"The Authority shall not … have power to engage in any work, whether by way of research, experiment, development, production or otherwise, on any explosive nuclear device, whether for war-like applications or otherwise, except in accordance with arrangements made with the Secretary of State."
At first blush, nothing could seem more reasonable than that. The whole point is to move bomb production into the Ministry of Defence, which we accept as entirely rational. The Amendment that I have put down would say: yes; let all that happen, but let there be one small exception, and that is with regard to research, experiment, development, production and so on, for civil purposes, on

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explosions below 100 Kilograms T.N.T. equivalent.
First of all: why that limit? One hundred kilograms, I would remind the Committee, is about one ten thousandth part of a standard A-bomb and one ten millionth part of what one might call a standard H-bomb. So it is really small explosions about which we are talking. I put down the Amendment because I do not think that the future of research and development in civil fusion ought to be subject to the permission of the Secretary of State for Defence.
I expect the Committee will know that it is in civil fusion that the future hope of mankind largely resides. When all the other sources of energy have become impossible to exploit any more, for one reason or another, we shall be left with fusion, which we believe will be developed in the next 25 years or so. Fusion is good, because it does not pollute. It does not produce these desperately poisonous residues which are produced, and will increasingly be produced, by fission power stations. It is good because the raw material is sea water, and nothing but sea water, which is to all intents and purposes inexhaustible. Until recently we believed that there was a difficulty in that a civil fusion power station utilising a bottle, or electromagnetic field, known as a Tokamak, could not theoretically be less than gigantic—you could only build it at a colossal size; God knows how many thousand megawatts! You would only need two or three stations for an economy the size of Britain. How could you close down the service to repair a station?
But there has recently been hope of a breakthrough towards producing small fusion power stations, so small that you might put one under every fortieth block of a city—there could be capillary fusion energy generation—which is presently the hope for mankind facing the energy crisis that we are going to face. Such stations, it appears likely at the moment, would most plausibly be operated by a series of very small fusion explosions. The technology would apparently be that you launch a series of super-dense pellets of tritium or deuterium, or a mixture, and you implode them (the opposite of explode them) with
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a laser or some other energy source. You then get a series of little explosions like a motor car, which goes phut, phut, phut. Nobody knows if it is going to work, but if it does, it is the answer to a maiden's prayer with a vengeance. I believe I am right in saying that work on this is only now starting up in this country, at Culham, which belongs to the Atomic Energy Authority.
The purpose of the Amendment is to question whether this research and development ought to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Defence, not because I doubt that he would approve—of course he would—but why should it be in any case? I would make it clear that if my Amendment were accepted it would leave anything that could conceivably be used as a bomb, or indeed anything of a "ploughshare" type, your mountain-moving, harbour-digging, canal-digging type of nuclear explosion, under the veto of the Secretary of State for Defence, which is right. It would exempt only these mini-explosions, and I await with interest the reason—which I hope he cannot find—why the Secretary of State opposes this Amendment.
7.50 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: Hopefully, I think I can satisfy the noble Lord. I must say at the outset that if I accepted his Amendment it would in point of fact negate the purposes of Clause 6 in which, for reasons of security and the economic use of resources, it is intended to bring under the control of my Department all activities concerning explosive nuclear devices. I understand the noble Lord's fears which are, I think, that the work at Culham on controlled thermo-nuclear reaction might be subject to control by the Ministry of Defence. That is not the intention; nor is it the correct interpretation of Clause 6. The Ministry of Defence, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Authority are all agreed about the field of work which falls within the prohibition of Clause 6 and are agreed that this clause does not prohibit the Authority from continuing with their programme of research and development into controlled thermo-nuclear reactions aimed at releasing nuclear energy to provide useful power.

1501
The term "Explosive nuclear device" is difficult to define precisely because technology is changing and precise definitions become outmoded; but there is no conceptual difficulty. No development is currently envisaged where it would be hard to draw a distinction between what is research and development of controlled thermo-nuclear reaction and what is an explosive nuclear device. The former, I am told, is concerned with dense plasma in confinement systems designed for the release of nuclear energy from the light elements in a controlled fashion to provide nuclear power. That being so, there is complete agreement among the Departments concerned that Clause 6 does not inhibit them from doing precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, wishes them to do.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, if the noble Lord is correct in saying that this particular clause does not inhibit the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority from doing work on nuclear fusion then one really wonders what words mean: because the expression "explosive nuclear device" must surely cover any form of explosion which is the consequence of nuclear changes. Otherwise, what does it mean?
I have been puzzled by this Bill. One of my objections is that it is so vague that it does not explain what it is trying to do: one is left to guess that. First of all, there is suddenly introduced into this Bill the term "explosive nuclear device". I looked in the 1954 Act and could find no mention of an "explosive nuclear device". The Act referred either to a weapon—which is what I thought originally this Bill was meant to do—or it referred to "an explosive nuclear assembly". Where does the term "nuclear device" suddenly come in? And why does that term exclude the nuclear fusion reaction? I find it very difficult to understand the meanings of these words. They are not defined in this Bill: nor, so far as I can see, are they defined in the earlier Act. They seem to be words that have been introduced in order to leave a sort of haze over the whole situation so that the Secretary of State for Defence can decide what he wants to have in and what he does not want to have in. I feel that if we are passing an enormously important Bill concerned with nuclear energy and turning it into an Act which
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will govern us, we ought to know what the words mean.
LORD CARRINGTON: I really thought I had explained fairly carefully what was intended here. The parties concerned are in no way under a delusion or living in a haze as to what the words mean. I have given an undertaking to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, which I repeat, that the interpretation of Clause 6 by the lawyers—and also the interpretation which my Department put upon it—is to allow the Authority to do exactly what they want to do.
LORD KENNET: Of course I accept the Secretary of State's assurance that he will do this, but we are dealing here with an Act of Parliament which we hope will stand for many years. I must confess that I do not quite like it. The Secretary of State has told us we need not worry, because the phrase "explosive nuclear device" does not cover this civil fusion research into super-dense pellets and super-dense plasma. If it does not cover those, it must mean that one of those three words does not apply, and I feel I must ask the Secretary of State which word it is. Is the thing in question not explosive? I think that would be hard to sustain: it is a series of very small explosions. Is it not nuclear?—certainly it is nuclear. Thirdly, is it not a device? I do not see how anyone could rule in a court of law that it was not a device, if it came to the point. Of course I do not wish to divide the House on a question of language, but I do feel dissatisfied so far, not with the Secretary of State's assurance but with his explanation. Could the noble Lord go further?
LORD CARRINGTON: I appreciate the problems and I am not trying to pretend that there are not difficulties here, because this is really a difficulty of definition. However, as I understand it, what is meant by an "explosive nuclear device" is a device which is deliberately designed to explode and which, once the explosive process has begun, cannot be controlled or limited in any way. That is the difference.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: May I take the plain English of it? Clause 6 reads:
"The Authority shall not … have power to engage in any work, whether by way of

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research, experiment, development, production or otherwise, on any explosive nuclear device, whether for war-like applications or otherwise,"—
and here is the operative part-
"except in accordance with arrangements made with the Secretary of State."
In other words, the Secretary of State can nullify the clause if he so desires. That is what it means. Now I am asking the noble Lord whether he is prepared to nullify that to the extent of inserting the phrase that my noble friend has put in his Amendment.
LORD CARRINGTON: The difficulty is that if I accept the noble Lord's Amendment it completely negates the whole purpose of Clause 6, because the whole object of that clause is turned round the other way—
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Yes, that is so.
LORD CARRINGTON:—and that is not the object of Clause 6. What we are talking about is a rather small part, and a rather technical aspect, of what the Authority wish to go on doing, and which I say the Bill allows them to do, and which worries the noble Lord. Let us by all means look at the words and see if there is something we can do to clear the situation up at the next stage.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I should like to ask the noble Lord why he is not prepared to accept the words that were used in the Act of 1954, where, instead of talking about an "explosive nuclear device", specific reference is made to "explosive nuclear assembly for atomic weapons"?—because it is surely the explosive nuclear assembly for atomic weapons with which he is concerned and which he wants to have within his Department, whereas the explosive nuclear device which is used in fusion is not meant for an atomic weapon. It is meant for the production of atomic energy.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am not prepared to accept those words because they are not the words on the Marshalled List, but I am quite prepared to have a look at them.
LORD KENNET: I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I think
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it would be worth while to look at this again at the next stage because he has advanced a definition of an explosion as something which, once it has started, cannot be stopped. This, to my mind, perfectly fits the kind of mini-explosion up to 100 Kilograms of T.N.T. which we are talking about in my Amendment. However, I will rest on the Secretary of State's assurance, and perhaps we may even have a word about it together later. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.0 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES LORD WYNNE-JONES moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 6, line 9, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to Clause 6(2) in which, pursuant to subsection (1), it says:
"(2) In section 2(2) of the said Act of 1954 in paragraph (i) of the proviso (which precludes the Authority from developing or producing weapons otherwise than in accordance with such arangements, but makes an exception for certain work on explosive nuclear assemblies"—
which I have just quoted—
"the words from except that' to the end of the paragraph are hereby repealed".
I am moving by this Amendment that that subsection be left out of the Bill. I do so because as the Bill now stands the Atomic Energy Authority is going to be denied the right, which it clearly has had from the start, of investigating the field of explosions.
If one looks at the Act of 1954, one finds quite clearly that it was the business of the Atomic Energy Authority to do a number of things and, at the end, having given it very wide powers, it was stated:
"Provided that—
(i) the Authority shall not, save in accordance with arrangements made with the Minister of Supply, develop or produce any weapon or part of a weapon, except that nothing in this proviso shall limit the power of the Authority to conduct experimental work which may lead to improved types of explosive nuclear assemblies for atomic weapons."
In other words, even at the very moment by the very words in which the Atomic Energy Authority was told that it was not to work on weapons, it was told that it was permitted to do work on the reactions which lead up to weapons. This is

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something which is perfectly clear and logical. It is done with all other forms of explosives. There is no limitation on anyone doing research work or investigation into explosives; it does not have to be dealt with in any establishment run by the Ministry of Defence; no armament factory necessarily has the right to control all explosives. Research on explosives has been carried out elsewhere and, as the Secretary of State must know perfectly well, the best work that has been done in the past has not been carried out in Government establishments. Some of the excellent early work was done in Sweden by the famous Nobel, after whom the Nobel Prizes are named. It was done by I.C.I. in this country, and by a large number of different organisations and universities. In other words, there should be nothing to prevent the investigation of all these things. This was clearly stated in the Act of 1954. It is a reactionary move now to take away from the Authority the right to do this, more particularly as there is a considerable field of work for civil applications of these explosive reactions; and these come, in my opinion, very clearly under the terms of referenece of the Atomic Energy Authority.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am sorry that I have been a little negative to the noble Lord to-night, but I cannot accept this Amendment. The effect of the Amendment would be to allow the Authority to undertake work which could be done only with an extensive duplication of manpower and facilities. It would frustrate the whole purpose of this Bill, which is to bring all activities on explosive nuclear devices (assuming that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and I know what we are talking about when we say "explosive nuclear devices") under the direct management control of the Ministry of Defence, in order that the resources can be used most economically. If this Amendment were accepted it would also be undesirable from the point of view of security and our international obligations to protect this very sensitive field of technology, and it would make it very difficult if we had two separate areas where exactly the same work was being undertaken. Having explained that, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: Is the noble Lord saying that there has been a problem about security in the past?
LORD CARRINGTON: All the work has been carried out at Aldermaston.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: Work has also been carried out by the Atomic Energy Authority wherever they wished to do it. It so happens that the weapons work was carried out at Aldermaston, but they have done work elsewhere. According to the terms of this Bill, everything, including preliminary research, is excluded. This is a very serious inhibition.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw or press his Amendment?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I wish to press my Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
8.6 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STOW HILL: I hesitate to intervene, and I will try to do so briefly, largely because the Secretary of State has already been so good as to say that he is going to do what I was going to ask him to do. I, as a layman, have listened entranced to the exchanges that have just passed, but it was suggested that I might raise with the Secretary of State what I submit still seems to be a somewhat uncertainty in the language used. The language has already been traversed a good deal, and I will try to economise in my repetitions of it.
Clause 6(1) in effect says that the Atomic Energy Authority is not to have the power—and the words have been read out over and over again—to:
engage in any work, whether by way of research, experiment, development, production or otherwise, on any explosive nuclear device, …"
The Secretary of State has pointed out the difficulty of defining with any precision precisely what one means by "explosive nuclear device". My noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones has pointed out that no definition is contained either in the

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1954 Act or in this Bill. But something—in spite of those words—is still left within the competence and province of the Atomic Energy Authority. What I am asking the Secretary of State to do is to say this: that he will again look at the language in order to try to define with more precision what is still left within the competence of the Authority. What is left, I suppose, is this: one goes back to the proviso of Section 2 of the 1954 Act and finds there, as my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones pointed out,
"The Authority shall not … develop or produce any weapon or part of a weapon"—
So far, so good; that has now been changed—
"except that nothing in this proviso shall limit the power of the Authority to conduct experimental work which may lead to improved types of explosive nuclear assemblies for atomic weapons;"
Here again (this has already been pointed out), there is no definition to be found of the expression "explosive nuclear assemblies". If one sets that language side by side with the language which I have quoted from Clause 6(1) of the Bill, I submit to the Secretary of State—and I am asking him to clarify this—it is rather difficult to determine precisely what is transferred, and precisely what is left of that power which was preserved in the proviso that I have quoted. It seemed to me, reading it as a layman, that what is still left is the power, again subject to arrangements, to conduct experiments, as it were, in the rather more initial stages into the substance of the material itself which will ultimately be incorporated into a device; and that what is taken away is the power to experiment—and I choose that one word out of the others—in the explosive nuclear device itself. That seems to be a more complete machine which comes into being at a later stage.
I would ask this question. When one looks at the language of Clause 6(1) and sees the expression "any explosive nuclear device", is that intended to mean some existing device? Is the concept that a device has already been brought into being and the power to experiment on that existing device is removed; or is the concept rather wider in scope? Is the power to experiment with a view to the production of an explosive nuclear
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device, as the result of the experiment, also removed? I should have thought that probably the answer is that that is the intended meaning. All I would ask the Secretary of State to do (I am afraid I am being rather repetitive, because he has been so kind as to say he will do it) is to re-examine that language in order that the parties concerned may know with some more precision—it is difficult, perhaps, to achieve it, but with as much precision as can be achieved—exactly what is transferred and exactly what is left. I should be grateful if the Secretary of State could say that he would do that.
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes; of course I will do that. I think the difficulty is that we all know what we want to do. What we want to do is to transfer that part of the A.E.A.'s business which is related to weapon development and goes on at Aldermaston. Equally, I think that all the people concerned—that is, the A.E.A. itself, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Defence—know how it is all to be divided up. Where I think we are in some difficulty—and it has been pointed out already by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and now by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill—is that we have not at the moment perhaps defined it as precisely as possible. I do not know whether it can be defined precisely—I make no promise about it—but certainly there are areas which have been opened up this evening and which I think we ought to look at again.
LORD KENNET: Before we leave it finally, may I offer something to the Secretary of State. There are two ambiguous words: "on" and "explosive". My noble friend has discoursed on the ambiguity of "on". Now a brief discourse on the word "explosive": an explosive device may be either a device which itself explodes or a device which brings about and contains explosions. I am all for letting the Secretary of State have power over the former, but I want to exempt the latter.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Remaining clauses and Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

ROYAL ASSENT
8.13 p.m.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER (THE EARL Of LISTOWEL): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Counter-Inflation (Temporary Provisions) Act,

Pensioners and Family Income Supplement Payments Act,

Aberdeen Harbour Order Confirmation Act,

Scrabster Harbour (Vehicle Ferry Terminal &c.) Order Confirmation Act.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
First Report from the Select Committee: made, and to be printed.