Lords Sitting of 4 December 1973

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester.
The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

LULWORTH R.A.C. GUNNERY SCHOOL
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: 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 reached a decision on the future of the Royal Armoured Corps Gunnery School at Lulworth.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the proposal to move the R.A.C. Gunnery Range from Lulworth to Castlemartin was made in the Report of the Defence Lands Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Nugent of Guildford. The Report was published in July and a period was set aside for public comment on and discussion of its recommendations. This period still continues and the Government have not yet reached a decision; as the Prime Minister stated in October in answer to a Question in another place, it is hoped to make an announcement early in the New Year.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he would not agree that the desirability of getting an early answer will be of help to the Army; that the majority of those who made representations were in favour of this gunnery range remaining where it was, and that the societies dealing with archæology and with birds were equally keen for it to stay where it was? Lastly, is my noble
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friend aware that the cost of the move is well in excess of £14 million?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, there is at least one noble Lord, whom I suspect we shall be hearing from in a moment, who would not agree with everything the noble Viscount said. It is precisely because there is a certain amount of local dissension that the Government feel it would be better to take a little further time for consultation.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us appreciate the way in which the Minister of Defence has consulted local opinion? Is the noble Lord aware that the evidence before him indicates that a large majority of residents in this area desire that it shall be freed from Army control? May I ask him whether in any decision which is reached he will consider not merely the beauty of the area but its unique ecological, architectural and wild life value?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, that all these considerations are very much in my noble friend's mind. As I understand it. the problem is that some of the truly local people are in fact very much in favour of retaining the range at Lulworth.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that there are many in Pembrokeshire who have no wish to have any extension of Castlemartin, which is the alternative proposed for Lulworth? Apart from this local problem, would not the noble Lord agree that if everyone is to be consulted it would be a good thing if we could have a debate in this House on the Defence Lands Report? Everybody is being consulted, apparently, except the Houses of Parliament.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady White, that my noble friend is only too well aware of the feeling at Castlemartin. So far as the question of a debate is concerned, I will take this up with the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, will the noble Lord give an assurance that if Lulworth is abandoned

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the Crichel Down rules will apply, and that on no account will it be permitted that land which belonged to local families for hundreds of years will be stolen to satisfy the political theories of fanatics?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I do not seriously think that the noble Lord expects me to give an affirmative answer to that.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is the proposed removal of this gunnery school being considered in conjunction with the removal of the Shoeburyness experimental establishment, which will have to be moved if the Maplin Airport proposal goes forward?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, it is not necessarily being considered in conjunction, although it is part of the same basic pattern. The Nugent Report suggests that Lulworth should be removed to Castlemartin, independent of the removal of Maplin to Scotland.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, this is a complex question, but is my noble friend aware of the fact that the longer one gives consideration to it the greater are the burdens of those employed by the military establishment in wondering whether their jobs will last, as well as the anxieties of those living at the other end of the projected journey, in Castlemartin, who will be wondering if their amenities will be diminished? Is it not possible to expedite the process of decision-making?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I think we have to balance the disadvantage of the uncertainty of people in doubt against the need to have adequate consultation before a decision is taken.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, may I say to the noble Lord that I hope this proposal does not mean further pressure on the gunnery at Tain where we having a bobbing range? We do not want a gunnery range.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, my noble friend is aware of the resistance to putting ranges almost anywhere else. The curious thing is that the local inhabitants at Lulworth want to retain their range, or at least some of it, and I have already said that
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the proposal to move Maplin to Tain is basically independent of the proposal to move Lulworth to Castlemartin.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind, when considering the Crichel Down precedent, that personal pledges in writing were given to the tenants in this area as well as to the landlords, and that a number of those tenants are expecting that the pledge that they will be allowed to return will be met?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am sorry I cannot give a specific answer to that question, but I am quite certain that any Government would want to stick to the pledges given to any tenant by landlords.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, could the Minister say why it should cost £14 million to move this gunnery school? Could he say what there is to move that would cost so much money?
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, in the same way as the noble Baroness, I was surprised at the figure. The answer is principally barracks, gun emplacements, access and communications equipment.

TRADE WITH RUSSIA
2.43 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 are being taken to correct our heavily adverse trade balance with Russia, which in 1972 amounted to £140 million.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY (THE EARL OF LIMERICK): My Lords, as I informed the noble Lord on April 2, 1973, we cannot expect to have an exact balance of trade with every country, but Ministers and officials of the Department of Trade and Industry have frequently found occasion to express disappointment at the stagnant level of Soviet imports from Britain. There was substantial discussion of the subject at the second

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meeting of the joint Anglo-Soviet Commission in April, and it may be expected to feature prominently at the third meeting which is expected to be held in May next year.
Meanwhile, the text of a new long-term Agreement on the development of Economic, Scientific, Technological and Industrial Co-operation was initialled on November 5 and we expect it to be signed in the near future. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is to-day in Moscow and is emphasising once again the strong desire of Her Majesty's Government for a substantial increase in British exports to the Soviet Union.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, would not the Minister agree that while our requirements from Russia are largely raw materials, when it comes to manufactured goods, such as automobiles and tractors, containing a high proportion of labour at a low cost, it is quite a different thing when trade is unreciprocated?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, of course the conditions are different in the two countries and the pattern of trade follows those differences. It is a fact that if we make allowance for our imports from the Soviet Union, notably diamonds, other minerals and furs which are substantially re-exported from this country, the imbalance of trade is very substantially diminished.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Earl say what the Export Board has done in terms of promotion of British trade to the Soviet Union, and how much in terms of Government financial assistance has been available to the various organisations for development of our sales to the Soviet Union?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, exporters enjoy the same ability to use the range of services provided by the British Overseas Trade Board as exporters to other areas. There are, of course, special exhibition which, as the noble Lord well knows, are the central method of promoting trade there, which receive full assistance on these lines.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, has the Export Board made any specific effort in the field of Soviet trade? Further, can the noble Earl say how
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much in cash has been made available by the British Government, say during the last 12 months, for the development of trade with the Soviet Union?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: No, my Lords, I cannot give that answer without notice. It depends on the demands for the services made by individual exporters.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, since my question largely referred to manufactured goods and my understanding was that the Minister did not answer the question, may I ask whether he would not agree that there is urgent need to produce more reciprocity on high labour content exchange of goods? Secondly, would he not think that perhaps there would be advantage in a trade union mission to look into conditions of work and rates of pay in the Soviet Union, as has recently been done in such orderly manner by the mission of the Trades Union Congress to South Africa?
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, there was recently, as I think my noble friend is aware, a mission to Russia from the Trades Union Congress, and doubtless this was the type of question they would have explored. As regards the nature of the trade exchanges, it is a fact that the products from the Soviet Union which we have the greatest need to import are the raw materials which form the bulk of their exports to us.

OIL SUPPLIES AND RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL
LORD SEGAL: 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 would be prepared to consider breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel in order to ensure their supplies of oil.
EARL. FERRERS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have made it abundantly clear that they are not to be moved from policies they believe to be right by threats to our oil supplies.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, if that is the case, would Her Majesty's Government say what steps they propose to take

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in order to help the Netherlands, which is firmly resisting the blackmail that is going on, to maintain her position in so far as oil is concerned?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, my right honourable friend and his Department are always ready to have proper consultations and discussions with those concerned. This is what is happening.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, may I take it that the reply of the noble Earl is a definite negative: that Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to consider breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel to ensure their supplies of oil?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the reply was in the negative.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, would not the noble Earl agree that what is wanted in order to safeguard oil supplies is a peace in the Middle East based upon the principles of justice, balance of forces and an agreement which is acceptable throughout the world? Would he not agree that we shall not get that by using emotive words like "blackmail" when we are talking about the same kind of action which is highly respectable when we call it "sanctions"?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I go along wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and particularly with the first part of what he said. This is an entirely difficult and delicate situation; as everyone knows, it is one in which we are vitally concerned to see that justice is done. The only real answer to the noble Lord's question is that there should be a full and proper peace settlement in the Middle East, and that is the aim of my right honourable friend.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, does not the noble Earl think that this is blackmailing the world, and is it not time that the civilised nations of the world got together and tried to stop this kind of action, because if he is faced properly a blackmailer never succeeds?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have not been subjected to blackmail, and do not propose to be subjected to it.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government now
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totally dedicated to a policy of appeasement, and have they lost all sense of national honour?
EARL FERRERS: No, my Lords, to both questions.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, would the noble Earl be good enough to try to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and his Zionist friends, that the interests of this country must be paramount in the consideration of this matter, and that it is no good talking loosely about "blackmail" because there is no blackmail involved here? Peace in the Middle East can be furthered to-morrow if the Israeli forces were to move back behind the Mitla Pass.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I can understand the point of view taken by the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and one realises that this is a point of view held by many people; but the real point is to try to get a peace settlement. In answer to Lord Wigg, I would go along with him and say that I would hope that the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and others would not, despite their great concern, be too keen on pressing Her Majesty's Government on this matter because our one object is to enable delicate negotiations to come to a fruitful conclusion.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, in view of the very difficult situation that exists there, with the Arabs saying that the Israelis must move back to given lines, would the noble Earl publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT of this House what were the original boundaries defined by the United Nations when they set up the State of Israel? What part of the West Bank, what part of the Golan Heights, were allocated to the Arabs, and what parts allocated to Israel? This would help us to get a real balance as to where trespass is occurring.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, at a time when great concern is being exerted to effect not just a cease-fire but a peace treaty. I do not think that the publication of that kind of document in the OFFICIAL REPORT would be helpful.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, in view of the statement made a moment or two ago by my noble friend Lord Wigg, may I ask whether the noble Earl is aware that so far as Israel is concerned she

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wants peace, and that it is in the interests of the civilised world, including ourselves, that that peace should be obtained on a proper and real understanding? Is he also aware that any threats by anyone else to try to disturb the possibility of a settlement between the two peoples themselves, such as the blackmail threat—and I call it a blackmail threat—over oil, is something which interferes with the possibility of such a peace? Holland recognises that to be so.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, of course the Israelis wish to have peace; so do we, and so do the Arabs. However, there are differing points of view, and our efforts should be concentrated on trying to reconcile these different points of view.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, is not the answering of this Question turning itself into a debate? Do we really want that in the conduct of the Business of this House?
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords. I think that there is a great deal in what the noble Lord says. Starred Questions are not supposed to lead to a debate. I have not intervened on this Question up to now because I know, and acknowledge, as does the House, the strength of feeling of the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and others on this matter. We have discussed it on a number of occasions and I am sure that we shall discuss it again in the future. But if your Lordships feel it appropriate to move on to the next Question now I think that we should do so.

CHILE: BRITISH EMBASSY AND REFUGEES
2.54 p.m.
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 on what grounds the British Embassy in Santiago declines to provide safety to political refugees in Chile.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, it has been the long-standing practice of successive British Governments not to give asylum in Her Majesty's Embassies to the
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nationals of other countries: this is a general principle which is applicable to all our Embassies in all countries.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that Answer, may I ask him whether the attitude of Her Majesty's Government can be summed up in this way: that while it is not consistent that we should provide refuge to opponents of a Government with which we have relations there are many precedents where that has been done? Is it not a fact that every other European Government in Santiago has provided this refuge for those who have been standing for political democracy in Santiago? Is it not entirely exceptional that our Government should refuse refuge to those who have been standing for political democracy?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I cannot answer for the actions of other Governments, but I can tell the noble Lord that the principal function of an Embassy is to maintain relations between Governments, and it would be an abuse of their proper role if Embassies came to be used as refuges for opponents of the very Government with which we were trying to maintain relations.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, would not the noble Earl agree that this sounds very much like Munich?
EARL FERRERS: No, my Lords.
LORD HALE: My Lords, does not the noble Earl recall that in the dark days of Budapest the British Embassy won the plaudits of the world by providing the sacred right of sanctuary to refugees in a very dangerous situation from Russian guns and among them my friend the late Peter Strasser, a member of the Austrian Parliament, and his bride? If it could be done then, why are persons seeking sanctuary from persecution finding the door barred against them under the Union Jack?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I can only repeat to the noble Lord that the purpose of an Embassy is to maintain relations between ourselves and the country in which the Embassy exists. It would not be the proper function of the Embassy to open its doors to grant asylum to people who are opponents of the particular régime at the time.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would the noble Earl consider publishing in Hansard a list of the Embassies in Santiago which have admitted political refugees during the recent crisis and those which have not?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I can only tell the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that what other countries have done is a matter for themselves, but that does not necessarily affect what we have done.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the Embassy admitted refugees on any scale during the previous Marxist leadership in Chile?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, not to my knowledge.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, could the noble Earl say whether Her Majesty's Government, as a result of their representations, are satisfied that the Government in Chile is now taking a more reasonable attitude towards refugees? Are the Government satisfied with the reaction of the Chilean Government?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, we made representations to the Chilean Government and explained to them the very strong feelings in this country over the death of President Allende and others, and the many people who were arrested. The Chilean Government offered us assurances that it would deal in a humane manner, in accordance with the due processes of law, with all those who were in detention and with those in political opposition. So far as I know, our Government were the only Government which obtained a public assurance of this kind from the new Government.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Government obtained a public assurance, but can the noble Earl answer my first question as to whether the Government are satisfied that the obligations undertaken by the Chilean Government have been fulfilled?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the Chilean Government can only operate within the Chilean law, and it would not be appropriate for the British Government to intervene.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Earl please answer my ques-
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tion, which was quite simple: are Her Majesty's Government satisfied that the obligations given to them by the Chilean Government are being fulfilled?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that it would be improper for Her Majesty's Government to comment on the internal affairs of another country.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, then there can be only one construction following the noble Earl's reply.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, are the Government aware that something like 13,000 refugees who are not Chilean at all but citizens of Uruguay, Bolivia and other South American countries were attracted to Chile by the Allende Government? Would it not be an act of humanity on the part of the British Embassy to offer refuge to those citizens who are not Chilean subjects and desire simply to find sanctuary from persecution by the existing Chilean Government?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if any Chilean wishes to come into this country he can apply to do so and his application will be dealt with in the normal way, but I would only say to the noble Lord, Lord Segal, that a time when we are in fact restricting the entry of people who are members of the Commonwealth might not seem the most appropriate time to allow a large influx of people from other countries.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Earl refer to the speech made by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. I think last Wednesday in the debate on refugees? The noble Lord the Leader of the House then gave us a much more helpful reply than the one the noble Earl has now given.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Again, my Lords, we have had a very full discussion of this important question. I did refer to this matter in winding up the debate on refugees, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred to it when he opened from the Opposition Front Bench. I think it will be seen that what I said is in substance the same as what has been said by my noble friend today, but the tone and the atmosphere of the House was somewhat different.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in view of the question put from the

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Liberal Benches, asking for a list of the countries which have accepted refugees, would the Minister agree that the following European countries have accepted refugees in Santiago and retained their embassies: Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria and Switzerland, in addition to countries in other parts of the world?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for providing that information. I shall certainly be quite happy to draw the attention of my right honourable friend to the strength of feeling which has been expressed in this House.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
3.2 p.m.
First Report from the Select Committee considered.
The Report was as follows:
1. FUEL ECONOMY
The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod reported on the measures which had been taken to reduce fuel consumption in the building by approximately 10 per cent. The Committee invite all Peers to help save fuel by turning off lights and radiators when leaving their rooms.
2. APPOINTMENT OF SUB-COMMITTEES
(1) The Committee agreed that the rule (agreed to by the House in 1971) that members of the Committee should retire by rotation after three years' services should in principle also apply to Sub-Committees, but that the rule should be applied in such a way as to preserve continuity and to avoid the simultaneous retirement of too many members of a Sub-Committee at any one time.
(2) The following members of the Committee were appointed to the Sub-Committees as follows:
(a) Administration Committee

E. Listowel.

E. St. Aldwyn.

V. Hood.

L. Amulree.

L. Champion.

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.

L. Nugent of Guildford.

L. Strang.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(b) Library Sub-Committee

L. Amulree.

L. Champion.

L. Maybray-King.

L. Wilberforce.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
(c) Refreshment Sub-Committee

E. St. Aldwyn.

L. Amulree.

B. Gaitskell.

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.

L. Nugent of Guildford.

L. Strang.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
(d) Sub-Committee on the Parliament Office

V. Hood.

L. Champion.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
The Committee recommend that Lord Mancroft be appointed a member of the main Committee in order that he may continue as a member of this Sub-Committee.
(e) Finance Committee

E. Listowel.

E. St. Aldwyn.

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.

L. Amulree.

L. Champion.

L. Nugent of Guildford.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(f) Works of Art Sub-Committee

V. Hood.

M. Cholmondeley.

L. Amulree.

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
3. YEOMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD
The Committee were informed of the temporary appointment of Group Captain R. M. B. Duke-Woolley, D.S.O., D.F.C., as Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod and Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms during the absence of Colonel C. L. Sayers.
4. PARLIAMENT OFFICE
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the appointment of:

(a) Miss Marguerita Marion Pedder, O.B.E., as Head of Establishments from 15th October 1973; and

(b) Mr. Brendan Patrick Keith as Clerk from 1st October 1973.

The Committee agreed to the regrading of one post of Assistant Clerk of the Records as Deputy Clerk of the Records; and to a reconstruction of the Office Assistant grade, involving a rearrangement of duties and the creation of certain new posts. The Committee authorised the rates of pay for the posts affected and the creation of an additional post of Executive Officer.
5. REVISED SCALES OF PAY
The Committee sanctioned the application of the following Estacode Circulars:

(a) EC/125: dated 21st August 1973—Pay of Higher Civil Service

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(b) EC/119: dated 15th August 1973—Pay of Cleaners

to Officers and staff of corresponding grades in the House of Lords.
6. HANSARD STAFF
The Committee took note of a further report by the Clerk of the Parliaments on his consultations with the Pay Board and his negotiations with the Staff Association on their claim on behalf of the Hansard staff. The Committee authorised the Clerk to make an offer of an ex gratia payment to Editors and Reporters in respect of additional duties performed during the summer of 1972.
The Committee authorised the employment of an additional Sub-Editor from the 20th November until the end of 1973.
The Committee also sanctioned the payment of increased charges under the agreement with Haynes Secretarial Services for the supply of typists for the reporting of Debates.
7. ATTENDANTS
The Committee authorised the employment of:in additional Attendant during the period from 29th October to 6th November 1973.
8. ESTIMATES
The Estimate for the House of Lords for 1974–75 was laid before the Committee and approved.
9. SUPERANNUATION
The Committee sanctioned the payment of the following Superannuation awards:

(a) Preserved pension and lump sum to Mr. David Dewar, Senior Clerk, who was seconded to the European Parliament on 4th September 1973.

(b) Preserved pension and lump sum to Mr. Michael Ffrench MacTavish, Senior Office Asistant, who resigned on 31st July 1973.

(c) Pension and lump sum to Mr. John Edward Holden, Attendant, who retired on 6th November 1973.

(d) Pension and lump sum to Mrs. Frances Ellen Tarrant, Housemaid, who retired on 9th September 1973.

(e) Short service gratuity to Mrs. Bridget McCullagh, Housemaid, who resigned on 28th July 1973.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to. —(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LEGAL AID BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE): My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As I think
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I told the House before, this is a pure Consolidation Bill. Part I consolidates certain enactments relating to legal aid in civil proceedings and to legal advice and assistance, principally the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 and the Legal Advice and Assistance Act 1972. Part II consolidates certain enactments relating to legal aid in criminal proceedings and proceedings under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. I need hardly remind the House that this Bill will be referred to the Joint Committee in the usual way, and I therefore beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2ª and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

BUSINESS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, may I inquire of the Chief Whip whether dinners will be available to-night?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to assure the noble Baroness that she will not go hungry to-night.

SAFETY OF SPORTS GROUNDS BILL [H.L.]
3.4 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): 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.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The VISCOUNT HOOD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Power to designate large sports stadia requiring certificates under Act]:
Loan STOWHILL Loan STOWHILL moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 5, after ("order") insert ("at such time in the case of each sports stadium as after taking into account all such circumstances as in his opinion are relevant including the financial resources available or likely to be

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available to those responsible for the management and conduct of such sports stadium").
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move the first Amendment, and I do so for the following purpose. A good deal of the discussion on this Bill during its Second Reading centred upon the question whether the various grounds and stadia that might be designated for the purposes of the Bill would be financially in a position to carry out the changes that were made necessary for the purpose of complying with the safety certificate that might be issued in relation to the stadium or, should the provisions of the Bill be extended under Clause 9 to grounds, to any particular ground. One starts from the finding in paragraph 59 of the Report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, with regard to the financial situation of a number of sports stadia and grounds. If I may cite what the noble Lord says in that paragraph, the passage reads as follows:
"The gate receipts of many if not all of the clubs apart from a select band are not sufficient to keep the clubs alive. They are dependent upon such imponderables as transfer fees and financial support from development clubs, supporters' clubs and the like to remain viable".
Later on it says:
"If such clubs were faced with heavy expense in ground improvements some of them would have to close down. Football is a national sport, and if this were to happen it will be a tragedy."
The purpose of the Amendment which I move in those circumstances is as follows. It is designed to make certain, in the first place, that the language of subsection (1) of Clause 1 is appropriate to provide that the designation process which is there described shall be a phased process. There is, I would submit to the Committee, room for some slight ambiguity on that point. It could, I should have thought, just be said that the Secretary of State was placed under a duty to make some kind of general designation order. I know from what Ministers said on Second Reading that that is not their intention, but it seems to me, so I would submit to the Committee, that it is of such crucial importance (because, in particular, of the financial situation of so many of the clubs that would be involved) that the Secretary of State should be called upon by the wording of the clause only to designate individual clubs from time to time as it
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seems appropriate in the case of that particular club; in other words, that it should be made pelucidly plain that the Bill does not provide for anything like some general designation order. That might spell bankruptcy for a number of the clubs that would be involved. Therefore, the first object of this Amendment is to put beyond any possibility of doubt the question to which I have referred, and to indicate that the Secretary of State will, one by one as the particular circumstances of that club seem appropriate, designate that club.
The second objective I seek to achieve by the Amendment is that when deciding whether or not to designate a club he will have regard in particular to the—and I quote from the Amendment—
"financial resources available or likely to be available to those responsible for the management and conduct of such sports stadium".
That is the object of the Amendment. It is, as I believe I am right in saying, entirely in accord with the purpose of the Government, and I submit it is desirable to put at rest any possible doubt that there could be on this score. In those circumstances, I beg to move (a) to remove doubt and (b) to make sure that the Secretary of State, when deciding in the case of a particular club whether or not to designate it, will have the financial situation of that club particularly in mind in coming to a decision with regard to that club. I beg to move.
3.10 p.m.
LORD WIGG: I am in some difficulty about this Amendment. On second Reading the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, very charmingly said:
"I am afraid that, whether the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, likes it or not, we do not see any reason to depart from the very well established principle that people who put the public to risk in the course of their commercial enterprises must bear the necessary cost of removing those risks."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20/11/73; col. 976]
Clearly, the noble Viscount meant that if there is a risk, it has to be put right. The question whether the club can find the money or not is neither here nor there. If they cannot find the money then the Government wash their hands of the matter, and the club simply goes out of existence.
The size of the problem is great. In the British Isles there are no fewer than 162 clubs which could be designated. Any one

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of them, or the lot, could be faced with an enormous bill, and if the club had no money it would be finished. In their suggested new clause after Clause 5 the noble and learned Lord who moved the Amendment and his noble friend Lord Garnsworthy have solved the problem. They have put forward their solution, which is that the Government should find the money. I think that the question of who finds the money goes right to the heart of the problem. Noble Lords on both sides of the Committee will agree with the Government that the public must not be put at risk, and if the public is put at risk, sooner or later we shall get another Ibrox. I believe that we shall have another Ibrox, because I do not think that the provisions of the Bill go far enough. I seek from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, or from my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy, an answer to the question whether, with this Amendment, it would be better to debate the principle laid down in the proposed new clause, because that clause refers to the question of where the money comes from. The Government have said, virtually in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stowe Hill, "Not a penny. Those who put the public at risk have to foot the bill whether they have the money or not." It seems to me that we should save a lot of time by discussing the two matters together. I am willing to go on and debate the new clause, but I do not want to be out of order in a House which has no real Rules of Order.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: May I remind the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that your Lordships' House has very real Rules of Order which it insists on enforcing upon itself from time to time. But I am entirely at the disposal of the Committee. If noble Lords would like to discuss the whole of the financial situation at this stage, I am happy to do so. If they would like to discuss it bit by bit as each Amendment comes up, I am happy to do so. I will take any combination which is offered. If noble Lords who have put down the Amendments would like to give an indication of their feeling in the matter I daresay that other Members of the Committee would be glad to listen to them. I think that this Amendment raises slightly different issues
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from others, but that need not in any way prevent the Committee from discussing them all together. I think that it is up to those noble Lords who are to move the Amendments.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. This Amendment raises a different issue from the Amendment which I intend to move later. I think there might be merit in keeping the principle of my Amendment to be dealt with by itself. I should be interested to hear what the noble Viscount has to say in reply to this Amendment. It could make quite a difference to the other matter.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I take that as an invitation from the Committee to deal with Amendment No. 1 by itself, and that we should come on to other equally weighty matters later. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, foreshadowed what his noble friend Lord Wigg said, in a way, by reading out the final sentence of paragraph 59 of Lord Wheatley's Report.
"Football is an international sport and if this were to happen—"
that is, if various grounds were closed down—
"it would be a tragedy."
The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, said that if we were to have a repetition of the Ibrox Park disaster it would be a tragedy. He is absolutely right. Every time one of these crowd disasters has happened (they have mostly been in connection with football matches, though there was one on an Underground station during the war) everyone has considered it a tragedy, and that it was up to someone to put it right. Therefore I think we must, with great sobriety, remember that we are endeavouring to safeguard the lives and limbs of spectators who go in large crowds to watch football matches; though the provisions in the Bill are capable of being applied also to other sports.
I suggest to the Committee that the way of approach in this Amendment is not really apt to meet the problem. Certainly it is not the right way to attack the financial side of it. I may also say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, did not read out that part of

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paragraph 59 which says that clubs receive allocations of money from their associations and leagues
"all of whom readily made available to me their most recent accounts to show what money they had and what was distributed to clubs."
I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, is aware that this money does exist and is distributed. The designation procedure and what is to follow from it is not really meant to work in quite the way that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, presented it to the Committee. We are, after all, as he said, doing this in phases, and in a flexible manner. As I told the House on Second Reading, designation will be done by reference to individual grounds. In the first place, it will be done to international stadia in the First and Second Divisions in England and Wales and in the First Division in Scotland; but it will be done by reference to individual grounds. I think that it is not at that stage, on choosing the grounds, that we ought to look at the financial implications. We have, as it were, the criteria already written into the Bill; that is, that there is to be no designation for a stadium where the accommodation is for fewer than 10,000 people. That is the figure which we put, as it were, at the floor level. That is not the stage of flexibility. It is equally true that designation, of itself, is not going to, is not intended to and will not, cause any club to close down.
The argument arises out of the second stage of the process. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, was adamant that we need a licensing system. I do not think that anyone can duck the clear implication, the clear recommendation, that emerges from his Report that we want a licensing system. He said that it ought to be phased, and it ought to apply to all these clubs. He did not in any sense suggest that a club should escape designation on financial grounds because it was not viable; because it could not put into effect some measures which might follow from that move. Instead, what he suggested, and what we have embodied in the Bill is a second phase whereby the local authority looks at the matter pragmatically and on the ground. That is where the flexibility comes in. That is where the financial capability of a club is relevant. It is not relevant
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from the point of view of the local authority directly, because the job of the local authority is to ensure (I am sure this is entirely within the spirit of the Bill and Lord Wheatley's Report, and is what everyone in the Committee would want) so far as it can that the physical condition of the stadium is such that the number of people who are let into the stadium on any given occasion will be safe there. That is the point of the whole exercise. The question that therefore arises is how many people will be safe? What is the maximum number of people who may safely be allowed to come into a ground in any given state of condition?
Financial viability therefore arises in this fashion: suppose that a club says, "We are broke; we are 'skint'; we cannot put up one further crash barrier; we cannot employ one further attendant; there is nothing whatever that we can afford to do to our stadium". The local authority will look at the stadium as it is then and say, "In that event, if that is what you say, we have to take your word for it and we have to take account of the fact that you are not going to spend a brass farthing on your stadium; in which case we would suggest that the maximum number of people that it is safe to let into the ground in this condition is x". I should have thought that this was a reasonable approach and one which would be acceptable to any decent and conscientious football club; because they must know that if they try to pack in people beyond what is thought to be the safety limit, they are putting people at risk. That is not the end of it because there is an appeal system. So I say that it is only in the first instance where the local authority may lay down their maximum.
What is much more likely to happen comes into a further series of exercises in flexibility. Take the case where the club say to the licensing authority, "For this year we can do only a very small amount, but we think that in the course of the next twelve months we can raise the finances to fix up this stand or that set of terracing. What we propose to do is this, that and the other, and at the end of that time we will come back to you and ask whether we may have our licence I amended so that we may have x thousand

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further people". This, of course, is perfectly admissible under the Bill and will be done with the greatest of ease and flexibility; and so on throughout the process of improvement of grounds.
What I think is more likely to be the truth than either of those propositions is the one that I put forward at Second Reading of the Bill. Rather than finding that we have large numbers of grounds which are grossly unsafe for the numbers of spectators who customarily pack themselves into them, I think we have to take account of the 25 years of voluntary exercise of a code of safety which was first initiated in 1948. Which are the clubs—and let them stand up and admit it—which have paid no regard whatever to the advice of their professional associations for 25 years? Which are the clubs which are still allowing crowds to pack in in circumstances of the greatest possible danger whereby they may be squashed to death or get themselves crushed? Let those clubs speak and say who they are who over 25 years have failed to spend one brass farthing in favour of the safety of their spectators. I do not think many will stand up and say that. It is much more likely that they will say, "Over the period of 25 years we have done a great deal in order to comply with the voluntary code laid down by the Football Association and the Football League; and our club and our ground will very happily stand up to scrutiny by the most rigid of local authorities waving their green book". I think that is what is going to happen in most cases. Maybe the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, thought that this was not universally so, but, as I said on Second Reading, the clubs which cannot say they have taken substantial steps forward in this field ought frankly to be ashamed of themselves. I do not believe there will be many who are found to be in that position.
In that case, the system that I have outlined whereby we designate and leave it for bargaining between the local authority and the club to say what, in the given condition of their ground, is the maximum number of people who can go in, is a thoroughly flexible one, and it can be altered as further improvements take place. I do not think it is right to lay upon my right honourable friend
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in the initial stage of designation a financial criterion which detracts completely from the whole principle underlying the thought and the recommendations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley. This does not say anything about where the money is to come from; I said that was a different point. In view of what I have said, I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, will appreciate that it is a different point. That is why I thought, and would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that it was worth discussing on its own. That is the attitude of the Government towards this matter. I feel it is a fair way of dealing with what is a matter of the safety of the public, without imposing a dreadful financial penalty on any football club.
3.25 p.m.
LORD WIGG: I must confess that I do not agree that it is a different point from the question of who provides the money. The noble Lord who has just spoken makes the case which would be all right if he were writing an essay on the subject. But let us leave the essays behind—the polished briefs from Whitehall—and let us have a look at the reality of the situation. Who are the clubs who will not stand up, or are ashamed to stand up, and say, "Our grounds are in difficult conditions"? They are in those parts of the country where a group of public-spirited men, men who may be, if you would like to describe them for some reason as vain, and find some great merit in describing themselves as directors of football clubs have struggled—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I did not say, "Let them stand up and say 'We are in difficulties'" I said, "Let them stand up and confess 'Our grounds are grossly unsafe for the spectators who come in'"
LORD WIGG: If I might be allowed, in my own poor way, to make my own speech as I want to make it—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Lord was quoting from me.
LORD WIGG: —I should be much obliged. If it would help the noble Viscount, I will put it in the form that he wants. Who are the directors who will stand up and say, "Our grounds are unsafe"? Well, were not the directors of

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Ibrox public-spirited men? Until that day when, in the closing minutes of a match at Ibrox, part of the crowd tried to turn back, that ground had been safe over the years. Many of the other grounds are safe until a special set of conditions arise. Such conditions may come and go; they may have come and gone on many first-class grounds, and nobody knows anything about it.
The truth is that football is a game that is played all over these islands and it is carried on in very difficult circumstances. I assert that not a dozen of the top clubs are financially viable, in the strict meaning of that word. They are carried on through the generosity of the directors, and they do the best they can. If the best they can is also combined with a little hope that nothing will go wrong, well, that is one of the frailties of human nature—until, of course, the dreadful day comes when their hopes are put to the test and it goes wrong.
I tried to argue this on Second Reading, and I tried to put it into practice during the five years I was chairman of the Horserace Betting Levy Board, and the twenty years I was actively associated with the administration of another sport. Football grounds are in the centres of urban areas, just as racecourses are in centres of areas easily reached by the population. It is quite selfish, unutterably selfish, and it is a shameful thing, that racecourses should be used for only 20 days of the year, and then the gates are locked, when round about there are thousands of youngsters who want to kick a ball and who have to kick it round in the streets. Racecourses should be used: they are public property. Of course they should be used for racing, but when they are not being used for racing they ought to be used by the community as a whole. Likewise with football grounds. It is a fact that these grounds, if they were sponsored—that is to say, if money were made available—could become the centres of social activities, not only in the training of footballers but in many other activities for every night in the week and over the weekends. That is what I want to see. For the Government, on the morrow of great disaster to set up an Inquiry, under the chairmanship by one noble and learned Lord, to produce a Report, and for that Report to be limited by the fact
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that when he went to the Treasury the Treasury said "No money", means just as night follows day, that you will have the kind of argument that we have had from the Front Bench to-day.
I am sceptical of the Government providing the money just like that out of the public purse; and I am very sceptical that it will produce the necessary results. Equally, I reject the concept that has been put forward by the noble Viscount that if here we are going to go through the process of designation, it will be limited in the first instance to the First and Second Division clubs. When it is found after examination by the local authority, or some responsible person, that a particular ground is perhaps not capable of safely holding 60,000, but that it can hold 40,000, it is condemned; the word goes round, and large parts of the terraces are shut off because they are not safe. The reason why they cannot be put right is because the gates are not big enough: and if the word goes round that the ground is unsafe, the gates will fall still further. What is already something that does not meet with approval will gradually go down hill and will meet with even less approval.
So we are really considering a Bill which is a stop-go. The Government decided from the very start that they were not going to provide a penny. Over the years they have done nothing. I go further and say that if Ibrox had not occurred they would not have done this much. We got the Wheatley Report only following upon Ibrox, and it is a stopgap before the next disaster. One of the reasons why I spoke on Second Reading, and why I intervene today, is that I am certain that we are going to get a disaster sooner or later on a racecourse, for the reasons which I have described, and because nobody is looking at the situation. This is the by-product of a laissez-faire society which only faces up to problems when it cannot escape from so doing; and when it is forced to face up to an unpleasant set of facts, what it does then is to provide a solution which does not cost much money and certainly does not add anything to the taxpayers' bill. So we grovel along.
Here is a great opportunity. I think that £20 million a year injected into British sport—and as to how it should be done is open to discussion—would

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revivify sport where it matters, for the participants, for the young; but, at the same time, it would give us football stadia, and in the great centres it might give us a few more swimming baths which are up to Olympic standards. At the moment we are not even tenth-rate in our provisions for sport. One can go to country after country, even underdeveloped countries, and see facilities that exist there for young people that are just dreams here. And we have a speech like the one we have just had from the Minister, who uses the word "shamefaced". I describe his speech as pitiful.
3.33 p.m.
LORD LYELL: I, too, spoke on the Second Reading of this Bill, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and I are very much in the same boat, in that we both spoke on possibly parallel lines. I do not think we are going to converge. I spoke about, and am still very keen on, the matter of crowd behaviour at sports grounds being such as to lead to risks. So far as I can understand, much of what the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, said has to do with finance, although he has brought in other points of importance. He has spoken about racecourses and given us a retailed survey of the risks at racecourses. But I would submit that these risks are not necessarily associated with crowd behaviour—not to mention the behaviour of spectators in aeroplanes and elsewhere. That is not quite what the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, or anybody else has in mind when dealing with this Bill. I think the noble Lord has got a little off the ground that we ought to be discussing when he advocates what I believe is open-handed generosity to football. He talked about 162 clubs. I do not quite know what he meant: whether he meant professional football clubs only, or athletic clubs—
LORD WIGG: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, I meant exactly what I said. There are in these Islands 162 clubs which have a capacity of 10,000 and upwards.
LORD LYELL: Would I be right in thinking that that includes stadia of the calibre of Wimbledon and Lords, and other athletic stadia the names of which do not spring immediately to mind?
LORD WIGG: I got the figures from the Football Association. There are 162 football clubs.
LORD LYELL: The Football Association, I understand, covers England, and does not cover Wales or Scotland. We are discussing professional football in the Football League of 92 clubs. The noble Lord spoke about 10 to 12 clubs. I have done a considerable amount of research into the finances of Football League clubs in England, and I have comparable figures for those in Scotland which are under the aegis of the Scottish Football League. I agree that there are about 12 to 14 clubs which either make profits or have the prospect of being profitable in the next three or four years. At the same time, I think everybody must agree with the Minister when, on the question of the public being put at risk, and where finance is a bar to improving safety and lessening the risk, he says that we cannot just expect openhanded finance. I think this question of risk is one which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, considered.
Further, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, pointed out that gates have gone down and are going down at professional football grounds all over Britain. I spoke on Second Reading of one club in the North. I have not yet had an opportunity of going to see the ground, but I read in the newspaper on the day following our Second Reading debate—and I have confirmed this briefly with the club's secretary—that there could be a financial outlay of £100,000 to make one particular section of their stadium safe—safe, that is, in the broadest sense of the Green Code. So far as I know, this club has not had any crowd trouble or any risk of trouble since the 1946 Bolton disaster. Yet if this Code is to be interpreted rigidly, this club is liable to have to spend £100,000. Somehow, I do not think the Code is going to be so rigidly interpreted. I think there will be ways and means of lessening risk, although one cannot entirely eliminate it. But if this club, which took £800.000 from gate receipts last year, is faced with the probability of having to spend £100,000, then clearly there is a corresponding risk that other clubs are going to be landed with the same sort of financial obligation. But, unfortunately,

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about 80, and possibly more, of the Football League clubs do not make a profit in the broadest sense of the word.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has also pointed out that football is involved with national prestige. Following the elimination of the English football team from the World Cup, the great cry was one of falling gates. I cannot see that the Government and the Treasury should provide open-handed generosity to a national sport which has declining gates. Also football is played by these 92 Football League clubs, once or perhaps twice a week in their stadia. Football, of course, does not consist just of those 92 clubs but of every game played all over the land. I believe it would be wrong to divert any Treasury finance from the possibility of improving facilities for the broad mass of players and participants to making stadia more safe and more attractive, when these stadia are, at best, filled to only One third or one half of their capacity. I believe that the Bill certainly has all the provisions in it to meet any sudden influx of spectators that may occur, at best, once or twice in a year.
LORD WIGG: I do not want to trouble the Committee much further. I am not optimistic enough to believe that my lines of thinking will converge on those of the noble Lord who has just spoken, but I should like to make it clear that I am not advocating open-handed generosity from the Treasury. In the case of racing, £34 million was put into the sport as a result of the Levy Bill, and that Bill came about because a group of noble Lords put pressure on the Government and forced them to set up the Peppiatt Committee, and that Committee recommended a levy. Later on in our discussions I will say more about the levy and how it worked, and why I think it should not now be repeated. There was no generosity on the part of the Treasury. What the noble Lord does not appreciate is that as a result of the Levy Bill the next stage was reached and the Government were enabled to put a tax on turnover—something which Mr. Churchill, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, had tried and failed to do. However, it was done and it has produced £88 million in the current year for the Exchequer.
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The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, was quite right when he replied to his noble friend Lord Westwood during Second Reading and told him that the Government had not taken £72 million out of football. That is correct. That amount of money has been taken out of the pockets of those who bet on football, which is a rather different thing. But the Government could never have got their £88 million of taxation from racing, nor could they have got the £72 million from football, but for the existence of both sports. Therefore the Government are doing very well indeed, thank you very much. The trouble comes about because there is a bifurcation in Government policy. It existed under the Labour Government and it is still there now. The Minister responsible for this Bill is concerned with the social aspects and with the safety of life and limb of those who attend football matches, but in the Treasury there are those who are concerned only about the money they take out of the sport and who have no responsibility for the social consequences. This leads to the impoverishment of our national life. I entirely agree with the Minister: I support him 100 per cent. when he says that steps should be taken to make it unlawful for people to be able to attend any sort of sports ground, be it cricket, football, tennis or tiddlywinks, if they are put at risk. I will explain later why I think it is unwise to seek to give this money and to raise it in the same way as the betting levy was raised.
I should also like to say this—and this is why I am taking up your Lordships' time. I believe, with absolute certainty, as a result of my experience, that if the Government pass this Bill and it becomes law and they do nothing else, then a great opportunity will have been missed, because it is possible by injecting money to help football—which incidentally would help the Revenue—and also to improve facilities for those who witness football. Nor is that all. I should like to return to the first stage—and here I repeat myself. When the noble Lord, Lord Butler, as the then Home Secretary, revised the betting laws in 1960, he did not do it because he was concerned about the wellbeing of racing. He was concerned with the social consequences that

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were spreading like a cancer all over these Islands because of illegal betting. He very largely got rid of illegal betting and enabled racing to be put on a firm basis, which eventually enabled it to produce large sums for the Revenue. I would say that in every aspect of sport—swimming, lacrosse, tennis, squash, cricket and the like—what we in these Islands need is to get away from this laissez-faire concept of society and say that the Government have a responsibility to all sections of society, and particularly to those sections who do the work and live in unpleasant surroundings, to provide them with the facilities which all modern States, except Britain, provide. That is all I wish to say at the moment. Perhaps it is too much to hope that our lines converge; perhaps they are not dented.
LORD LYELL: Not at all, I am afraid. The noble Lord has diversified a little and I believe we are getting rather too far away from this Amendment. The noble Lord mentioned the sum of £20 million, and certainly he is quite practical in suggesting that figure. But if he seriously thinks that once that starts flowing out of the Treasury it will be the final amount, I fear he is mistaken. I believe we can easily add on an extra nought, within years, for something which, as the noble Lord says, is a national sport. Nevertheless, it is £20 million from the Treasury. I should like to know: what it is going to? Is it going to professional football or is it going to every form of sport?
LORD WIGG: This is becoming a dialogue. I have said every aspect of sport. If a Bill were enacted that roughly followed the lines of the Bill which set up the Tote Board and a levy, it would give them power to borrow. If it is wisely administered, there could be a minimum of £20 million. Certainly it would probably rise, but you could not spend large amounts in the first four or five years. After all racing has had only £34 million over ten years, and it was left with a legacy of two centuries of neglect. That has been very largely put right, and I do not think it wants more than £7 million a year. £20 million a year to start with would make an enormous difference. It would give confidence, particularly if there were borrowing powers at the same time; because once you get into an area
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of expansion some of the difficulties would disappear. What I want the Government to do is to use the Ibrox disaster—
LORD LYELL: May I just interrupt the noble Lord? I think that is the tenth time this afternoon he has referred to "Eebrox". The name, as I understand it and as it is pronounced in Glasgow, is Ibrox".
LORD WIGG: I am a poor Sassenach, with three grand-daughters who are Scots, so I pronounce it as Mr. Churchill pronounced "Nazi"—in the way that comes naturally to me. I will leave it at that. I was trying to meet the points made by the noble Lord, and if he wants to correct me on pronunciation every time I mispronounce something, he has a hell of a job on!
3.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: May I say just one word about this? The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, began the first of his speeches on this Amendment by saying that we do not have any Rules of Order. I do not in any way wish to upset the Committee, but I think it was really agreed—and I believe it was suggested to the Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy—that what we were discussing was the first Amendment and not the general financial situation on, as it were, a Second Reading basis. I may be forgiven therefore, I hope, by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, if I do not answer any single point on what he has said, because with respect, not one of them has anything to do with the Amendment.
3.50 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: The Committee have listened to a most spirited and interesting exchange between the two noble Lords who have spoken from opposite sides. I am sure we have greatly enjoyed it and feel inspired by it. I apologise to the Committee if I come down to rather a pedestrian note, and I apologise for prolonging the debate, but I think it is desirable because the point affects a large number of people. What I do not understand, even after reading again the speech of the noble Viscount on Second Reading, how this dual system will work. One starts with designation of stadia which are constructed to accommodate more than

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10,000 spectators. That process is initiated by the Secretary of State. When he has designated a stadium, then, as the noble Viscount told us, there starts in effect a process of negotiation between the local authority and those responsible for the conduct of the stadium. A safety certificate is issued. It may be changed from time to time, and it probably would be changed as the situation and circumstances of the particular stadium altered.
The second part of process is clear; it is a useful exchange of view, a process of negotiation, in the case of each stadium, between the local authority and those responsible for the conduct of the stadium. It results in the issue of a safety certificate adapted to the circumstances of the particular stadium and subject to change perhaps, although not necessarily, from time to time as circumstances alter. That will be perfectly clear to all those many people who are involved in this practical question. What I had not understood was how the first part of the process worked.
When I listened to the noble Viscount on Second Reading I thought he was clearly intimating to us that the first part itself was a phased process; that it was not the Government's intention that there should be anything like a blanket designation of stadia which accommodated more than 10,000 spectators; that was not what was intended at all. But it was the intention of the Government that the Secretary of State should from time to time look at individual stadia and decide that it was proper to designate them with the intention of starting the process of negotiation between the local authority and those who conducted the business of the individual stadium.
I press the noble Viscount further only in order to have clarity as to how precisely the Government intend the process to work. I put down the Amendment because I thought it made it perfectly clear that the process was to be a phased one; the designation was to be related to particular stadia because of the circumstances of each particular stadium. As the question of finance, whether from public or private sources, was so very important a feature in the whole picture, I thought it would be right to require the Secretary of State to take into account the financial situation of those responsible for each particular stadium. That is why I included in the
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wording that my noble friends and I chose a reference to "the financial resources available".
The main purpose of the Amendment is to elicit from the noble Viscount a little more detailed statement as to how the first part of this process is to work. Am I right in thinking that the Secretary of State is to look at individual stadia up and down the country and, having regard to ail the circumstances, to decide whether he should or should not designate a particular stadium and, by so doing, start this process of negotiation with the local authority; or is something much more general in scope intended? Is it to be some process of designation which broadly affects all stadia which can accommodate more than 10,000 persons in the judgment of the Secretary of State? I think it is right to say that a great many people responsible for the conduct of stadia would like to know where they stand on the matter and would welcome elucidation on this slightly obscure point.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am extremely glad to respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill. This is a most important point and I should like to get it right. I wonder whether he has with him a copy of the Report by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley. If he has, and if he were to look at paragraphs 56 and 57, he would find that the policy of the Government is remarkably closely modelled on what the noble and learned Lord recommended. There are four categories of stadia set out in paragraph 56. What we propose to do in the first instance is deal with category No. 1. That is the first designation order that we propose to make under this Bill, unless among that list—and it would be dealt with ground by ground—there was one stadium which did not hold as many as 10,000 people. But I should be surprised if that were so among the clubs in the First and Second Divisions in England and the First Division in Scotland, or the international grounds as set out. If there was such a ground, there are no powers tinder the Bill to designate it, anyway.
The reason why I object to this Amendment is because I do not think that what it proposes is right. I go further, and I suggest that it is positively mischievious, to try to impose a financial criterion on

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the designation process. Supposing, for the sake of argument, one finds among this list of what are presumably the top pullers of football crowds a ground owned by a club in a rather poor state of financial viability, it would be wrong to fail to designate that club for that reason. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg—and here it was entirely relevant. We are very much in favour of looking after life and limb of people who watch football matches, and indeed other sports. If we were to exempt a club from designation because there was some financial disability in its way we should be frustrating the whole of the exercise. I hope that I have explained even more fully what we have in mind, and that is why, when I explained earlier the reason why I did not like this Amendment, particularly the financial aspect, I shifted the whole of the financial argument on to the second stage, which is the negotiation that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, set out with complete accuracy, will go on between the club and the local authority.
We want to designate the clubs in Lord Wheatley's category (a)—and they will all be listed—and start work on the application of the Green Book to them, and then issue the licences to see how this works. This is a new exercise; it has not been done anywhere else, and we must try it out. As we gain experience it will be possible to consider designating other football grounds; but Lord Wheatley's category 4 will never be designated under this Bill because grounds with a capacity of below 10,000 are, in any case, exempt. There are also powers—and we shall be talking about these later—to deal with matters other than stadia, pure and simple, as defined which have seating accommodation around the ground. That is the way the designation will work.
I hope that that clears up the doubts in the mind of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill. I hope it may also convince him that we have the financial considerations fitted into the right place in this process, in which case it may be that he will not wish to pursue this Amendment.
LORD STOW HILL: I am most indebted to the noble Viscount for his further statement which makes the position perfectly clear. The object of the
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Amendment was to invite the Minister to enlarge on what he had said before. In those circumstances if I may have the permission of the Committee I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.0 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD AIREDALE: There is one small point that I should like to raise on Clause 1. The clause refers to "members of the public", as also does the Long Title of the Bill. Does that mean "people"? The Minister himself called them "people", and if that is what we mean cannot the Bill use the word "people", and thus use one word instead of four?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I should think not because, speaking off the cuff (and if I have it wrong I will tell the noble Lord, Lord Airedale), what we are interested in is the arrangements for the safety of the people who come in, as it were, through the great wide gates and not people who come in, say, to the directors' box or the players' changing rooms or as trainers or as policemen or as sidesmen or something of that sort. I should have thought it is probably right to define the people whom we are trying to protect on the terraces and in the stands as "members of the public", in order not to confuse them with other people who come in, as it were, for professional purposes. If I am wrong about this I will tell the noble Lord.
LORD AIREDALE: Perhaps we could settle for "spectators".
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: I think probably "members of the public" is the best way of expressing it, because although the police may be there primarily to keep law and order—and so may other people—I suspect that they are also spectators and are rather enjoying it.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: Is there another stage of the Bill at which we can discuss this point, because I thought the remarks just made by the Minister must surely be totally out of keeping with modern feeling. The word "people" really covers everybody: policemen; Brian Clough; everybody. But what the Minister was doing was saying that there

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are some people who are superior to some other people—oh yes! I am sorry; but he was. The noble Lord just below me is wagging his head laterally, which presumably means that he thinks I am wrong, but I am not. I am right. The noble Viscount was saying that if they come as policemen, or as Brian Cough or Peter Taylor, they are rather superior types of fellows who cannot possibly be described as "people". I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Airedale: we must all be people. If he is willing to settle for "spectators", then so, reluctantly, am I. But we really must have them all described the same way. A policeman is "people". With great respect, one cannot really speak about "members of the public", although I would have accepted that term if the noble Viscount had not said that it did not include those who were in the directors' box or the policemen. Members of the public just means the "P.B.I." who stand on the terraces. With very great respect, even in this day and age, I do not think we can quite accept that. Therefore I ask the Minister whether, if there is another stage of the Bill to come, he will please go back and ask his " P.B.B." (by which I mean the poor so-an-so bureaucrats) to find a term which includes all of us.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: As I was accused of "wagging my head laterally" to indicate dissent from what the noble Lord said about the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Cuirass, may I explain that I was trying to indicate that I had not understood the noble Viscount to say that the people who were not members of the public were necessarily either superior or inferior; that a policeman, for example, is not necessarily either superior or inferior. That was my only purpose in wagging my head laterally.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, is quite right. Perhaps I may just say to the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, that, as in another place, we shall be having several stages of this Bill. There will be a Report stage and I shall be delighted to discuss this point if the noble Lord would like to table an Amendment. But if he were to look at the little green book (and I will see that he gets a copy, so that he may study it) he would see that the sort of code we are discussing, which is a safety code
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that we are trying to import into the grounds, is designed primarily to deal with the stands and the terracing where the members of the public (if I may continue to use that term) go. We are not speaking about precautions in the changing rooms of the players; we are not speaking about the precautions immediately around the touchline where the policemen go. I do not think we would normally take into account, in dealing with the code under this Bill, the people working in the bars or the restaurants, because they are covered under other statutory provisions already in force. Therefore we are dealing here with a code for the people who pay for their tickets and go through the turnstiles, and we are not seeking statutory regulations on the showers, in the tunnel leading out on to the pitch or on the staircase up which the policemen go, or something of that sort. Therefore it is a limited area of the ground with which we are trying to deal, and that is why in the Bill we use the term "members of the public" The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, is shaking his head, but perhaps he would like to study the book.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: I dealt with the point flippantly just now, but I will try to deal with it seriously. If you go on to a football ground—my natural one is Upton Park—the terraces, as the noble Viscount calls them (he obviously is not a regular attender) you find that the seats are behind the directors' box, and if anything goes wrong behind, then, happily enough, in the present state of West Ham, the directors will get the consequences—and in view of the way they are running the club at the moment I would not be against that. But if the noble Viscount had ever been on a football ground he would know that we are indeed all "people" now. I am not talking about the bar. I am not sure that I am not talking about the tunnel, because if it were to fall in—and if West Ham go on playing as badly as they are doing now there is just the chance of somebody falling in upon the tunnel, which is just between what the noble Viscount insists upon calling "members of the public" —then we shall indeed all be "people".
I do not need to see the little green book: I have already seen it. I am on to a serious point, even although I am expressing it flippantly, which seems to

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suit the mood at the moment. It is a serious point. On a football ground we are all "people". One cannot divide the areas of danger, meaning those who throw bottles, as at lbrox Park and the other place up there in Glasgow, and those who do not. We are indeed all "people". The risks are pretty fairly spread and the Bill must apply to everybody. If the term "people" will not do—though I should have thought it would—I will settle for "spectators". But whatever word is used it must apply over the whole ground; and if the noble Viscount will accept my invitation to come with me to West Ham he will see exactly what I mean. It is impossible to divide one set of people from another, so I beg the Government: please, between now and the next stage of the Bill, put in something which does not divide the sheep from the goats. The reason for the precautions applies equally right across the ground.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: They are all sheep, but some will be protected by this Bill and others by other legislation. We will certainly look at what the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, says, but I think the Bill is right. However, when he raises a point like this, it deserves to be looked at.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [General and special certificates]:
4.11 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 37, leave out ("likely to be").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2. Clause 2 deals with the issuing by the local authority of general and special safety certificates. The interpretation of "local authority" is dealt with in Clause 16. In Greater London the "local authority" will be the Greater London Council and in England, outside London, it will be the county council. In Scotland it is the regional or islands council. Clause 2(5) lays down:
"When a general safety certificate is in operation for a designated stadium in their area, the local authority, on the application of a person who satisfies them that lie is a qualified person, may issue a special safety certificate for the stadium to him."
I turn again to Clause 16 for the definition of a "qualified person". At the top of page 12 it says:
"'qualified person' has the meaning assigned to it by section 2(7) above;".
That is the subsection to which this Amendment refers, and it states:
"In this Act, 'qualified person', in relation to a safety certificate, means a person who is likely to be in a position to prevent contravention of its terms and conditions."
It seems to me that the use of the words "likely to be" introduce an area of uncertainty that ought, if possible, to be avoided, and one wonders, indeed, why they have been used. It seems to me that an applicant for a safety certificate should satisfy the local authority very positively and definitely that he will be "in a position to prevent contravention of its terms and conditions". The local authority is very limited, or so it seems to me, in its powers to cancel a certificate. I base that statement on the wording of Clause 5(7), which reads:
"The local authority may cancel a safety certificate if the holder dies or (being a body corporate) is dissolved, or if the holder appears to the local authority to have ceased to be a qualified person."
That seems to me to be the only power the local authority has to cancel the certificate. So there would seem to be need to avoid the use of the words which have been introduced, and which have themselves introduced a note of uncertainty where clarity is desirable. I beg to move.
LORD WIGG: The use of the words in the Bill, of course, is another proof that the Government are looking for an alibi. The first explanation given by the Minister in reply to my noble friend Lord Stow Hill is that in regard to paragraph 56 of the Wheatley Report the Government will seek sections 1A, 1B, 2, 3 but never section 4. Of course in the timetable it works something like this: the accident at Ibrox occurred in February, 1971, the Report came out in May, 1972, and we are now nearly at the end of 1973 before the Bill sees the light of day. If anything happens at the moment the Government can always say, "Well, we had to wait for the Wheatley Report; we had to consider the Wheatley Report, and we have a Bill, and we are proceeding stage by stage". They could appoint the village idiot to the job; and if it was found out that he was the village

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idiot, then the Government could always say, "Well, so far as we knew he had a conversation with an architect, and so far as we knew he was quite 'likely to be'". In other words, what this wording is intended to do is to provide the Government after Ibrox with an alibi against something happening, an alibi in order to satisfy public opinion.
The use of the words "likely to be" are quite indefensible in logic. Their only justification, if in fact, as I believe, this Bill is nothing more nor less than a dummy in the shop window, is as an alibi that a Minister can trot out if he is placed in a corner. But there is really no justification whatever. In a society like ours the Minister has a duty to designate, but he then shuffles it on to the local authority to negotiate, and the person who will take the decision is someone "likely to be" This country is strewn with professional organisations, any one of which could be asked to designate someone to do the job. There is not an area in the country where there exist football clubs covered by categories 1, 2 and 3 where some 70 professionally qualified people cannot be found to do the job. The use of the words "likely to be" is a move away. I congratulate my noble friends Lord Garnsworthy and Lord Stow Hill on putting down this Amendment. I very much hope that if the Government resist them, they will take it to a Division.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: I think we can read rather too much into these words. The main purport here really concerns a technical point in the initial stages of getting the Bill moving. Indeed, I believe the purport of these words is precisely the opposite of what the noble Lord was talking about, in so far as it is designed to enable the procedure to get going rather than to hold it back.
The point about "likely to be" is that in the initial stages there is no one who technically can be said to be immediately and obviously qualified "to be". The words in Clause 2 and Clause 10(2) are specifically included to meet the point. Before the certificate is issued and this becomes known, no person can be said with certainty to be "in a position to prevent contravention of these terms and conditions". The stage to which Clause 2 applies is the preliminary stage. The local authority has to decide under sub-
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section (4) whether the applicant is a qualified person so that they may proceed to consider his application. The certificate will not have been issued; the local authority will have to make a judgment as to the capacity of the applicant in the future to "prevent contravention of its terms and conditions". That is the real reason why the words are there.
LORD WIGG: If the noble Lord will telephone the Horserace Betting Levy Board at 405 5346, and ask for the Secretary, he will be given a list of half a dozen firms with many qualified people who, in regard to the essential category 1, can provide the answers about the safety from a crowd point of view of a particular stand or structure. In the initial stage you are not finding your way because nobody is about. Ours is a highly complex technical society. This is common knowledge. There are numerous people who specialise in this field. These are not cannibal islands; we are not hunting grouse in Scotland. We are in the midst of a technological system. Of course you can find the people if you want to.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: I do not think we are dealing here with a technological question, but with the managerial responsibility of the people we are seeking. I believe it would be a great mistake to take out these words. The Government feel quite strongly about this question.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I take note that the Government are not inclined to accept the Amendment. May I say I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Wigg for the contribution he has made in the consideration of this Amendment. I do not propose to press the matter to a Division this afternoon, but in asking leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment may I say we shall study very closely what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: When the noble Lord. Lord Garnsworthy, does that, would he also consider another point, because it would be convenient, I think, for him to have all these things together. We are talking here about the person who applies for the certificate. He is to be prima facie the man who runs

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the stadium, not of course, the architect, not the engineer, not the person responsible for the safety provisions, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, quite rightly said, are available everywhere. We are talking about the chap who runs the ground. When the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, looks at this point again, perhaps he would turn to Clause 10. He will see there that we are talking about offences. There are a number of offences, one of which is breaking the conditions of the certificate. It is not only the person who is the holder of the certificate who is liable to be prosecuted. If your Lordships look at the end of Clause 10(1), you will see that "any responsible person" can be prosecuted, and "any responsible person" is defined in Clause 10(2). So the mere fact that in the initial stages Mr. A goes along and says, "I am the qualified person to apply to the local authority for this certificate", and he is considered by the local authority to be likely to be in such a position, does not subsequently, if he is then given the certificate, confine any enforcement actions to prosecutions against him. If they should find out, after all, that he is not the person responsible for the running of the club or in control of the club, any other responsible person can also be prosecuted under the terms of Clause 10 and the enforcement provisions. I think the noble Lord may find some comfort in this. He will see that the local authorities are not in the position of having their hands tied, as they may be thought to be simply by looking at Clause 2.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for that intervention. He will not be surprised if I say on that particular point that it is a matter that we shall study closely; and he will not be surprised if I say that I shall need to take advice. He would not expect me to say anything other than that. Having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, we shall consider the matter and perhaps come back to it again at Report stage, and I think particularly that I should reserve the position in regard to what the noble Viscount has said. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Applications for safety certificates]:
4.23 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 3, line 4, after ("the") insert ("Sports Council and to the").
The noble Lord said: We all of us desire that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will achieve its objective; that is to say, that the safety of the public attending sporting events will be secured. Obviously it is essential, when an application for a safety certificate for a stadium is made, that the local authority, as provided in this clause, should consult with the chief officer of police, the building authority and the fire authority for the area in which the stadium is situated. The Bill is concerned not solely with stadia, but, as I think the noble Viscount made quite clear when we were discussing the first Amendment, with grounds also. At the moment we do not know its limitations or its full extent. We have the Wheatley Report to guide us, but I think we are all of us aware that it may go further and that there is a point at which it will fail to meet the situation. Twice on Second Reading, when I touched on the question of the scale of the Bill, when I used the words "would" and "will" in so far as application of the Bill was concerned, he intervened to say "could". The noble Viscount was quite emphatic about that. That left us in little doubt —it certainly left me in little doubt—that all sports could, even if not necessarily, come under the umbrella of the Bill.
I think few would doubt that crowd behaviour varies from sport to sport. For instance, crowd behaviour at Epsom on the racecourse is very different from the crowd behaviour at Wembley at a football match, and particularly, if I may say so, in the stands at Epsom or the stadium at Wembley. The point I wish to make it that since the standards of safety are not defined in the Bill but are to be governed by a code of practice, and since sporting events with very different patterns of crowd behaviour are involved, it is desirable that there should be consultation not only with the special parties I have mentioned but with those

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who can speak for the club or for the sport concerned, and it seems to me that it could be a minimum help, to avoid confusion and different standards throughout the country, if this Amendment were accepted. It ought also to reduce to a minimum any question of misinterpretation of the code.
It would seem to me that the Sports Council, which was established by Royal Charter in 1971, is the appropriate agency for consultation in this regard. The advantage that would follow is that there would be proper guidelines laid down, based on co-ordination at national level. Further, it would surely be advantageous if local authorities are required to consult with sporting interests or those who speak for them—in this case I am suggesting that it should be the Sports Council—before using their powers to close down or severely restrict the use of a major sports ground. The Amendment is designed to secure consultation with the Sports Council, and if incorporated in the Bill would, I know, give considerable satisfaction, with the added possibility of close co-operation from the Sports Council. I am quite sure that acceptance of the Amendment would give a very great deal of satisfaction. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think it might be helpful to the Committee if I were to intervene at this stage. What the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has said is in itself of great assistance, and it gives me an opportunity to say some things which I think really need to be said at the beginning of the Parliamentary passage of this Bill. The noble Lord has suggested' that we should amend Clause 3 to ensure that the Sports Council would be consulted about each application for a safety certificate for an individual stadium. I hope the noble Lord is able to follow this argument. It is fairly involved. What we are involved with, of course, is the detailed application of the agreed Green Book to football stadia. As the Bill stands at the moment, I think the noble Lord would probably agree that to consult the Sports Council about how many crush barriers there are and how wide the staircase should be, whether the telephones are adequately placed and whether the lighting is right on each individual ground that is licensed by a local authority, is
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to bring in the Sports Council at the wrong stage.
I think the noble Lord was saying—and in this I entirely agree with him—. that we ought to have two things. First of all, we ought to make certain that before any individual sport, and the grounds upon which it is played, are brought under the umbrella of the Bill, there has been the widest possible consultation to make certain that the way in which it is going to be done and administered is suitable for that sport, for the behaviour of the people who go and watch it, for the sort of grounds on which the sport takes place, and all the other peculiar features special to that sport. I entirely agree with that. I do not know whether the noble Lord remembers, but in my winding up speech on Second Reading I put in a little passage in which I promised that before anybody contemplated applying this sort of thing to horse-racing courses there would be consultations with those who know all about horseracing courses. Indeed, since then there has been correspondence with my noble friend Lord Ward of Willey who is interested in greyhound racing, and we promised him that before we applied any of these proposals to greyhound racing we would consult with people who know about that sport; and so it would be wherever application of the terms of this Bill was considered to any sport beyond football which is at the present moment in our minds. That is probably a more satisfactory way of dealing with it than to bring in the Sports Council as such.
What we wish to do is to make sure that, to take an entirely different sport like greyhound racing, the equivalent of the little green document that we have for safety standards as applied to football grounds is agreed between those who know about that sport and the local authorities, the fire authority, the police, and the other people who would be interested in licensing it. That is what happens with football, and that is what we want to happen again. We need to consult the specialists who run the particular sport before we produce another non-statutory document of this sort. I think that I am carrying the noble Lord with me so far.
The procedure would then be this. If the noble Lord will look at Clause 14 of the Bill he will see that one can

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extend the provisions of the Bill to other sports grounds. One can extend it not only to sports stadia but to other sports grounds as well, and that would include I know not what. If one looks at the definition of sports grounds in Clause 16 one sees that it is a fairly wide definition: it requires open air and some artificial structures, or natural structures modified, on which spectators can stand or sit and watch the sport. But when an order is made under Clause 14 extending the provisions of this Bill to another sort of sport, one can adapt all the provisions of the Bill in the application order. One can adapt the people who have to be consulted, say, in the initial stages, or indeed at the stage when one is applying for an actual certificate for a sports ground. One can adapt all the provisions of the Bill, and it is all subject to the Statutory Instrument procedure set out in Clause 14(2). What we have done is provide a system whereby the right people will be consulted at the earliest stage before we are even ready to extend the provisions of this Bill by Statutory Instruments to another sport, so that we have the equivalent of the little green book ready for that sport, agreed upon between the people concerned and ready for use by the local authority. I know that that is what the noble Lord wants.
The way that we think that his last point on consistency is going to be dealt with and enforced is twofold. First of all, we think—and I repeat this—that we ought to have an agreed code for each sport, like the green book for football, that lays down the guidelines that the noble Lord was talking about. We then think that we ought to have an appeal procedure, which we shall come to in a minute on an Amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, whereby there is a central appellate authority which will be finally responsible for seeing that appeals against conditions, refusals, and that sort of thing are handled in a standard way so that there are not divergencies between what happens in one local authority area and in another. Therefore, we have the two stages for consistency as well the initial consultation over the code, and the appeal system. With that armoury already in the Bill, the noble Lord may think that to bring in the Sports Council at the
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rather late stage of the application of the provisions of the green book to each individual stadium is to misuse the limited amount of resources that he has, and if he is going to be involved at all it is better to be involved much earlier in the process. Therefore it would not have to be put in under Clause 3 at all.
4.36 p.m.
LORD WIGG: If I heard the noble Viscount correctly, he said that if it is necessary to consult, for example, on greyhound racing, he would presumably consult the National Greyhound Association, or on racing the Racing Authority, and that you would not go to the Sports Council because you would not want to consult a non-statutory body. That is what I understood him to say. It seems to me that he misunderstands the functions of the Sports Council. The Sports Council is a governmental body borne on the Vote of the Secretary of State for the Environment. I do not know whether my noble friend realises it, but by putting the Amendment down here he was asking that one Government Department should consult another. The answer that the noble Viscount has given is utterly convincing if the Sports Council was what he appears to think it is, a body comparable to the Greyhound Association.
Personally, I should be opposed to the Sports Council being consulted for just that reason: because the Sports Council is borne on the Vote of the Secretary of State for the Environment and those who run it are civil servants. I was questioned about this matter on the radio—and I had better use the same words about the Sports Council—and I said that the Ministry of the Environment in relation to sport as a whole has about the same dynamic as a week-old rice pudding. They can do only what their Minister, or the Permanent Secretary will allow them to do. We know that that is a spent cartridge, if ever there was one. Nothing is going to come from that source. Why my noble friend should want to go to the Sports Council in any case is utterly and completely beyond me. Amazed as I am at that, I will resist it and vote against it. I am completely nonplussed by the answer of the Government, but perhaps it may be that the noble Viscount has got a little misled on his brief, as he was on Second Reading when he thought that the noble and

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learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, had said that the Government should not provide any money for the Bill.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for what he has said. I am sorry that I did not listen to my noble friend when he was speaking about this subject on the radio. Had I done so, I should have the better known his mind before coming into this Committee this afternoon. We have enjoyed his intervention and learned something from it. The Amendment has served a useful purpose because it seems to me that the noble Viscount has given a very full undertaking, although it would have been a good thing if we could have had something more specific in the Bill. We may need to look at it further, but in the light of his undertaking and what he has said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.39 p.m.
LORD JACQUES LORD JACQUES moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 3, line 13, at end insert—
("() The local authority in determining what terms and conditions ought to be included in a safety certificate shall have regard to such generally accepted international standards relating to safety as seem to them appropriate.")
The noble Lord said: The activities carried out in the stadia which will come under this Bill are international in character, in that the sports are sports which are carried out in several countries and in which, from time to time, there are international events when individuals or teams from more than one country meet at these stadia. Large crowds of spectators follow their team or their competitors, especially nowadays when people can travel very quickly by air. When one of our football teams plays a football team from the Continent, for example, there may be as many as 10,000 spectators from the Continent on the ground. It follows that in these circumstances any Government who have in mind the welfare of their citizens must be concerned not only with the conditions of the stadia in their own country but with the conditions of the stadia in other countries. In those circumstances we are very likely to have recognised international standards. The whole purpose of this Amendment is to ensure that if we have recognised
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international standards they will at least be recognised by us. I beg to move.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: I thank the noble Lord for moving this Amendment. Of course, we are not going to be so jingoistic as to say that we have nothing to learn from people playing the same game in other countries —indeed, I think the record shows rather the reverse—and there have of course been disasters in football stadia abroad. But the short answer is that, so far as we know, there are no international standards. We are also led to believe that in the majority of the stadia overseas most of the spectators are seated, whereas of course a particular feature of the British stadia is the terraces—indeed, this is where the particular problem arises. We have the advantage that in this way we get cheap accommodation for larger numbers of people, but it is precisely here that problem; seem to have arisen. I can go further and say that not only do we not know of any international standard, but there is not a British standard; and if there were a British standard it is likely that those responsible for it would be aware of the international standards, and would be more likely to be aware of the international standards than the ordinary local authority would. Moreover, international standards would probably be more concerned with new stadia, whereas this Bill is largely concerned with improvements to existing stadia.
I think I should end by saying—and we shall he repeating this several times this afternoon—that the whole essence of the Bill is to keep the position as flexible as we can. Having said that, perhaps I can underline it by saying that if the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, or any other noble Lord can make the Government aware of any international standard, or indeed any national standard which would be relevant to us, we shall be very glad to hear about it.
LORD JACQUES: Surely, if a sport becomes more international and more people travel from country to country to watch or take part in it, then the positions in the different countries will have a tendency to be standardised. It is true that sports grounds in the different countries vary, but it is also true that as the sports become more international these countries will learn from each other and there

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will be a greater similarity between the grounds; and when you get that similarity there will virtually be international standards. There is one final point. If there are no international standards at the moment, what harm can there be in having this provision in the Bill? If this provision is in the Bill and we eventually get international standards, then the provision will be here and we shall respect those international standards.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: On the noble Lord's last point, I think that I would really stand the argument on its head and say that this is already a fairly complicated piece of legislation and we need to feel our way; so the less complicated we can make the life of local authorities the better pleased we shall be. But I agree that ultimately we shall clearly have to come to international standards, and the green booklet can be amended at any time; but I think we should prefer for the time being to keep it as uncluttered as we can.
LORD JACQUES: I am not at all satisfied with that reply, but it is not worth dividing the Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Amendment, replacement, transfer, surrender and cancellation of safety certificates]:
4.46 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 4, line 31, at end insert ("or if a term or condition has been contravened.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is partly probing in character, but not entirely so. It is probing in the sense that it invites, or is designed to invite, Ministers to say why, in the scheme which they have embodied in this Bill, there is no provision for a safety certificate to be cancelled if its terms and conditions are not complied with. I am sure that that is a deliberate omission, and I should be grateful if I might hear from the Minister why they have made that omission. May I remind the Committee of the relevant clauses in
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the Bill? The only wording in the Bill which provides for the cancellation of a safety certificate is that which is contained in subsection (7) of Clause 5, and that is the wording which I seek to amend. The relevant part of the wording is:
"The local authority may cancel a safety certificate if the holder dies or (being a body corporate) is dissolved, or if the holder appears to the local authority to have ceased to be a qualified person".
One comment I would make on that at once is that a local authority may take the view that a holder certainly has not ceased to appear to be a qualified person; he is still a qualified person in every sense of the word because he looks likely to be able to secure compliance with the terms and conditions. But a qualified person may, for one reason or another, perhaps by way of protest or because of a view which he has formed that a local authority is being unreasonable, say. "Certainly I could secure compliance with this condition, but I choose not to because I think you are being unreasonable". If he takes that attitude, then under the wording in Clause 5 there would be no power, as I read it, to cancel the certificate, which seems to me to be rather ridiculous.
If one looks elsewhere in the Bill to see what power there is to bring a certificate to an end, one finds that there is literally no power—and I mean no power. One goes to Clauses 9 and 10. Under Clause 9(1), the public can be kept from a stadium which is:
"a designated stadium in respect of which a safety certificate has not been issued"—
that will not be applicable—or
"a sports stadium which is not a designated stadium".
Neither of those applies to a sports stadium which has been designated and in respect of which a safety certificate has been issued the terms of which have been breached. In Clause 10(1)(c) one finds that a person responsible for conducting a stadium commits an offence if he does not comply—I am using loose language—with a term or condition in a safety certificate. He may be convicted for failure to comply if he has not one of the defences set out in the later parts of Clause 10, and he can be fined quite substantially; but all the court can do under Clause 9(2) is to say that until the particular condition is complied with the public shall not be

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admitted; there is no power to cancel the certificate.
It seems to me that the whole scheme is in that sense a bit illogical, and I cannot understand why it does not include a simple provision, such as one would normally expect to find in legislation which enables certificates to be granted, empowering a local authority, at its discretion, to cancel the certificate if the terms and conditions contained in that certificate are not fulfilled. One would have thought that a logical and tidy pattern would require that, a certificate having been issued by a local authority, if those responsible do not comply with the terms and conditions contained in the certificate then the local authority should have the power, in its discretion, to cancel it. As I read this Bill there is nothing to that effect contained in it. The noble Viscount nodded his head when I suggested that it was omitted deliberately. I am sure that it is. It would not have been an accidental omission. But I should like to hear why it is that this particular provision, which I suggest ought to be incorporated in the Bill, has been omitted from it.
4.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I will tell the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, why, and I hope that he will be satisfied. May I just deal initially with the subsidiary point about the person who receives a certificate with the terms and conditions in it and who does not like one of them and thinks that it is absurd. I do not think the way to handle it is to set about ignoring that term and condition. A responsible club would appeal against it under the provisions of Clause 6. So we need not worry about someone who has received a certificate with what he considers to be unreasonable terms. He would be foolish not to take up his right of appeal but simply to choose to flout the terms of the certificate.
What is more likely is that there will turn out to be some dispute between a club and a local authority. One has to remember—this is why we have dealt with the matter rather carefully—that there can be, I suppose, no more awful a sanction for any club than to be closed down, for the purposes of playing football or anything else. This would be the ultimate and most dreadful fate that could befall any club. We thought, there-
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fore, that we would leave it to the courts rather than allow a local authority to do this; and certainly if the Bill were amended in the way suggested by the noble and learned Lord they could do it for the most paltry failure to comply with a term or condition of the licence —they could do it because someone has not put up the requisite exit sign or something like that. We thought it better that this should be a judicial matter rather than something which was done—if I say at the whim of a local authority, I am not suggesting that local authorities lightly have whims, but their proceedings are not normally in public or susceptible of argument on either side, as are proceedings in court.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, was right to look further on in the Bill to Clauses 9 and 10 to see where are the powers. He was right in picking out Clause 10(1)(c) and Clause 9(2). If a club fails to comply with the terms of the certificate—that is, a designated stadium—it could be prosecuted, either in the magistrates' court or on indictment in the Crown Court, or in the two Scottish equivalent courts or the High Court. In the latter case (and I suggest this is right, because this is so serious a sanction and should occur only when there is a serious prosecution on indictment) the court can use powers under Clause 9(2). It is true that the way it is phrased does not expressly allow the court to cancel the certificate. I am not ciuite sure why this is so; I am prepared to look at it again. I suggest it is because the local authority do no! appear before the court. It would be the local authority who issued the certificate and the draftsmen might have thought it would be better not actually to involve the local authority in the process. But I am perfectly prepared to look at this point again.
In fact, the powers of the court come to exactly the same thing. Those powers, under Clause 9(2), after a conviction on indictment are powers to prevent to order that no member of the public shall be admitted to the stadium or part of it for such a period as may be so specified, which, for all I know, may be for ever. Plainly, it would not be, but it could be for any period the court thought fit. It is therefore equivalent to cancelling the certificate. Indeed, it is worse, because it is a court order and I suppose that to

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ignore it would be punishable by contempt, or injunction, rather than merely by a subsequent prosecution for running a designated stadium without a certificate, which is what would happen if the certificate was cancelled. I think it arguable that by doing it this way the court is given even more extreme power, followed up by the ordinary powers of enforcement for people who do not obey the orders of the court. That could not be done if the local authority were to cancel the certificate on their own account. There is also the opportunity for a person threatened in this way to argue before the Crown Court whether or not it is right. I leave it to the noble and learned Lord, but I hope he is convinced that this is the right forum to consider so serious a thing; that we have the powers in the Bill to deal with it and indeed more powers under Clause 9(2) than if we had this Amendment. Moreover, there is an opportunity for people to argue the issue out before this terrible fate overtakes a club. That is the way we see it. If the noble and learned Lord does not think that is satisfactory, the drafting could be looked at again, but we think this a good way to handle what would be a severe penalty.
LORD STOW HILL: I am grateful to the noble Viscount, but I am sorry to have to tell him that I do not feel satisfied by his answer. He has said that he will consider the matter and, that being so, I propose in clue course to ask permission to withdraw the Amendment. But before doing so, may I leave with the noble Viscount one or two thoughts for when he reconsiders the matter? First, he says that the local authority might cancel a certificate for a trivial and unsatisfactory reason. Having had that in mind I have put down a further Amendment, No. 11, in page 5. line 6. The noble Viscount will see that in order to deal with that situation I seek to amend the Bill by providing that if there were a cancellation under the clause as amended by the Amendment for which I ask, there would be a right of appeal. So I think that disposes of his first point. Regarding the second point made by the noble Viscount, under Clause 9(2) the court has a power which is virtually commensurate with that which I am seeking to put in the Bill. Why on earth not give
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the court that power in terms? I should have thought the most ridiculous result might ensue if, there having been a conviction under Clause 10(1) of a number of people responsible within the meaning of that subsection and they, having refused to comply with the court order, were under Clause 9(2) sent to prison for contempt of court, as the noble Viscount envisages, nevertheless the licence still remained in being. That seems to me a wholly illogical and quite indefensible position.
One way to approach the problem, as I suggested a moment ago, would be to say that the court should not only be empowered to order that the public should not be admitted but also should be entitled to cancel a safety certificate. That would make the position a little more logical. I should have thought it preferable, before getting to the stage of criminal proceedings, to enable a local authority, if it thought there had been a breach which could not be overlooked, to cancel a certificate, and, as I seek to do in a subsequent Amendment, give persons aggrieved by the cancellation a similar right to appeal as is given by the Bill as it stands in the other circumstances outlined in relation to appeal. I prefer that as the more logical solution, but I submit that at least the court should, under Clause 9(2), be entitled to say not only that the public were not to be admitted but also that the certificate was to be cancelled.
VISCOUNT SIMON: Before the noble and learned Lord withdraws the Amendment, may I ask him a question for clarification? If the circumstances which he described had arisen, surely the situation would be that the holder of the certificate would have ceased to be a qualified person, because he was not succeeding in having the terms and conditions applied. That is the condition of a qualified person. So he would cease to be a qualified person, and the licence would be cancelled on those grounds.
LORD STOW HILL: I think that is one of the difficulties of the type of drafting that my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy referred to when he moved his Amendment. He will still remain a qualified person. He might be a person able to see that the condition was enforced but who chose not to do so. So he would remain a qualified person, but he would

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be guilty of a criminal offence just the same. I think that we are getting into the most illogical waters—waters cannot be illogical; perhaps I have been illogical in using that simile. But it is a very untidy position, and I hope the noble Viscount will think it out very carefully and try to tidy up this aspect of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
5.4 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 5 insert the following new clause:
(" . The Secretary of State may out of moneys to be provided by Parliament make available such sums whether by way of grant, loan or otherwise and on such terms as he thinks appropriate after consultation with the Sports Council to those responsible for the conduct and management of any designated sports stadium to enable them to comply with the terms and conditions contained in any safety certificate issued in relation to such sports stadium.")
The noble Lord said: I think this is probably the Amendment that a number of noble Lords are very anxious to discuss. I appreciate that my noble friend Lord Wigg wanted to cover this ground when we were dealing with the first Amendment. I think it will be useful if we can keep this issue as clear as we possible can. My Amendment is to insert after Clause 5 a new clause in the words set out on the Marshalled List. The new clause makes provision whereby help may be given to those responsible for the conduct and management of any designated sports stadium where it can be shown that they lack the resources and the ability to comply with terms and conditions contained in any safety certificate issued in relation to such sports stadium and for which they are solely responsible.
I want to make the point now, in view of what was said a little time ago, that there is no question here of an open hand. The intention is that there will be proven need on the basis of the club being able to show that they cannot carry the cost of what they are required to do. We had some discussion on that point at Second Reading, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, made
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it very clear that the Government's mind was not very open. But I should not like to think that it was completely closed. If it is, then many sporting activities will be in very serious trouble because the cost of implementing the provisions of this Bill will be beyond the means of the governing bodies concerned. I asked on Second Reading whether the Government had any idea as to what costs would be involved in implementing this Bill. We have been given no guidance. I think we all know that the cost is going to be very heavy indeed. The 10.000 limit means, as I understand it, that every Football League ground, all Rugby League grounds, many Rugby Union grounds, and all major sporting club users will be, or could be, at some time subject to and bound by the Bill. I understood the noble Lord to make that perfectly clear when he intervened at Second Reading and emphasised the word "could".
The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, stated at Second Reading, as he is reported at col. 952 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of November 20 last:
"Out of ninety-two professional Football League Clubs in England there are only eight, or perhaps ten, clubs which make a profit."
I do not recall anybody disputing that statement when it was made, and I do not believe that there has been any question as to the general accuracy of that statement since. I am very glad the noble Lord is here in his place this evening because we all know that not only is he knowledgeable but that he is an expert in this field with his very close association with football. If the statement is reasonably accurate, even if it is only approximately accurate, it must raise grave doubts as to the ability of the majority of clubs to find the money that would be needed to provide the required safety measures. I want to stress that this is not only Association Football. I think it is perhaps a pity that there are not more Members of your Lordships House keenly interested in Association Football. But I would stress that that could include Rugby, Rugby Union or any other sporting activity at all. So, although at the moment the main concern is with regard to Association Football, the day may well come when other sports are involved.
All of us want safety—there is no question about that. And I take it that all

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of us want the game to go on—although I confess that, in the light of what has been said, I sometimes have doubts whether there is very much enthusiasm on the Government Benches to help those clubs that are struggling with adversity. But if it is a fact that we all want the game to go on, I do not think that we can afford to be unmindful and unconcerned about where the money is coming from. It is not good enough to say that the club which has money problems should deal with the matter itself: not good enough to say that the club which is struggling should struggle a little harder, and struggle more successfully. A great many of them are already struggling to the utmost of their ability. Although they may not be in a financial sense successful, I do not think anybody can doubt that they are giving a tremendous amount of pleasure in the areas in which they are operating, even if they are not able to draw the very big crowds.
We have heard this afternoon about falling "gates". If we want sport to survive, and if want the kind of sporting activities that take place on Saturday afternoons to continue, and to be successful, we must be prepared to see that they have the means whereby they can do the things that Parliament tells them they must do. It is not enough to say that they have had opportunity since 1948, and that they have not done all that they might have done. We are dealing with the present time, and we are dealing with the future. Whatever the shortcomings of the past 25 years, I think it would be a good thing if we could all resolve that we are going to do what we can to ensure that this country maintains—to mention, for example, Association Football—the game here to the greatest possible credit not only of those who play it, but of the country as a whole. In these days nations compete at sport, and that is much better than nations competing at war.
This Amendment does not ask for a subsidy from the general body of ratepayers. There was some dispute at Second Reading as to the amount the Government receive from football by way of the betting levy. I do not want to talk this afternoon about the betting levy. I asked the noble Viscount at Second Reading whether information could be provided about the amount of
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money the Government get from V.A.T. paid by football clubs and other organisations that may be covered by this Bill. Maybe he will give us this information to-day.
I have made inquiries and I am told the Football League estimate that from V.A.T. the Government are collecting, by way of gate money and transfer fees, a sum in excess of £1 million. In view of the figures mentioned with regard to the betting levy, that may not seem to be a very large sum, but I want to ask this afternoon, having regard to the fact that the Government are getting this money by way of V.A.T. whether it is not reasonable that the Secretary of State should ask Parliament to make available some reasonable proportion of that total from which help, by way of grant or loan on such terms as he thinks appropriate, could be made available to those clubs and organisations which are able to prove inability otherwise to comply with the safety requirements, these grants or loans to be made after consultation with the Sports Council as is set out in the Amendment. When we ask that it should be the Sports Council, I do not think anybody can say that we are suggesting a body which has no responsibility to the Government.
LORD WIGG: If my noble friend is asking for the Sports Council he is saying that the Government should give it to the Government to spend.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am trying to make the point that if the Government are worried about the control of this money, if they are worried about doling money out to clubs, then in fact the Amendment is extraordinarily reasonable in the body it suggests should be responsible for dealing with the matter. Maybe the matter could be better dealt with by allocating money to the Sports Council to meet cases of obvious hardship and so avoid undesirable ground closure or restriction. I am suggesting they should have at their disposal a proportion of what is collected by way of V.A.T. and should be free to make grants or loans as they think fit on the basis of proven inability to meet the safety requirements that will follow this Bill.
My purpose is to help in the speedy achievement of what the Bill sets out

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to do. This Amendment is intended to secure provision of some means to help those who while wanting to co-operate with the aims of the Bill, lack the means. My Amendment may not be perfect in its wording, but it will provide the Committee with an opportunity of putting into the Bill what is now lacking. The Bill I think gives us almost all that we can ask in the way of saying what safety standards shall be and how they shall be accomplished, except that it does not take into consideration that those who will be called upon to achieve those safety standards while not lacking the will may lack the money to do it. It may be suggested that instead of paying a transfer fee of, say, £150,000 to acquire a player they would do well to spend the money on the safety of the ground. I know of one club that has spent a tremendous amount of money, something approaching £800,000, on doing this very thing; but the clubs cannot, because they have better grounds, attract bigger gates, It is not the ground that attracts the gate, it is the quality and standard of the players; and it would seem to me that the most important thing for the clubs to do is to attract larger crowds. The only way to do that is by providing a better team and thus building up the gate money and, as they build up the gate money, the Government will get more by way of V.A.T. I suggest that the Amendment is so modest that the Government would do well to give it serious consideration. If not, let me say at the outset that I think it is a matter that the Committee itself ought to determine at this stage. I beg to move.
LORD WESTWOOD: May I remind the House that on the Second Reading of this Bill I declared my interest by informing your Lordships that I was the chairman of a well known First Division English football club. May I hasten to add that it is an unpaid appointment as no director of an English Football League club is allowed to accept any directors' fees whatsoever—which may seem strange when you listen to my accent. However, I trust that this Amendment will be given very serious consideration by the Minister. On the Second Reading debate I stressed the quite farcical situation between the huge sums of money which the Government receive by way of the betting tax on the foot-
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ball pools and the financial position of most of the football clubs in this country. It is so very serious that there is a grave danger of some of the clubs having to close down.
It is strange that this Bill should have emanated from the Home Office—this may be information to some of your Lordships who are not in a privileged position, as I am, though my use of the word "privilege" may not be correct—as the Home Office are responsible for the payment of the police. To give your Lordships one example of the way in which club costs have escalated recently: police charges have increased so much that the cost of supplying police at my club's ground in Newcastle is frequently more than the cost of the team, and very much more should there be a mid-week match in addition to the game on Saturday. This is just one aspect of the problems which Football League clubs are facing. To make matters worse, attendances have been falling rapidly, with a consequential loss of revenue. It may be interesting to note that on Saturday, November 24—that was before the snow arrived—the attendance at a First Division Scottish League club match was 1,890 people, and yet the Government say that that club should find the money to make all these improvements to their ground.
It should be borne in mind that the fixtures used by the football pools are the copyright of the Football League. Without them there would be no football pools and the Government would lose a very large amount of betting tax which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, estimated on Second Reading at about £72 million a year. What does football get from the Government by way of help?—nothing. With the advent of V.A.T. the position is a lot worse. My own club, we estimate, will be paying over £40,000 of V.A.T. this season, and we have very little to put against that as a set off. An estimate from the Football League clubs on V.A.T. this season is well over £1 million. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect the Government to return some of that money, maybe indirectly as a betting tax from the pools promoters.
Should the Government repent and agree to help football, I can assure your Lordships that the money will not he wasted or squandered on permitting clubs

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to spend it on large transfer fees. As the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said, it could be handled by the Sports Council and could be spent on improving facilities, improving the ground and the seating and, most important of all, safeguarding the public.
The Horserace Betting Levy Board has proved a saviour to the Sport of Kings. Horseracing is the only sport that I know which benefits from Government subsidies. In nearly all countries, and especially in the Common Market, football pools are run by the Government, who plough back the money into the game. Football is an industry, and no one can deny it. Surely, then, an industry which is vitally important to the country's morale and economy must not be allowed to die.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: Perhaps my noble friend would allow me to interrupt. Can he say in what way horseracing is subsidised or helped financially by the Government?
LORD WESTWOOD: So far as I am aware—and the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, may be able to answer better than I can, because I never go to horserace meetings—new stands have been supplied by money from the Levy Board.
LORD WIGG: It is a question of terminology. The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, is referring to the levy. It is not a subsidy. It is actually raised under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. The noble Lord who intervened is also technically right. It is only a question of terminology. What the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, describes as a subsidy is the levy.
LORD WESTWOOD: I am obliged to the noble Lord.
There is one point that I should like to put to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, which was raised on Second Reading: the money that goes from the betting tax into public funds cannot be taken out and used. We all remember the uproar year after year about the income from the Road Fund Tax. The motorists say, "All that money that we pay for the discs on our windscreens should be used to provide new roads." But the answer is that it goes into the
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public fund and can be used for other purposes. That may be. But, as I understand it, all the money that goes into parking meters is used to provide off-street parking, it does not go into the public fund. Recently the Government have agreed to a charge for admission into museums, and the museums are to be allowed to keep the money. That is not going into the public fund. I should be grateful if the noble Viscount could answer some of these points, and I hope that he will be able to accept the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy.
LORD STOW HILL: Perhaps I might rise on what is, in effect, a point of order to ask the permission of the Committee to make, quite shortly, on this Amendment the case in favour of the next one. My reason for asking permission so to do is that the next suggested new clause really seeks in another way to achieve the objective of the two noble Lords who have spoken on the present new clause. We have listened to two most powerful speeches making the general case, and the next new clause provides simply that if the general case is accepted, one way of meeting the position would be to give the capital allowances provided for under the Capital Allowances Act 1968 in the case of industrial buildings to works carried out in a stadium in order to comply with the requirements of a safety certificate. If I may have the permission of the Committee shortly to make the case for this alternative approach, perhaps I may explain how the second new clause would work.
The Capital Allowances Act 1968, which was in a sense a consolidating measure (I say this with humility in the presence of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer who has just joined us), provided, as your Lordships will know, for initial allowances and other capital allowances for industrial buildings and structures. The new clause which I speak to seeks to add in Section 7 of the 1968 Act to the definition of "industrial buildings or structures", works carried out and appliances provided so as to become part of a stadium which has been designated, which works or appliances are provided in order to comply with the requirements of a safety certificate. If it can be shown by those who manage the stadium that what they have done was done because the

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stadium was designated, and because those new works were required by provisions of the safety certificate, then the cost of providing those new works will, under the new clause I am discussing, qualify for the capital allowances provided for in Part I of the Capital Allowances Act 1968; namely, the initial allowance.
That is the case that I would make in support of the second new clause, but of course it depends entirely on the question of whether the Committee accept the general argument which has been advanced by the two noble Lords who preceded me.
LORD WIGG: The words which were not mentioned by my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy but which seem to me to be of fundamental importance in the new clause are:
"The Secretary of State may out of monies provided by Parliament…"
That of course will have to be accepted in another place, and it will depend upon a Money Resolution. As I see it, it goes right to the heart of the problem that we are discussing. The Government's position, as I understand it, was made clear in the words that I read out earlier, used by the noble Viscount. Lord Colville of Culross:
"I am afraid whether the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, likes it or not, we do not see any reason to depart from the principle that those in this position have got to pay the bill."
That of course is straight, pure, unadulterated laissez faire, which until a few months ago was the current philosophy of the Conservative Party. Whenever things are going well, that is their approach. It is the negative approach to the function of Government. But under pressure they depart from it.
As I have indicated earlier, there was an occcasion when they departed from it. A number of noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber made it clear, through the usual channels, when Mr. Butler (as he then was: now Lord Butler of Saffron Walden) was Home Secretary that they were not going to let him have his legislation unless he produced the money for horseracing. This is the genius of our race. When we are pushed into a corner we can do the most dirty things under the most pious resolutions and then walk around in a white sheet as if we had been doing good all the time. They appointed a Committee under Sir Leslie
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Peppiatt—and racing will never realise what it owes to the noble Lord, Lord Craythorne, who was a member of the Committee and who managed to twist the arms of all the other members, including the Chairman, to recommend a levy. I trust that I helped him a little. I gave evidence, and I should like to believe that it was not perjured. I said what I thought, which was that racing ought to have a levy.
But what happened? When it came before the other place there was one Member who opposed it in principle and I believe he was right. It was Mr. Enoch Powell. Mr. Enoch Powell was my neighbour. I do not talk to him; I do not see him; and I am far too lowly these days for his shots to do anything but pass over my head. His case was this. He said:" " This is taxation. It is wrong in principle to take taxation and hand it over to private individuals without some measure of control. If in fact you want to help racing, do it—but do it from the Consolidated Fund. Don't do it the way you are going to do it, because it is (I do not know whether he used the word) "hypothecation". This is something that from the 18th century onwards the Treasury have set their faces against—and I think rightly.
I should not like noble Lords to think that I have changed my views about the value of the levy for horseracing. That was invaluable, and what racing would have been like had it not been for the levy it received I do not know. But that is the exception that makes the rule. It was something which worked in relation to racing; but it brought something in its train, and for five years I was the victim of it. I had been in my job as Chairman of the Levy Board for only a short time before I was arraigned before the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club and told in no uncertain terms that it was my job to raise the levy. The question of raising it was a job for me, as a pleb, the ex-lance-corporal; but for him, the aristocrat, was the pleasure of spending it. I told him, in language which would be understood in the barrack room—perhaps I can best translate it as, "Go and get stuffed!"—that I was not having anything to do with that. I told him that there was an Act of Parliament and that Section 25 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act requires that the money

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to be raised by a levy—the "subsidy" mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Westwood—should be spent only on one of three purposes, under schemes approved by the Secretary of State.
Noble Lords should know what happened. When I became Chairman of the Board, what did I find?—that from 1961 to 1967 that Act had been almost completely ignored. The Levy Board was ultra vires in almost every action it took. They had not sought the authority of the Secretary of State, and my battle with the Jockey Club, and also that of my predecessor, consisted of saying that this was public money which was being taken from one set of public pockets and put into another; and, further, that the job of the Board was to carry out functions laid down by Parliament. Let me say here, in the presence of two members of the Board of which I was Chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmany, that they did more than could have been reasonably expected of them to support me in a difficult task. But it took me until 1970 to carry out researches to submit the scheme to the Secretary of State and get his signature—and only when his signature was obtained was it lawful. What worried our 18th century ancestors, and what caused the trouble in the 17th century, was that there must be no taxation without redress of grievance; no taxation without representation. If any one man or group of men can get their hands into the public purse, they may start out with the noblest of intentions. It may be that they want to help racing or football, but at the end of the day, whom do they help?—themselves.
I hold the view that the Government will not wear a levy at any price. I have given all the advice I could to the Football Association, and I recall on numerous occasions talking about this matter with my dear friend Ellis Smith, who was the late Member for the constituency where I lived. We, and other friends, often discussed how there could be a levy for football. There can be no levy for football. It is my belief that the Government can no longer raise a levy for activities as they did for racing, because if they did so they would be ultra vires the Treaty of Rome. Whether or not we like it, what the noble Viscount,
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Lord Colville, means is that there will be no help from Government funds and no levy, so that in those circumstances not only football but sport as a whole will be left in a parlous state.
I do not believe there is any Member of your Lordships' House who would not agree that a great deal of money could be usefully spent on activities which would be to the benefit of the young, would cut down hooliganism and would help to make their lives more worth while. That means more money. How can it come about? The figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, are correct —and I must say, with all modesty, that they are not my estimates. I try to do my homework, and those figures were contained in a Customs and Excise report. The estimated current revenue from football pool betting is £72 million. The increase in pool betting is quite staggering. I believe that the noble Viscount is quite right, and perhaps I might take the liberty of putting his thoughts into my language. He thinks that the Football League and the Football Association are "a crowd of wets", and so do I. I think that they should talk to each other one February 29 and agree that they have a common interest and that they will go along to see the football pool promoters and say to them: "Look, chums, the Government and the Home Office have put a limit on bingo (because you can only win so much at bingo) but there is no limit on the prizes to be won on football pools." That is because the football pools' promoters are among the heaviest subscribers to the funds of the Conservative Party. Noble Lords can search the record and they will search it in vain to find any example as staggering as Mr. Maudling's Budget in 1963 when, by a stroke of the pen, he put paid to fixed odds coupons in the interests of football pools promoters. Therefore the Football Association and the Football League should go together to these gentlemen and say: "Four of your major prizes out of a whole season equals the total sum that you give us, and it is our copyright that you are using. Don't start talking about £2 million. We want £20 million this year as a start."
The way to get it is this: the maximum to any pools winner should be £250,000,

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and the balance should go to help football. That is the way it can be done. If that is not done, then the noble Viscount and those who speak like him can say, "You are a crowd of wets" and he has the right answer, because the Gods help those who help themselves. "You go along and screw their arms first of all". Over the heads of noble Lords, this Bill will be debated in another place. It is said that the Labour Party are looking for policies, although some say they have too many. Well, here is one: start producing a policy of helping our fellow-countrymen to cope with what well may be a consequence of the Government's economic policy—too much leisure time. They must produce a policy for the use of football grounds, greyhound stadia, cricket grounds and racecourses which would enable those places to be used all the year round, every day, for the community at large. They should become centres of community life. That will require a great sum of money to be put into it.
The Arts have now been taken up by the aristocracy and the upper middle-class. There was a time when I used to think of culture as something far removed, before I read T. S. Eliot, but now I know that it is something to do with the way you eat fish and chips, whether you live in Land's End or John o'Groats. If a culture has its roots in the ground we should further it with public support. We subsidise opera, and I do not dissent from that. I spent a large part of my life trying to further adult education. If we can spend £50 million on the Arts Council, at least we ought to consider spending a comparable amount on a Sports Council. If I may quote the late Mr. Augustine Birrell to my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy:
"his bleeding heart ran away with his bloody head".
The Sports Council will not do the trick; the Sports Council is part of the Ministry of the Environment. You must not have a Government agency to do this job. I am by no means sure how it should be done, but it should not be done by direct Government agencies. Those of us interested in racing do not want the Home Secretary to sit down one morning and decide whether the two-year-olds should run over five furlongs or six. That would be terrible. We want to leave sports to
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run themselves. Probably again the genius of our race could find an answer through the University Grants Committee, or something like the Arts Council, in which the money goes from the Treasury and is buffered through the Arts Council or University Grants Committee and goes out to sport.
Basically of course there must be a fidelity check; the money must be spent properly and honestly. The people who should decide what is best for football are not people like me but people like the noble Lord, Lord Westwood. There might have been a time, before I suffered from senile decay, when I might have been consulted about what is best for racing, but that is no longer so. Those who are concerned with running football, racing, lacrosse, table tennis, and all the activities which young and old are longing to take part in, should decide these things. In the modern nation state, every country, not only the Eastern bloc but our partners in the Common Market too, if I can call them that—our so-called partners, anyway—are putting their shoulders to the wheel. That does not mean asking the Duke of Edinburgh or Princess Anne to open some great occasion; it means Government, and only Governments can do this. Governments do do it: they did it with racing, when they were forced to do it, and in the same way the pools promoters will do it when the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, lines up with his friends and forces them to pay in order to use their copyright. The Government ought to have the vision to see at the latter part of the 20th century what as a nation we need. We do not want to wake up again, as we did in 1914, and find we are a C.3 nation because our young people have only streets in which to kick a football. Now the facilities ought to be provided; and they can be provided. What is wanted is not only imagination and good will, but resources.
The reason I make this speech is because I believe the levy worked for racing, and the levy for racing should be allowed to continue. It does its job in special circumstances. On the fundamental issue, I believe that Mr. Enoch Powell was right. I must in conclusion say this as a safeguard: I have not joined Mr. Powell's Party. I believe Mr. Powell has the great capacity to think clearly;

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he can diagnose. I am not always sure that his remedy, his prescription, is as good as his diagnosis; but his diagnosis was right and justified in my experience. To-day it would be unreasonable to expect that the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, could do any more than make the same noises that he has already made and say, "Whether you like it or not you are not going to get any money". Thank goodness this Bill will go to another place! In another place the Labour Party, and I believe a considerable number of Members on the Conservative Benches, will see the merits of this argument and will force the current Government, or, if not the current one, the next one, to do what I have pleaded for to-day.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: The noble Lord said, "You cannot have taxation without representation." I should like to point out to the noble Lord that in this House that is just what we do have. We have taxation without representation; we have no vote. We can advise but we cannot control fiscal matters, so it cannot be so dastardly a thing as the noble Lord thinks to have taxation without representation.
LORD WIGG: The reason noble Lords do not have a vote is because when they had it they abused it; hence the Parliament Act of 1911. It is written in the Scriptures:
"The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children."
The noble Viscount, and his successors, have a big bill to pay.
5.46 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I never cease to be amazed at the astonishing range of subject matter that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is capable of covering in his speeches. He has ranged over three centuries and over more topics than I could begin to count. I hope he will forgive me if I do not try to pick up each and every point. I agree with him that I have no indication whatsoever from my right honourable friends that the Government would like to have another Levy Board scheme. But equally I have to tell him that I have never heard even the most ingenious person who is keen on this subject say that the reason
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for it is something to do with the Common Market. I am therefore obliged for yet another astonishing piece of information which no doubt—
LORD WIGG: If the noble Viscount—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: —could be expanded, but perhaps not on this occasion. This is not the time to go into the full details; we might save that for a broader debate.
I hope I can also prevent the Committee from using its ingenuity to get involved in some very dirty work this afternoon in agreeing to accept either of these Amendments. I do not take the point that financial privilege is involved in this. We must discuss this subject and I am not going to try to take the Money Resolution point, though obviously we have money which is being paid out and strictly it is something which probably we ought not to be talking about. But the Bill starts in this House and we must deal with it as it comes. Let us get on with the merits of it. I am not absolutely certain that I know what the Labour Government or another place would do if they were to follow the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, but I think I know because I believe I can put together what the noble Lord said today and what he said on Second Reading. I believe the noble Lord is very much in line with Government thinking, save probably that he does not think the sum large enough.
What we are asked to do here is to provide the money from public funds for those who have to make the necessary arrangements to comply with certificates for the safety of their grounds. I am afraid there is no chink in the door here so far as the Government are concerned. We consider this is a matter of principle; indeed, a matter of a large number of principles. I will try, as quickly as I can, to spell them out. I cannot tell the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, what the cost of compliance with this Bill would be, for two reasons. First of all, it would depend on the way the code was interpreted; but, much more important, if one is dealing with a club where the gate (and this is my noble friend Lord Westwood's figure and I hope I have it correctly) is 890 people for a football match, I cannot believe that a club which regularly had a gate of that sort would

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have to spend one single solitary penny on any safety certificates, because I think the spectators could stand five yards apart and never get into any possible danger at all. It would be an extreme case and is obviously a most undesirable situation to have arisen.
I made the point earlier that there is no requirement on any club to bring up its premises immediately to a standard whereby the maximum number of people which could be physically fitted in could be so fitted in, in compliance with a safety certificate. They could accept a much lower number or a marginally lower number, or anything they thought fit. Therefore it is impossible to give any estimate of cost, because one does not know what bargain the clubs will wish to strike with the local authorities when the certificates are being discussed with them. It does not by any means follow that any clubs would have to pay at all, not only for the reason that they have no gates but also, as I said before, because I believe a substantial number of them will already have done the necessary work, since they will do what the governing bodies of football have been adjuring them to do for a long time.
We are really in a situation where some of the arguments, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has said, have been getting very near hypothecation of taxes. I do not know for how long this has been anathema. I know that Sir Winston Churchill got into awful trouble about road tax. I do not think anybody has continued to argue in recent times that this hypothecation of road tax or anything else should be adopted. Indeed I think all Treasury Ministers have objected to it, and I would suggest to my noble friend Lord Westwood that the museum charges and parking meters are not a good analogy because they are charges and they go to the authorities who provide the service and collect the charges. They are not therefore in the same form a tax on the public such as we are talking about in this case—but they would be if we were talking about taking money out of the betting levy.
The fundamental principle underlying the Government's attitude is that we have never provided public money whereby commercial undertakings of any sort can comply with this kind of safety require-
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ment. There is no example where that has been done. It has always been held by Governments of most complexions that if somebody wishes to run a commercial show or a fair or business and invite people to enter, whether to an hotel, to a football ground, to a funfair or anything of that sort, public money is not provided in order that they can fulfil safety requirements so that the people they invite in do not get hurt. That is an absolutely fundamental principle and I do not know of any exception to it; and I am afraid that there is no room in this case for the Government to consider making an exception.
It is not altogether true that the clubs are going to be "done down". There are advantages. Some of these matters can be set off against tax.
LORD JACQUES: Only if there is a profit.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I entirely appreciate that it is only if there is a profit; and that, I imagine, is entirely dependent upon the situation of the club in any given year and also upon how the books are made out. I am not an accountant and I do not know enough about this, but I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. I set out on Second Reading, at column 978, the matters which qualify for tax purposes. They include fire-fighting equipment, flood-lighting, removable seating, communications equipment and facilities of that nature, and the replacement of existing equipment such as crush barriers.
There is also no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has put a very much more frank version than I hinted at during our Second Reading debate, about our suspicions as to the contractual arrangements between the League and the pools promoters. As I have said, it is not for us to interfere in what is in fact a contractual arrangement, but I am surprised at the disparity in the figures and I should not have thought it was entirely beyond the wit of the football authorities to do something about that. I believe they have, to some extent, recently negotiated an increase and I should have thought there was room for them to make some inroads into their financial difficulties, such as to distribute to the clubs which need it most the money which is acquired in this way, rather than what was suggested by my

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noble friend Lord Westwood, which was an equal distribution among all clubs. I do not understand the logic behind that suggestion, and it may be that this matter ought to be looked at again; but on this, as I have said, it is not for the Government to interfere because we accept the principle.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, mentioned the matter in the next Amendment, No. 7. I am glad he did because I am sure it is right that we should discuss these Amendments together. It is one of the ways in which the money could be raised. But here again, we are up against something which I am afraid is objected to very strongly in principle, because the capital allowances scheme—the initial allowances—has always been limited to industrial buildings. It has never been extended to commercial undertakings—to shops, hotels and offices. This again has been a matter of principle which has for a long time been adhered to by Chancellors of the Exchequer of every colour. It is a pity that my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft is not here at the moment. For instance, the matter was discussed in another place in connection with the Finance Bill of 1972, and my right honourable friend the Financial Secretary said that the extension to commerce would mean that the sum involved would rise to a figure of between £250 million and £300 million a year over and above what is expended on these capital allowances now. Successive Governments have always reached the same conclusion, that it is simply too much. If we do it for football grounds I should have thought that the logic of the division between commerce and industry which has always been held so far was hopelessly breached and there would be endless applications from everybody for exactly the same allowance. At any rate that is the reason why the Treasury firmly draw the line where they do at the moment. They have been perfectly frank about it; it is simply far too expensive.
I had better try to answer the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, about V.A.T. The answer is that I do not know because we have not yet had a full year. I am sorry, but since we have not got the complete figures I cannot say, whether on the
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basis of football or any other sport, what the income would be. I cannot confirm or deny the figure of £1 million that has been mentioned.
What is one supposed to do about this? I do not think we can discuss at great length today what should be the general attitude of the Government towards sport and the financial assistance given from public funds to sport, but noble Lords may remember that I mentioned the subject during the Second Reading debate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, but there is one little point which the noble Lord may say is a technicality and does not matter, but actually the Sports Council is not a department of the Department of the Environment. Its staff are not civil servants. It is in fact an independent body set up under a Royal Charter. It may be that the noble Lord does not think that fact particularly important. At any rate, what it does is to distribute the money.
In fact there is more than one Sports Council; there are three Sports Councils, and they distribute the money which is given to them by Government. But they do not do it by way of distributing public money to enable professional sport to take place. They do not do it by making grants to football or professional cricket clubs, or anything like that. What they are doing at the moment is trying to encourage not spectator sport but participant sport, and I think that is possibly a more attractive and more worthwhile way of preventing boys having to kick a ball about in the street, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg. Public money is actually being given to spectator sports. What they are doing at two football grounds that I know of, one of which is Bournemouth, is trying to get the use of the grounds for members of the public actually to take Dart in sports when the ground is not being used for football, either using the ground itself, or underneath the stands, or something of that sort. There are many schemes going forward whereby the Councils try to finance or help to subsidise the provision of facilities whereby people may play games.
It may very well be that noble Lords in this House, or right honourable friends and honourable Members in another

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place would say as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, suggested, that they are not doing enough, that the Government are not giving enough money. But I would suggest that if public money is going into sport at all, that is the right channel, the right destination to which it should go. I would also suggest that any money that can possibly be persuaded out of Government to the help of professional football clubs not only infringes the principle, but takes away from the amount of money to go to that, in my view, much more laudable aim.
There it is. There are massive objections from the Government side. They are quite insuperable. I can give absolutely no hope of changing my mind on this. I do not know what will happen in another place. I know that the noble
Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, wishes to divide on this Amendment, but I can hold out to him no joy from the Government at all.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for the care he has taken in attempting to reply to the points made. It is quite clear that the Government's mind is closed on this matter. I can see no point in continuing the argument this evening. The best thing to do is to put the matter to the test.
6.2 p.m.
Oil Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 84.

CONTENTS

Bacon, B.

Hoy, L.

Shackleton, L.

Balogh, L.

Hughes, L.

Shepherd, L.

Birk, B.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Slater, L.

Blyton, L.

Janner, L.

Snow, L.

Brockway, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stow Hill, L.

Chalfont, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Champion, L.

Peddie, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Phillips, B.

Westwood, L.

Fiske, L.

Popplewell, L.

White, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Rhodes, L.

Wigg, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Rusholme, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Hale, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Falkland, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Airedale, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mancroft, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Fortescue, E.

Merrivale, L.

Alport, L.

Gage, V.

Molson, L.

Amulree, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Beaumont, L.

Glasgow, E.

Northchurch, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Goschen, V.

Oakshott, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gowrie, E.

Pender, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Gray, L.

Porritt, L.

Brecon, L.

Greenway, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Grenfell, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

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

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Carrington, L.

St. Helens, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hanworth, V.

Sandys, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hayter, L.

Seear, B.

Colwyn, L.

Henley, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Conesford, L.

Hurcomb, L.

Simon, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Somers, L.

Cowley, E.

Jessel, L.

Strang, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Killearn, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Crathorne, L.

Kilmany, L.

Cromartie, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Teviot, L.

Daventry, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Vivian, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Elles, B.

Long, V.

Windlesham, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Luke, L.

Young, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Lyell, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Clause 6 [Appeals]
6.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 4, line 33, leave out ("the Secretary of State") and insert ("Area tribunal appointed by the Secretary of State").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, and for the convenience of the Committee I should like to take Amendments Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 12 together. These Amendments deal with the appeal procedure under Clause 6. The Committee will recall that the matter was raised on Second Reading by a number of noble Lords, notably Lord Simon and Lord Westwood. The Committee will further recall that Lord Wheatley, in his admirable Report, dealt with this matter with his usual firmness and clarity. Perhaps I may remind the Committee briefly of what he said in paragraph 52:
"The question where the appeal should lie presents some difficulty. There could be an appeal to a court of law or alternatively to a Minister of the Crown. I do not consider that either of these methods is appropriate here. I would prefer to see set up a special appeal tribunal consisting of, say, a legally qualified chairman, an architect, surveyor or engineer, and a police officer with experience in crowd control."
As the Bill is drafted, the Government have disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Wheatley, and I think it is about the only thing in his recommendations with which they disagreed. Lord Wheatley did not give his reasons for saying that a Minister was inappropriate as the appeal machinery, but I surmise that he considered the very nature of the appeal was basically a local affair, dealing with local conditions, local experience, local knowledge, and indeed a situation where every case differed, every case required a flexible approach. One can envisage the contrast between a local tribunal, qualified in membership, independent of the local authority, required to sit not very often but available to sit at reasonably short notice, and with experience of local conditions, compared with a Whitehall Minister's inspector; a man qualified no doubt in every way; whose independence is unquestioned, but with no knowledge of the area; overworked, underpaid, and with his report and recommendations subject to possible overrule by the Minister.
The appeal procedure under this Bill has, I believe, many similarities to the
512
procedure under planning laws, about which my noble friend is steeped in knowledge and experience. I believe that the present thinking of Her Majesty's Government about future policy in planning appeals is to tackle the acute thrombosis strangling the machinery, separating the appeals into two categories: first, local appeals, dealing with local matters, such as additional garages or extension of houses, to be heard by a local appeal conunittee; and, second, appeals of a national character dealing perhaps with conservation, Green Belt policy and so on, to be dealt with by the Minister. If this is the thinking of Her Majesty's Government, it is clearly sound thinking. Likewise, I would submit to my noble friend, whether or not the ground of, say, the Bootle Football Club—and I have no disrespect for the club—is deemed unsafe under this Bill is hardly a suitable nut for the great hammer of Whitehall to crack.
At the Second Reading my noble friend gave three reasons why the Government had come down in favour of making the Minister the appeal body. The first was to prevent the unnecessary proliferation of tribunals. The second was to achieve uniformity, and the third to obtain a very rapid decision. I find it difficult to be wholly convinced as to precisely what extension of proliferation will appear. We must recall that initially the Bill will apply to only a small number of clubs. Categories will be introduced. I believe that there will be only 44 football clubs initially within the net. Will this cause my noble friend the worry he suggested about proliferation of tribunals?
The second reason he gave was to achieve uniformity. I am not sure that having appeals heard by the Minister would achieve the splendid goal the noble Viscount suggested. Virtually every ground has a slightly different design. Every case of appeal will be different. The excellent green book which was recently published as a guide for safety on sports grounds emphasises the flexibility of the approach. It will be the flexibility of approach, the knowledge of conditions, that will be of paramount importance in appeal decisions, not a sterile policy of uniformity. The third reason he gave was rapidity of

513
decision, and perhaps I may briefly quote what he said:
"It would probably be a purely technical matter, and therefore to do it by way of hearing in front of a person appointed by my right hon. friend could be a very rapid and expeditious way to got over a comparatively minor problem."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20.11.73. Col. 975.]
With great respect to my noble friend, and with my limited experience, I have never found Whitehall the most rapid and expeditious way of getting over a comparatively small problem. Indeed, it has sometimes taken a month for a single letter to be answered. With great respect to my noble friend, I do not find the three reasons he gave at Second Reading very convincing arguments and I do not consider that they should overrule Lord Wheatley's recommendation.
If I may briefly turn to Amendment No. 12, the purpose is to urge the Committee to write into the Bill now the time limit for an appeal decision. I appreciate that under subsection (5) of Clause 6 the Bill talks about the Minister announcing rules later. But the time for appeal is a critical period for the appellant, and a matter which I submit should be put into the Bill at this stage.
In conclusion, support for the tribunal procedure, as against the Ministerial procedure, comes not only from Members of this House; it comes also, of course, from Lord Wheatley's Report, and from an even more authoritative source (I say this with great respect): the football administrative bodies, notably the Football Association and the Football League. I am sure that if the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, were here he would confirm this. I hope that my noble friend will give sympathetic consideration to this Amendment and to a review of this appeal machinery. I hope that he will be able to accept the recommendation of Lord Wheatley, the view of the Football Association and the Football League, and the pleas of my noble friends. I beg to move.
6.19 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Of course, I considered this point again when I saw my noble friend's Amendments. But I must say that the more I hear him repeat the reasons I gave for the present system in the Bill, the better reasons I think they are; and
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the more so because we are also, in addition to the admirable qualities I set out for the ordinary appeal machinery, providing for more or less exactly what Lord Wheatley wanted. So it seems to me we are getting the best of both worlds. Listening to my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, it may be that I was not as clear as I should have been, and therefore I take the opportunity, with great enthusiasm, to go over this again.
First of all, let me say a word about proliferation of tribunals. It is not that I am afraid that there will be a great many; it is that I am afraid that there will be very few. My noble friend is quite right. He is talking about area tribunals, so obviously there are going to be more than one. But he is equally right in suggesting that the number of hearings of these appeals under Clause 6 will be very small indeed. There are set up under Acts of Parliament from time to time special tribunals with special expertise. I have appeared many a time in front of the Lands Tribunal, which specialises in valuations and compulsory purchase and is well equipped for that, with a large complement of surveyors, as well as two lawyers, sitting as members. There are specialist tribunals dealing with pensions and National Health matters, and a large body of tribunals, including (dare I say it?), industrial tribunals, which are, at any rate in the view of some of us, well equipped to deal with such matters that come before them.
LORD BESWICK: Is that a question?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am sorry; I am pulling the leg of noble Lords opposite, and I will stop doing that.
One thing that is universally true is that when a tribunal is set up it is on the basis that there is going to be a goodly work-load for it, because unless there is a substantial need for a specialist body of this sort it is on the whole wasteful to appoint busy people, who have many other things to do, from the categories the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, was talking about. I am saying that there is no case here, with the ordinary rather minor appeal, for setting up a special sort of new tribunal, which has never been heard of before, called the Football Grounds Safety Appeal Tribunal, or

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something like that. That is the argument on proliferation.
I am absolutely with my noble friend on uniformity; we do not want the appeals dealt with in precisely the same way, because every ground is indeed different. It is not the results that should be uniform but the approach to problems. We do not wish to have area tribunals, if they were set up under these Amendments, saying in one part of the country that crush barriers to cope with an area of so many square kilometres, or whatever it might be, should be of a certain strength, and totally different standards laid down by an area tribunal in another part of the country. It may be that the lay-out and the exact measures to be taken under any particular safety certificate are unique and are not repeated at any other ground, but there will be a sort of rhythm or framework of common standards which should be applied universally in England and Wales, and also, I would suggest, in Scotland. Indeed, it is for this precise purpose that we have taken powers in Clause 12 to make regulations which in due course will be, or could be, used to put the powers of the little green book, say, into statutory form, when we have found what are acceptable ground rules for some of these matters. That is what I mean by uniformity. We want a standard-setting body that will not produce diverse decisions all across the country; we want to try to keep this together. We believe that for the details of the sorts of thing that I have been talking about the two Secretaries of State, my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary, will be best for keeping the standard uniform.
Speed, I thought, when I first approached this matter in terms of the planning appeals held by inspectors from the Department of the Environment (with which I know my noble friend is also familiar) is an important aspect. I have appeared in hundreds of such appeals, and I agree with him that the proceedings may not perhaps be the speediest, even if they are very thorough. I do not know whether he has ever done an appeal under the Petroleum Consolidation Act, which is a Home Office matter. Apparently I nearly did one once, but it never came to a hearing. I believe that these things
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go like lightning, and the machinery that the Home Office has for dealing with this sort of appeal is thorough, properly argued, but very quick. The reason this is possible is that their volume is on nothing like the same scale as that which besets the wretched Department of the Environment, who have thousands of planning appeals to deal with, and indeed hundreds of inspectors to do it. They can produce somebody at very short notice. It is essential that we should be able to do so.
I forget whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, or another speaker who asked about special certificates for occasional events—for instance where one had the dockers wanting a meeting at the West Ham stadium. If there is a special certificate sought, and an appeal is lodged against the decision given, from the very nature of the matter we must have a speedy tribunal, because probably the event is not very far off and the dispute must be settled before it occurs. I am afraid that the sort of area tribunal my noble friend has in mind would have to be assembled, and if it has all these specialists on it they would have to be detached from their duties and come together on a day when they were all available. So I do not see how the appeal procedure for special certificates could be done in time, whereas the inspector decided on by a Minister and coming from the Home Office can make a decision very quickly. I have been dealing with the more ordinary type of case. I do not know, any more than my noble friend does, why the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, particularly disapproved of, as it were, a Ministerial decision. I entirely understand why he disapproved of the courts' having this responsibility, because it is not the sort of thing that they would welcome: it is far too technical. Anyway, we have got out of the habit of giving new civil jobs to what are essentially the criminal courts.
Where the noble Lord was plainly concerned was about the sort of case where a very special type of expert would be needed. So are the Government, and that is why we have put in Clause 6(9). If one had a much more substantial appeal, or an inquiry that raised matters of major importance and issues which had to be discussed with a good deal of thoroughness, and affected large numbers

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of people, or a large number of clubs, one would require something more thoroughgoing, and an opportunity for a full-blown inquiry. This is probably the occasion when the architects, the engineers, the policemen and the other people mentioned by the noble and learned Lord ought to form part of the inquiry panel. This could be done under Clause 6(9), and that would be the sort of occasion when one would have that much wider inquiry. I would submit that we have met the noble and learned Lord on that where it really matters, and I agree that it does matter. For the ordinary case, the machinery that I have laid down here has not the disadvantages that my noble friend suggested, and I hope that I have convinced the Committee of its very positive merits, and that he will therefore agree that the way that the Government have approached this matter is sensible and should not now be opposed.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am most grateful to my noble friend for that long and detailed explanation. He has clarified further some of the Government's thinking, and the reasons behind their decision. I welcome the assurance that the machinery will be speedy, as under the petroleum machinery, of which of course I was not aware. Nevertheless, I would remind my noble friend that in the early part of his reply he seemed to indicate that they were not very far away from Wheatley, although the Wheatley Report specifically said that an appeal to the Minister was inappropriate. I do not intend to press this Amendment, but I would remind my noble friend that the football authorities are worried about this procedure, and I hope that before the next stage of the Bill he will be prepared, if necessary, to discuss it further.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am sorry, but I forgot to answer my noble friend on Amendment No. 12. Perhaps we could come back to that another time. If the football authorities are worried, will they tell us why?—because I do not know that anybody has ever described why the machinery I have attempted to elucidate is something that would worry anyone.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My answer to that is that my noble friend Lord Westwood was due to advise the
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Committee on that matter, but he is not here.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Get him to write.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I shall certainly get him to write, or I shall ask him to write. I am happy to withdraw this Amendment, but did my noble friend deal with Amendment No. 12?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No; I am sorry, I did not. I do not think we ought to put this subsection in. I have given a rather clear indication that the vast majority of cases would be dealt with, and indeed ought to be dealt with, speedily. Certainly for the emergency cases four weeks is too much, but if we write it in in this form it would mean that the formal inquiry under Clause 6(9), which I have mentioned, would also have to be done within four weeks, and I think that would be much too short in time in some cases. I suspect my noble friend would be unable to find a precedent in any previous Statute for the decision being announced in terms of a time limit. He may find time limits for the beginning of the inquiry process, but I do not think he will be able to produce one where the final answer of the inquiry process is laid down in this way.
Moreover, as a purely technical point, I am not certain what happens if there is an application for certiorari against a decision, because if there was the decision itself would be open to being quashed or set aside; and although I know that the Divisional Court can move very fast, I doubt whether the whole process, including an application to the Divisional Court, possibly the Court of Appeal and, if necessary, your Lordships' House could be gone through in four weeks. So even in the ordinary case I think this sort of maximum time is inappropriate and ought not to go in the Bill.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am grateful to my noble friend. Before I withdraw the Amendment, I wonder if he can tell the Committee whether the decision would in fact be published under this procedure?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It would certainly be given to the person who was the appellant in exactly the same way as a planning appeal decision is given. Quite what the appellant does

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with it is another matter, but I should not have thought there was any reason why he should not show it to anybody who was interested. Certainly we will have records of it, and I have never found any difficulty with the Department of the Environment in getting hold of a previous decision if one shows good reason for wanting it.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am grateful for that explanation and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Court's power to prohibit or restrict use of stadium]:
6.34 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 7, line 38, leave out ("stadium") where that word first occurs and insert ("ground").
The noble Lord said: I think I can move this Amendment quite shortly. Consequential on it are Amendments Nos. 14, 15, 17, 18 and 19, and perhaps I may speak shortly to them on this first Amendment. The object of the Amendment which I seek to move is to enlarge the description of premises in relation to which proceedings can be brought under Clause 9. Clause 9 enables proceedings to be brought by the local authority before a court to get an order, if there is undue risk to the public on admission to particular premises, that the public shall not be admitted unless certain changes are carried out. At present, Clause 9(1), which is the relevant subsection, applies, if one looks at paragraph (b), to
"a sports stadium which is not a designated stadium".
It might not be designated because the Secretary of State has not yet got round to it, or it might be a sports stadium which has accommodation for less than 10,000 spectators and which therefore does not fall within Clause 1 of this Bill.
I seek to enlarge the words "sports stadium" to "sports ground". The effect of that would be, if one looks at the definitions contained in Clause 16,
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as follows. A sports stadium is a sports ground where artificial accommodation is provided for spectators which surrounds the place in which the activities take place, as in the case of a football stadium. A sports ground includes a sports stadium, and it is a ground in which there is that artificial accommodation, but it is artificial accommodation which does not necessarily surround the place in which the activity takes place. It is therefore wider. You may have many places where sports take place which are sports grounds but which are not sports stadia.
May I go back to Clause 1? At the moment, suppose you have a sports ground which is not a sports stadium and which involves danger to those persons who have recourse to it as spectators, and suppose the local authority are satisfied that the danger is a danger which ought not to be accepted and that something should be done about it. If it is a sports stadium, they could apply to the court for an order prohibiting entry of the public: if it is a sports ground which is not a sports stadium, there is no such power. The object of the Amendment which I move is to try to include in Clause 9 a power which will enable a local authority to ask a court to say, with regard to a sports ground which is not a sports stadium and which is in consequence not designated, that the public should not be admitted because admission of the public would involve an undue risk to them. I beg to move.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNTROYAL: Three categories are dealt with in this Bill, as the noble Lord said. There are the sports stadia, which fall into the designated and the non-designated kind, and then there is the sports ground, which is a place without all-round seating. The noble Lord is anxious to extend the provisions to this latter category. The excluded category, of course, comprises the grounds which do not have artificial structures on them. I think we would not be anxious to extend the Bill in the way that this Amendment seeks to do, although one readily appreciates the noble Lord's desire to protect the non-designated stadia in the case of a local authority feeling that an emergency situation had arisen. But we must not proceed too fast. It will be

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some time, as things stand according to the Bill, before certain sports grounds other than stadia are brought within the certificate procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, are very commendably anxious that a suitable fallback situation should be established to deal with places of that kind.
I think the Government would not be anxious to rush into this, which would after all include, for instance, horse-racing and motor-racing tracks, until they had had a suitable chance to have discussions with the various interests concerned in those sports. I think this was referred to by my noble friend Lord Colville earlier on; that his feeling was that we wanted to get a similar green book for each sport as it came in. But possibly the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, can take heart, because if he will look at Clause 14 he will see that under that clause the Government have taken powers to provide a fallback position whereby a regulation could be made to cover the non-designated stadia and sports grounds. An Order could be made under Clause 14 which would apply Clauses 9 and 12 to the grounds in question. Incidentally, this would be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure of Parliament.
There is a further and more technical point, which is that the 10,000 cut-off point in Clause 1—we had some argument whether we should call them "people" or "spectators"—would not necessarily apply to classes of sports grounds other than stadia, and it may be necessary to fix a lower limit or to require that all grounds of that class should have a certificate. In the circumstances, the Clause 9(1)(b) power will diminish in importance. Of course, if all grounds were to be designated that power would not be required at all. Then we should need a modification of Clause 9(1)(a), for which the Amendment does not provide. But the uncertainty about whether or not the 10,000 lower limit will operate in the case of sports grounds other than stadia reinforces our view that we should rely on Clause 14, once we know more about the risks which could occur in these grounds. This power is wholly flexible and ideally suited to the purpose in mind.
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If I may add one final point, I am informed that even were we to agree to the Amendment in principle, the drafting would have to be revised, because the substitution of "sports ground" for "stadium" in the places indicated does not fit in with the references to a stadium in subsection (1)(a). We are anxious not to alienate the other sports activities with whom we have not yet had full negotiations; we should like to retain the flexible and gradual approach which has passed through this Bill. For this reason, we oppose this Amendment.
LORD STOW HILL: I am grateful for the answer, but again I am afraid that it does not satisfy me. I considered Clause 14 carefully to see whether under that clause it was clear that the provisions to which I have referred, particularly Clause 9, could be extended to sports grounds. I wondered whether the words in Clause 14, "adaptation" and "modification", were wide enough to make certain that Clause 9 could be so extended. I thought it was doubtful whether they were wide enough and therefore that it would be much better to make it perfectly specific in Clause 9. But the hour is late and I will not ask the Committee to divide on it. I would say only, with respect, to the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, that I do not feel he met the point I put. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 8, line 13, at end insert—
("(3) An applicant so affected by such a Court Order may have the right of appeal to the Area tribunal, such appeal being heard and decision made within 4 weeks.")
The noble Earl said: This is a very short, probing Amendment. The Committee will recall that Clause 9 enables a court, on the application of a local authority, to prohibit or restrict the use of a sports stadium not covered by a safety certificate. The power of this clause was described by my noble friend as an emergency power. It is, of course, a fairly drastic emergency power. It would seem that a club which failed to agree with a local authority might have its livelihood

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removed at a moment's notice. The purpose of my Amendment is to ask my noble friend three questions. First, what remedy under the Bill would an aggrieved party have if the clause is implemented by a local court? I assume that there is no appeal other than on a point of law. The second question is, would an aggrieved party have any recourse to damages should the power under Clause 9 subsequently be shown to be unsupportable? The third, and most fundamental, is whether my noble friend is wholly satisfied that these emergency powers offer a proper safeguard not only to the public but also to the sports administrators?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE of CULROSS: Whatever one may say, I will try to give my noble friend answers to those three points in a moment. I do not think it would do to have an appeal lying against a court, certainly not the Crown Court or High Court, to some tribunal. That is the sort of thing that one would try to avoid. If you have an appeal system which involves those two sorts of bodies, I know of no instance when it is not carried out the other way round. I take the point that my noble friend wants answers to three other matters. No, there would be no remedy, as I understand it, by way of appeal, because, unless that is provided, the Crown Court jurisdiction is defined by Statute. There is no reference to this Bill in the Courts Act which set up the Crown Courts, and therefore I should have said, talking off the cuff and without checking, that there would be no appeal to the Crown Court, except, of course, as my noble friend said, on a point of law, which one can always raise from any court. No, I do not think any damages will be payable if, for some reason, the court was subsequently found to have acted wrongly. I am not certain that I understand how it could be found to have acted wrongly. This is a matter that would have to be argued out.
I should have thought that the circumstances in which a local authority actually went to a court to ask for an order, certainly under Clause 9(1), would be only where they had tried to negotiate in vain or there had been previous occasions when the club or the people running the stadium had misbehaved and
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the authority wished to avoid its happening again and felt that they were on pretty sure ground. I doubt whether there would be a frequent use of this power. Simply to have the power in existence will prevent people from getting embroiled. I think there is no provision for damages if it is wrongly used. As for proper safeguards, the safeguards would be the arguments. A local authority would issue the complaint and the person concerned with running the stadium, and I suppose anybody else who happened to be involved, would be required to go to the magistrates' court and argue the matter out.
Usually argument before a court is thought to be a reasonable safeguard that your case will be heard. So far as Clause 9(2) is concerned the power of the Crown Court or the sheriff court or the High Court in Scotland would arise only after a conviction; that is, a conviction under any of the provisions in Clause 10(1). There one may be fairly certain that there would not have been any mistake, though no doubt the order would fail if an appeal succeeded on that. This would be an ordinary criminal appeal and does not have to be provided for in the Bill. Certainly there will be no doubt that an order of this sort is something which could be argued before the court before the order was made. So, again, I think there is the safeguard there that my noble friend wants. I will look into this matter. I have not thought about any of those points, but that is my instant reaction to his three questions.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am grateful to my noble friend. The reason for asking about damages was that one felt a situation could arise between negotiation and an appeal stage where, for instance, a local authority might request that a crush barrier or some other technical matter arising out of the green book should be installed in the sports ground. This might be thought by the people running the sports ground to be unreasonable, and the local authority might then use these powers to go to court, and subsequently the appeal might be settled in favour of the sports administrators. That is the sort of case I was thinking of. I am grateful to my noble friend for his helpful explanation and I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clauses 10 and 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Regulations]:
6.53 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL Amendment No. 20:
Page 9, line 42, at end insert—
("() The Secretary of State may by regulations specify considerations which are relevant considerations if any in determining whether a sports ground has accommodation for more than 10,000 members of the public.")
The noble Lord said: I can move this Amendment quite shortly. Normally when looking at sports grounds it should not be too difficult to determine what you have to take into account in answering to yourself the question as to whether there is accommodation for more than 10,000 spectators. But as we have been reminded, under Clause 14 the provisions of the Bill can be extended to sports grounds. It may often be very difficult indeed when looking at a sports ground to know what you have to take into account in asking yourself whether or not it can provide accommodation for more than 10,000 spectators. In the case of a race track people may stand and watch the races from some considerable distance. Are they to be taken into account or not?
All this Amendment seeks to do is to enable the Secretary of State to lay down, by regulations, criteria which have to be taken into account in answering that question. The desirability of it, I would submit, is that clearly, as a matter of fairness, there should be uniformity. There should not be the feeling on the part of some people that they are being designated when their accommodation compares with the accommodation provided by other sports grounds or sports stadia which have not been designated. In order to produce uniformity, it is desirable, in my submission, that some general criteria should be laid down. What this Amendment is designed to do is to confer upon the Secretary of State the power to lay down general criteria which are to act as guide lines in answering that question. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Of one thing I am quite determined to make sure in regard to this Bill; it is that by the time we have finished with
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it there will be no doubt in the mind of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, or of anybody else, that the provisions in Clause 14, where we say "…exceptions, adaptations and modifications…", are quite sufficient to deal with almost any eventuality. I take the point he made just now that we want to make quite sure of that.
One thing that is fairly fundamental in the Bill as it stands, apart from Clause 14, is the provision in Clause 1(2). We thought from the very beginning that one of the most fruitful sources of rows, disputes and general dissatisfaction under the Bill as it stands would be the argument, "Oh, no, my ground holds only 9,998 people." We thought this could go on for a very long time; and the more you apply this argument to other sports grounds, other than stadia, the more fruitful the ground becomes for argument. Of course the argument is crucial for those who are of a less than savoury nature, because if they can prove that the capacity is only 9,998, then they are missed out, and it may very well be that exactly those people are those that we should like to have dealt with under the certificate machinery. So we wanted to make quite sure that there was not going to be that sort of argument. Under the Bill as it stands, therefore, it is my right honourable friend who himself decides how many people can be fitted into the ground. He does not need to make any regulations because they would only be regulations telling him what he would need to do. That is not a usual practice, I think, for a Government Department if the sole decision lies personally with the Minister concerned.
The answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, about the other sorts of grounds to which this Bill might be applied later, is really the same. I agree that one must try to be uniform and fair, and that one should not have people considering that they are hard done by the Bill. But equally, if there is to be a criterion at all for other sports grounds—it does not follow that there will be—I should have thought that one would also wish to have reserved for my right honourable friends—because the Secretary of State for Scotland can also act—the power to decide for themselves how many people can enter them. Under Clause 14, one can adapt and modify. I am perfectly certain that an order apply-

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ing the Bill to other classes of sports grounds would include the equivalent of Clause 1(2). I am sure, therefore, that it would not be necessary for regulations to be made telling my right honourable friend the Home Secretary what criteria he should apply in a private calculation as to how many people should enter that kind of sports ground.
That, I think, is the answer to the noble and learned Lord. We see great difficulty in setting out criteria upon which arguments can emerge about this matter. We think that it is unlikely that the two Secretaries of State will be unfair. We have therefore reserved the power specifically to them, and to them alone; and there is no provision for criteria at all. I hope the noble and learned Lord will be satisfied that the honour of the two Departments concerned is such that people ought not to be unfairly treated.
6.58 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I am fascinated by the skill with which the noble Viscount can defend the most indefensible cases. As I understand his argument, it is essentially that it is far better to decide a thing by whim than by regulation; that provided that it is left for someone—and of course it will actually be some sort of inspector, someone like that—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: The noble Viscount shakes his head. But if he assures me that the Secretary of State, that upright and perfectly fair man, is going personally to visit every ground in the country and reach a decision, after some very careful assessment made by him personally, then of course, I shall have to accept it. But I shall be a little surprised. I should have thought it quite clear that if the matter is left completely vague it will result in a whole series of different assessments being made all round the country, all perfectly justifiable by the individual who made the assessment, but quite incomprehensible to those people who have to bear the result of the assessment that has been made.
Surely it is much more sensible and reasonable to have some regulations, perhaps with the possibility of a variation,
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because if a figure of 10,000 is fixed and in fact the capacity is 9,999, then it evades the control. I think the noble Viscount himself is being slightly evasive in the matter. He is exercising not just a whim, but a whimsy when he proceeds to make a remark of that sort. I should have thought that the noble Viscount has done himself rather less than justice in his reply to my noble friend. It would be much better if he would look at this and realise that regulation has the advantage that you know where you are. If it is decided with no regulation at all, then no one knows where he is.
6.59 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I had anticipated that noble Lords who wished to take points on Clause 1(2), which is really the key to this, might have done so earlier in the Committee proceedings. I do not blame the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for raising this point at this stage; he is of course entitled to raise anything at any stage of the Bill. But the key to this really is in Clause 1(2). It is quite crucial, in our view, for the reasons I set out, and to avoid these arguments, that we should have the provisions that are there contained.
There are no provisions in the Bill, and there are no provisions in Lord Stow Hill's Amendment, which require that my right honourable friend is to make regulations for deciding how many people can be packed into a football field. What this Amendment is about is to decide how many people can be got in something other than a football stadium, a sports ground, which is not at the moment covered by the Bill. Of course if the noble Lord wishes to raise the principle of how we calculate the number of people one can get into a football stadium then we will go into it. If the noble Lord will do it on Report I will happily argue the case out with him and I will look at it in advance for the argument and see whether I have been, doing myself justice. However, I think the noble Lord must realise that in the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, we are dealing with, as it were, the periphery, the other sports grounds. We have already dealt with the main football stadium argument when we passed, practically without comment, the provisions in

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Clause 1(2). But could we come back to it, perhaps at the next stage of the Bill, and would the noble Lord like to think about it as well as my giving it some further consideration?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I apologise to your Lordships and to the noble Viscount for not having been present earlier. Unfortunately, I was caught in a train between Newcastle and London. I was merely referring to the argument which he used specifically against the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. It was he who quoted at that point the figure of 10,000. I was merely pointing out that it is surely quite easy to deal with such a matter by regulation. However, I will take into account what the noble Viscount has said.
LORD STOW HILL: I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones for his very helpful contribution and would say in answer to what the noble Viscount said in reply to him that the Amendment which I propose relates to sports grounds; and sports grounds, as has been pointed out before, include sports stadia. So one of his points, if I may say so, is not well founded. I wish I could share his optimism about the scope of the words "adaptation" and "modification". I speak from somewhat bitter experience going back many years. May I just leave the noble Viscount with the question as to whether he can formulate precisely to me what is the difference between "adaptation" and "modification". Very few people can, and very few people know what those words mean. I should very much doubt whether the precise formulation can be given of them. But it is late and I do not want to take up the time of the Committee unnecessarily. As we may come back to the subject at a later stage of the Bill, I ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment now.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.3 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 10, line 13, after ("the") insert ("maxima").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 21 I should like to point out that Amendment No. 22 follows it
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and I shall not speak separately to that. We had some discussion at the Committee stage about this matter and I have taken note of what the noble Viscount said on that occasion, and indeed I take the advice given. Clause 12 provides that the Secretary of State may by regulations provide, inter alia, for fees to be charged for a safety certificate issued by licensing authorities. The clause not only enables the Secretary of State to fix limits on fees, but I am advised also prescribes the actual fees to be charged by the licensing authorities. I would suggest that it is unnecessary for the Secretary of State to do more than fix maximum fees, and that licensing authorities, as responsible bodies—and there can be no question of that in connection with this Bill—can be trusted not to charge excessively.
The purpose of the Amendment is to allow licensing authorities this flexibility while maintaining the safeguard of a maximum ceiling fixed by the Secretary of State. Every Amendment moved this evening has met a not-too-happy fate. I should not think that the Amendment I am now moving is one of a fundamental character. At least one of the local authority associations would be appreciative if it was accepted, and I should like to feel that the Government are in the mood, having almost dispatched the Committee stage, to be a little forthcoming. I would ask them seriously to accept an Amendment that cannot make any fundamental difference to the Bill but would give a great deal of pleasure to some of those who will be involved in carrying it out if and when it becomes an Act.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: Before my noble friend replies, would he also say whether the fees will be a scale of fees depending on the size of the stadium. I would remind my noble friend that if that is the answer his noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor seems to be against the scale of fees as published.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: I feel rather churlish having to stand here—
LORD WYNNE-JONES: So you ought.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: —and to start off by saying that we believe these Amendments to be misconceived, particularly after that heart

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rending cry from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. I am not wholly certain about this, not being a lawyer—perhaps we should have a lawyer to answer—but we think these Amendments are misconceived. Perhaps I may deal first with the second section of the Amendments. On the whole, our preference is that the local authorities should go for regulations under subsection (5), and this appears to do very much what the noble Lord is asking for. However, the Secretary of State feels it wise that he should retain the powers in subsection (4)(b) and he further believes that it would be in the interest of the clubs that he should continue to be able to fix fees according to circumstances and not fix the same maximum for everybody. The point is that the administrative work involved in certifying one ground could vary in a number of ways and could be significantly less than in other cases. So once again we believe that it is better to retain the flexibility, although we hope and believe that most of the local authorities will prefer to go for subsection (5).
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I wonder whether I can ask the Minister to go just a little further and to say that they will look at this point. The noble Viscount said on Second Reading that he thought that Clause 12(5) met the case, as indeed the noble Lord has just said. The noble Viscount said that they do or they may. The Amendment would ensure that they had the opportunity to fix the fees below and certainly not above the maxima. If the point could be looked at further, I should be very happy to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: I am sure that we could have another look at this. I think it is a fairly complicated question and it may be that we are just failing to understand each other.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 12 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT SIMON: Before we pass Clause 12 may I ask the Minister whether he would look at subsection (3) before we come back on Report. This reads:
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"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, before making any regulations under subsection (1) above, to consult with such persons or bodies of persons as appear to him requisite".
The word "requisite" seems to me to be extraordinarily inapt. The word "requisite" I think means "necessary". If it appears to the Secretary of State necessary to consult somebody he will do so, I should have thought, without having the duty laid upon him by an Act of Parliament. It is an unusual word in this context and it seems to me that the noble Viscount may like to look at this word with his advisers to see whether it is really correct.
LORD AIREDALE: May I add to what my noble friend has said. In my recollection when a duty to consult is laid down in a clause it is usually a duty to consult those people who appear to represent the people who will be affected by the regulation. Is that not what is intended here? If so, it would be much better expressed in those terms.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think I promised to look at the word "requested". Was it the noble Viscount who mentioned it on Second Reading? We still have our synonym book in operation, and we have not yet decided whether this is the best word. I wonder whether this could be left to the Report stage. At the same time, however, we will take account of what the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has said, and we will try to reach a happy solution with the Liberal Benches on this matter.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Reduction of trainee drivers of minimum age for driving heavy goods vehicles]:
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 10, line 42, at end insert ("and may by such order direct that in relation to any such classes of sports grounds the figure of 10,000 mentioned in section 1 of this Act shall be adjusted upwards or downwards as he thinks appropriate.")
The noble and learned Lord said: This is the last Amendment, and I think I can move it quite shortly. It is simply to raise the question whether there ought

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not to be a regulation-making power to adjust upwards or downwards the figure of 10,000 spectators which in Clause 1 founds the jurisdiction to designate a stadium and possibly a ground, if the power is exercised to extend the provisions of the Bill to grounds. That is the short point. The figure of 10,000 might seem to be a rather arbitrary one, and if it is intended that there should be some elasticity here, would it not be desirable to give a regulation-making power to the Secretary of State to adjust the figure upwards or downwards? I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I said just now that I wanted to make sure that exceptions, adaptations and modifications—the three words used in Clause 14—are entirely comprehensive. If the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has had an unfortunate experience, I wonder whether he would be so kind as to share it with me at some time in his leisure, so that we may make certain that we do not also have an unfortunate experience. I cannot define it in a concise way, but I think I know what it means. An "adaptation" would be, say, if we wanted to apply Clause 9 we would say that it was a designated sports ground instead of a designated stadium. "Modification" is intended to do exactly what this Amendment would do; namely, to allow us to change the figure of 10,000 in either direction. That is what we want to be able to do, and for precisely the soft of reasons the noble Lord was talking about when he referred to how many people could go on a racecourse. I want to be certain that we have the powers. The reason why I think we have not dealt with this specifically is, in the lawyer's terminology, that if you put in a reference to one thing it tends to imply that you do not mean the clause to refer to something else—and there is a Latin tag about it. So we thought it better to leave it in general terms. But I want to be sure that we can cover points of the sort the noble and learned Lord has in mind, and I know that the Department does. Therefore any information that the noble and learned Lord can give me will be gratefully received.
I am sorry that I took a bad point when I answered the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones. If that is the only bad point I have taken this afternoon, I am indeed fortu-
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nate. I am grateful for the helpful and constructive points that have been put down by noble Lords opposite. The mere fact that we have not accepted them does not mean to say that at this stage they are devoid of merit; it is just that we should like to look at them again. This is certainly one of those and on those terms I think the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, may feel able to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Before my noble and learned friend does that, I should like to say to the noble Viscount that he has created in me a sense of optimism which was not there not long ago.
LORD STOW HILL: In moving this Amendment I did not refer to one experience, but to many going back over a number of years. If the noble Viscount can cite any authority in which the meaning of these words has been considered by a court I should be overjoyed. I do not think he will be able to. May I take this opportunity of thanking the noble Viscount for the patience and courtesy he has shown in dealing with the many Amendments on the Marshalled List. He has, as always, been most helpful. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without Amendment.

INTERNATIONAL SUGAR ORGANISATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
BUSINESS
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, it has been agreed through the usual channels, in view of the lateness of the hour, the fact that we have a great deal of work still to do on the Road Traffic Bill, and it will be necessary for the House to rise by about ten o'clock owing to transport difficulties, that we should not take the Committee stage of the Rabies Bill or the Dumping at Sea Bill.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
7.16 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. In moving this Motion, I should like to express the gratitude of all those interested in the Road Traffic Bill to those of your Lordships who may have been inconvenienced by the postponement of the other two Bills.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD JESSEL in the Chair.]
Clause 16 [Certain small vehicles not to he public service vehicles]:
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved Amendment No. 48:
Leave out Clause 16 and insert the following new clause:
(" —(1) In section 117 of the 1960 Act (meaning of "public service vehicle")—

(a) in subsection (1), for the words "used for" there shall be substituted the words "which is";

(b) in subsection (1), after the word "reward" there shall be inserted the word "and"; and

(c) in subsection (1), for the words "eight or more passengers" there shall be substituted the words "nine or more passengers in addition to the driver".

(2) In section 118(1) of and paragraph 14 of the Twelfth Schedule to the 1960 Act and in section 44(2) of the 1972 Act (relating certain public service vehicle requirements to seating capacity) for the words " eight or more passengers" in each place where they occur there shall be substituted the words " nine or more passengers in addition to the driver".
(3) In section 129(1) of the 1960 Act (certificates of fitness required for public service vehicles adapted to carry eight or more passengers) for the word "eight" there shall be substituted the word "twelve".
(4) In section 144(1) of the 1960 Act (licensing of drivers and conductors of public service vehicles) at the end there shall be inserted the words "Provided that such a licence shall not be required in the case of a public service vehicle which is adapted to seat fewer than nine passengers apart from the driver.".")
The noble Lord said: I begin by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in thanking the usual
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channels and everybody associated with the other two Bills for enabling us to go straight into the Road Traffic Bill. I very much regret that I shall have to move this Amendment at some considerable length. Normally I try to keep my speeches short in Committee, but these clauses seem to me to embody the most important changes to be brought about by this Bill. If they are not the most important, certainly they are the most difficult to understand and follow if one is not well versed in the whole system of licensing of vehicles used for carrying passengers for hire or reward.
LORD ABERDARE: Hear, hear!
LORD CHAMPION: I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, says, "Hear, hear! " to that. He clearly has had some difficulty in going through these clauses and understanding them, but I hope that by the end of my speech he will be well aware of what is embodied certainly in the Amendment.
Clauses 16 and 17—and they are to some extent complementary—will in effect establish three classes of vehicle which, although carrying passengers at separate fares, will be wholly or partially exempt from licensing under the 1960 Act. These classes are: (1) vehicles adapted to carry fewer than nine passengers, which will be wholly exempt from licensing; (2) vehicles adapted to carry not more than twelve, or maybe fifteen, passengers, which will not require a public service vehicle licence and so will be wholly exempt from licensing, but will be subject only to the restrictions in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2) of this clause; and (3) vehicles adapted to carry not more than twelve, or maybe fifteen, passengers licensed as public service vehicles but, although carrying passengers at separate fares, treated as contract carriages.
The question which springs immediately to the mind is: will it be possible to regulate activities of vehicles in these classes in such a way that they will not compete with regular licensed services, to the serious detriment of those services? I shall return to that point later in my speech. Subsection (2) of Clause 16 gives a new name in law, as I understand it, to a vehicle adapted to carry not more than twelve passengers or such greater

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number of passengers not exceeding fifteen as the Secretary of State may by order specify. Such a vehicle will be called a "minibus"; and although such a vehicle is used for carrying passengers for hire or reward, it shall not be treated as being a public service vehicle if
"…it is not customarily operated in the course of a business which consists of or includes the carriage of passengers for hire or reward and does not ply for hire in the course of the journey on which passengers are carried."
This definition seems to me to take out of the category of "public service vehicle" any vehicle not adapted to carry more than twelve, if it is not part of a passenger-carrying undertaking and does not ply for hire in the course of its journey. To "ply for hire" in the course of its journey would appear to mean that a small privately-owned vehicle carrying passengers from point A to point D may, by previous arrangement, pick up passengers at points B and C but must not stop at points B or C on the off-chance that someone in the queue or at the stop may be prepared to pay for a lift to D. Perhaps I should add here that "plying for hire" is nowhere defined in Statute law, and case law on those words leaves a great deal of uncertainty.
Clause 16 lets in a private car or a minibus as a passenger-carrying vehicle for hire or reward but excludes them from obeying the restrictions and safeguards common to public service vehicles. All that appears, I must admit, eminently reasonable and desirable until one looks a little deeper. After a superficial glance at our existing transport facilities, most of us would opt for freedom. What we mean by that is that we should like to be able to find a bus or some convenient form of transport at the corner of our street whenever we happen to want one—and that regardless of the economics of providing a regular service and not paying much regard to the efficiency-of-load factor or, until an accident occurs, to vehicle safety or passenger insurance. It was very largely the need to meet these last-mentioned requirements that led to the appointment of traffic commissioners and the system of licensing road passenger carrying vehicles, prescribing the conditions that govern them and restricting them in the main to prescribed routes.
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In respect of insurance, this Bill violates the British legal tradition of responsibility falling on those who provide a service against payment. Since the interwar years, if a vehicle-owner takes money in the course of a business, he accepts responsibility for the risks to which his passengers are exposed. He must be covered by insurance—and that is a very different insurance from that taken out by most private car users, for the vehicle owner who takes a hiring charge has, rightly, to pay a special premium to the insurance company. One wonders how many motorists are aware of this, and how many to-day who break the law regularly are conscious of the risk which they and their passengers are running. Another factor I have mentioned previously is that of vehicle safety. Public service vehicles are designed and constructed to special standards directed at making them suitable for the job they have to do. They are tested annually as to their fitness, and their maintenance facilities are also supervised. Over and above that, the public service vehicle driver has to pass special tests to ensure that he is capable and fit to drive on passenger carrying services.
The next question to be considered is that of the provision of regular services. This is undoubtedly what most country people want, and not merely the odd lift into town without the certainty of getting home again by transport leaving at a given time. Under Clause 16, private motor cars adapted to carry fewer than nine passengers and minibuses adapted to carry not more than 12 or 15 passengers will be free to take up and set down passengers anywhere at separate fares, subject only, as to minibuses, to the restrictions in paragraphs (a) and (b) in subsection (2). Those restrictions are likely to give little protection to the regular services, and in any case will not apply to vehicles adapted to carry less than 9 passengers. There will be nothing to prevent the driver of a vehicle adapted to carry fewer than nine passengers from taking up and setting down passengers at even, say, bus stops on his way to work. If he lives on an estate and regularly drives into town to work he could regularly fill his vehicle with fare-paying passengers, notwithstanding the fact that there was a regular service of stage carriages serving the estate. What also worries

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me, to some extent, about the Bill's proposals is that most rural bus services are operating on a very tight margin. If the provisions of the Bill result in only a 5 per cent. loss of passengers to such undertakings, that could very well mean the withdrawal of the service altogether or a rural bus grant at the cost of the ratepayers. Another factor to be taken into account is that only a small part of the country is covered by the existing hackney-carriage law, the vast majority of local councils not having made by-laws under the appropriate Act.
Having expressed my doubts at some length as to the proposals in the Bill, it is now up to me to explain what the Amendment I am proposing seeks to achieve. Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause seeks to remove the confusion arising from the present definition of a public service vehicle. I am advised that an example of the conflict of law under the present definition is that because there is no provisional public service vehicle driver's licence, nobody can, without breaking the law, take a test to qualify as a public service vehicle driver. If it is clear, as it is for small vehicles under the proposed definition, that a vehicle is only a public service vehicle when actually operating for hire or reward, the difficulties are overcome. Subsection (2) of the Amendment carries the new numerical dividing line consequentially into other parts of the 1960 Act. Subsection (3) of the Amendment is more liberal than Clause 16, in that it would allow a public service vehicle minibus to be given a p.s.v. licence without a certificate of fitness. Clause 16 of the Bill only exempts the "private" minibus. This is intended to make it as easy as possible for permits for minibuses to be obtained under Section 30 of the Transport Act of 1968, whilst retaining at least a degree of safety control over all small vehicles operating for hire or reward. This control would be exercised through the public service vehicle licence itself, because the operator of an unsafe vehicle could not be held to be a fit person to hold a public service vehicle licence. Section 127(7) of the 1960 Act, as amended by Section 35 of the Transport Act 1968, would govern that aspect.
What the proposals in subsections (1), (2) and (3) of the Amendment envisage
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are that a vehicle with fewer than 10 seats, including the driver's, could be allowed, by Statutory Instrument, to obtain a p.s.v. licence on production of only a test certificate, under Section 44 of the 1972 Act, in the case of a vehicle more than one year after first registration and, in all cases, a certificate of insurance appropriate to the service for hire or reward which is being operated. The p.s.v. licence could be issued in such cases with a minimum of formality for a nominal fee. The idea is not to make it difficult to obtain a licence, but to bring home to the car-owner that he is undertaking special responsibilities and to show the passenger that he is properly protected. There would be further control of fare-paying services through the Section 30 permit, which would remain as an alternative to the road service licence. This relaxed system of permits is to be required to be operated "in the interests of the public" under Clause 18 of the Bill and so ensure the best possible balance between conventional and informal services. A controlled system of car services would be supplemented by the conventional services.
The proposals in the Amendment should cause county authorities and voluntary bodies to organise supplementary transport schemes where these are called for, thus giving ample room for initiative, with a high degree of flexibility and without damaging those services which already serve the public interest. The final point of the proposed relaxation is in subsection (4) of the Amendment which does no more than accept the Bill's proposal to free the drivers of small vehicles from the need to hold a p.s.v. driver's licence. But that would leave an element of control through the "fit person" provisions of the p.s.v. licence, and that might avoid dilution problems for the trade unions—a point that has some merit.
I freely admit the complexity of all this and apologise to the Committee for the length of time I have taken to move the Amendment. But an Amendment of this sort deserves the fullest explanation and a serious attempt at justification. I believe the Amendment to be a reasonable one. The last thing I want to do is to be the enemy of people living in rural areas who badly need transport facilities but who also need safeguarding if there is to be a modification of the

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existing law governing the safety of passengers and their insurance. I believe that these are very important points indeed. In addition, I want to safeguard existing services, most of which, as I have said, are operating on a shoestring budget. I hope that I have made myself clear, at least to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who must have spent some time worrying over these particular clauses, which, as I say, I regard as the most important in the Bill. I beg to move.
7.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I do not pretend to have the knowledge of a Parliamentary draftsman and I am not at all sure such knowledge is not necessary to compete with the complexities of this Amendment. But, having said that, I can only say that the Association of Rural District Councils, of which I am a vice-president, do not agree with what the noble Lord has said, that his Amendment will help sufficiently in rural areas. May I put the matter in their own words? They say:
"These Amendments would have the effect of inhibiting the development of voluntary car schemes supported by district councils in rural areas.
"As you may know, this Association has been very active in unison with the W.R.V.S., in encouraging arrangements being made in country districts for those prepared to give lifts to be put in touch with those who need them. This is a service supplementary to any bus and train services that happen to survive and in no way intended to be in competition with them. We would like to see these develop because in the twelve places where they have been instigated they have proved of considerable value. The Road Traffic Bill makes provision for such lifts to be paid for by the passengers which is not at present legally possible. This has had an inhibiting effect as there are some people who will not accept lifts without paying and some councils who feel that payment should be made. If the Amendments referred to go through, this stage in encouraging the social car schemes will be lost".
They therefore ask that I should support the Government. I am afraid that the complexities are very great and I must leave it to more qualified people to work them out.
LORD TEVIOT: I rise to say that I am very pleased to add my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. Perhaps I may say a word on Lord Gage's comments in a moment. I shall be extremely brief because the noble
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Lord, Lord Champion, covered this Amendment very adequately. I was enraptured and I think he covered this extremely complex problem very swiftly. I am with him that this clause goes far too far and I should like to reiterate a few points. Bus operators operate on a tight margin. They do not enjoy a huge profit such as might be held in property or anything else; they just exist. If this clause goes through unamended, as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, mentioned, there will be services disappearing or claiming extra rural bus grants. Local authorities are getting rather fed up at having to give these. Every year services apply for these grants. As a result of this clause, many services will disappear. Services covering fairly large communities not near a railway station, and with populations of between 500 and 1,000 people, which at present may enjoy an hourly service to a larger town, will probably be reduced, and in some cases, while the service will operate every day of the week it will operate only in peak hours, with perhaps extra journeys on Saturdays.
I should also like to refer to the car driver, insurance, tax and safety. I do not think those matters have been considered so far in the Bill—though I may have to eat my words when my noble friend replies. I should like also to mention that in America some authorities allowed the car freedom to compete with the bus—for example, Clinton, Massachusetts; Acron, Ohio, and Alton, St. Louis. These schemes did not work. Bus services did in fact collapse; cars could not cope, and very large sums of money had to be laid Out to re-establish a lower level of public transport. The damage once done could not be wholly redeemed. There is no reason to suppose that in Britain we should fare any better. I think the point raised by my noble friend Lord Gage is taken care of under Section 203 of the Local Government Act 1972, which provides for car services and is completely divorced from this Bill. My noble friend will probably be able to give some information on that point.
7.40 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: I should like to thank all your Lordships who have taken part in this short debate on this very important clause. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and should like to

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congratulate him on his extremely professional knowledge of this complicated subject and the most learned exposition that he gave of public service vehicles and bus drivers' licensing laws. The effect of his Amendment, taken with Amendment No. 50 which stands in the names of the same noble Lords, is in general to replace the proposals in this Bill relating to small vehicles and to propose a modified version of the existing licensing system. This goes against the Government policy, which in Clause 16 is to relieve the owners of private cars and private minibuses only from the need to comply with public service vehicle licensing requirements before they accept any contribution to the cost of a lift in their vehicle.
Let us look for a moment at the present situation. To comply with the requirements of the public service vehicle licensing system a person who owns a private vehicle is debarred from accepting any contribution towards the cost of a lift in his car or his minibus. What happens is this: private individuals ignore the law, which is quite unenforceable in their case, and the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, was speaking about, and the cases that he cited, where private individuals join together to give lifts to each other to specific points and to join in on the cost, occur to-day. It is not correct, because in fact the car becomes a public service vehicle carrying passengers at separate fares; but the law is quite unenforceable and so this practice goes on.
The second thing that occurs today is that those voluntary bodies, for example the W.R.V.S., which could in many cases perform a most useful social role in giving lifts in return for a modest contribution to their expenses, are precluded from doing so by the present state of the law. I agree very warmly with my noble friend Lord Gage that in present circumstances, with the decline in public transport in rural areas and, may I say from my own experience, with the growing need for help with transport in a great many social fields which could well be met by voluntary bodies if they could receive some small contribution to their cost, it seems to me right to allow all such private owners of cars and minibuses to be exempted from the formal requirements of the public service licensing system,
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which I do not think in any case should apply to them. I am sure that your Lordships who know the problems of rural areas will agree with this, as will those who understand the immense contribution made to our health and social services by voluntary organisations.
The main question we have to decide is that on which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, put his finger; namely, can this be said in any way to damage the interests of established bus operators? I really do not think so, and I am afraid I do not in the least agree with my noble friend Lord Teviot, who suggested that there would be a wholesale reduction of normal bus services as a result of this very modest freedom for private individuals. By definition these are privately owned cars or minibuses. They are not customarily operated in the course of a business which consists of, or includes, the carriage of passengers for hire or reward, and they do not ply for hire.
The noble Lord was quite right when he said that plying for hire is not defined, but it is an expression which is used in various Acts, for example, the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act of 1869, under which London taxis are licensed by the police, and it is an expression the ambit of which is understood by the courts and the cab and bus trade. Surely no one could threaten the business of established bus operators under these conditions. These are in fact simply marginal activities which are primarily of importance when additional services have already diminished beyond the point of foreseeable return. These are not in any sense the regular services which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said were so important. So I urge your Lordships not to accept the main ground of this Amendment, for the excellent reason that we are trying to help in a marginal way with the provision of lifts by private individuals.
The noble Lord mentioned the new definition in subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) of the Amendment, to re-define a public service vehicle, which he linked with the granting of a provisional licence. I am sorry that I did not quite appreciate the full import of his point, and I should like to look at it between now and Report stage and to get fully into my mind what the noble Lord had in view. It seems right to us to define a public service vehicle consistently at all times, whereas

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his definition seems to re-define a public service vehicle so as to exclude any vehicle other than one currently carrying passengers for hire or reward. We are satisfied that a public service vehicle is plainly defined by the law as it stands, and that a bus remains a bus whether or not there are passengers in it. It is important, for example, in certain circumstances, that the bus driver should have a bus driver's licence even when the bus is empty, but I should like to look at some of the points made by the noble Lord on that subsection.
With regard to the safety of passengers, which was another matter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and by my noble friend Lord Teviot, nothing in this clause detracts from the operation of public service vehicle licensing in cases where it will still apply; but public service vehicle licensing has never applied to private vehicles which are subject to the ordinary requirements of road safety, and in particular to the annual vehicle test where appropriate. Clause 16 only provides that passengers travelling in such private vehicles may lawfully contribute to the cost, and this reasonable relaxation has no obvious connection with the safety of the passengers.
As for the insurance position, which both noble Lords also mentioned, under Part VI of the Road Traffic Act 1972 any motor vehicle must, with certain exceptions specified in the Act, be insured or secured against liability in respect of death or injury to any person, including passengers, arising out of the use of the vehicle on a road. Claims arising under this provision will, in the last resort, be met by the Motor Insurers' Bureau. I can therefore assure the noble Lord that there are no circumstances in which a passenger in any motor vehicle covered by this provision will not receive the compensation that is legally due to him. Nevertheless, it is customary for insurers to exclude from private motor policies the use of a vehicle for carrying passengers for hire or reward, and anyone who uses a vehicle in breach of this exclusion is in a most serious position. In the light of decided cases there is no reason to think that a contribution towards the cost of an occasional lift would be within the scope of such an exclusion, but motor insurers have been
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fully acquainted with the objects of Clause 16 of this Bill and have been invited to review their policies. Likewise, before the clause takes effect, we shall be giving the necessary publicity to the possible implications for private policy holders. I hope I have convinced your Lordships that none of the difficulties really exists, and that this is a worth while but very marginal relaxation in the licensing system which would be of great value, especially in rural areas.
7.52 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: The reply of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, does not satisfy me at all. I understand very well the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage; indeed, I mentioned towards the end of my speech recognition, on my part anyway, of the desire of people living in rural areas to secure some form of transport. However, if one is going to secure a form of transport, one has to secure a form of transport that is regular and which will not only take a man or his wife and children into town but will bring them back again at a given and stated time on a regular service. I believe this cannot be ensured by the haphazard method visualised in Clause 16 of the Bill that we are seeking to amend. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, in my opinion rightly, put his finger on it when he pointed to the tight margin under which most rural bus operators are working, the difficulty of keeping going, and the difficulty of ensuring that a regular service is always available to the people. He mentioned the American experience. I believe that that experience will be repeated here when this Bill operates as an Act of Parliament and we have those conditions in the countryside which are envisaged by the Government. In this connection we are thinking chiefly of the countryside as, of course, the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, told us.
The purpose of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, was to relieve private cars and private minibuses from the stringent provisions of existing law because it is unenforceable. That is a very poor excuse to bring to the House. To enforce the law is the job of the police; to ensure that it is enforced is the job of the Government. But I recognise that there are difficulties in this connection. The noble Lord does not agree that the

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proposals in the Bill will unduly interfere with existing services. He made a considerable point of this, and understandably so. I am bound to tell the noble Lord that that view is not held by the passenger vehicle operators. They have studied the Bill very carefully, particularly Clauses 16 to 19 and they do not agree that their services will not be interfered with if, in fact, private minibuses and private car owners will be able in future to act as public service vehicle operators.
The noble Lord said he would look at some of the points I raised in my speech, and I hope he will do so before the Report stage. Certainly I hope he will look again at the points made about the safety of vehicles. As I understood it, the noble Lord's reply to me was that private cars and, indeed, private minibuses have to take the ordinary M.O.T. test. That is a trifling test by comparison with that imposed on public service vehicles and their operators. It is a much more stringent examination of everything connected with safety.
The last point on which I am bound to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is that of insurance. I cannot think that it ought to be the job of the Bureau to cover private vehicle owners beyond the point of the insurance that they have in fact entered into with their normal insurers. The Motor Insurers' Bureau was never established for, and ought not to be used for, this purpose. If owners of private cars or minibuses are going to operate virtually as public service vehicles, I believe they ought to enter into a form of insurance with their normal insurance companies which would cover them, because they become owners of vehicles which are in fact carrying passengers for hire or reward. These are extremely important points. I do not know whether the noble Lord wishes to answer the points I have made in answer to him. If he does, I shall be happy to hear what he has to say before I make up my mind whether we go into the Division Lobby or not.
LORD ABERDARE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and I should like to say a word or two. I thought he really put his finger on the spot when he made again, in reply to me, the point he made in his initial speech:
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we shall have a great deal more to talk about on the Report stage.
LORD CHAMPION: I am grateful for the additional reply that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has made. I very much agree with him that the Motor Insurers' Bureau ought not to be used as anything other than a long stop. Because I said from the outset that we did not want to stop rural areas from getting an addition to their transport facilities, I was not wholly opposed to this clause in the Bill, but I want to look again very carefully at what the noble Lord has said. I think I cannot do better at this stage than seek leave to withdraw the Amendment, with a promise to the noble Lord that we shall probably return to it on the Report that all that people really want are regular services. I think this is true. This is why this matter is very marginal and it is the reason I cannot understand why these haphazard, but on occasion very useful, services could possibly be said to affect the interests of the regular bus operators. That is the first point I should like to make. The second point is on the question of safety. I can only reiterate that public service vehicle licensing has never applied to private vehicles, and I do not see why it should. In so far as the insurance position is concerned, I should like to make it quite clear that we agree entirely with the noble Lord that people should be properly covered by insurance for all the risks to which they may be subject. That is why we have acquainted motor insurers with the objects of the Bill, and we shall be giving publicity to the implications for private policy-holders. I mentioned the Bureau only as a long stop to make quite clear that no one in the long run would be uncompensated if he should be injured in circumstances in which the driver was not properly insured.
LORD TEVIOT: Like the noble Lord, Lord Champion, I was also unsatisfied with the reply of my noble friend, and with his second intervention. Although I enjoyed listening to his exposition. I still have great foreboding about this clause. If the noble Lord, Lord Champion, wishes to go into the Lobby I shall be delighted to join him, but I bow to his experience in regard to doing so. There is a great deal of work to do, and if we do not make a decision tonight

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stage, perhaps in some amended form, or to some other slightly modified Amendment to the Bill. I consider this action is justifiable, having regard to the dangers implicit in what the noble Lord and the Government are proposing in this Bill. We should be careful, so far as possible, that when the Bill leaves Parliament and becomes an Act it will not produce conditions which in future we shall regret. In all the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Use of minibuses as public service vehicles.]:
8.0 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 24, line 43, at end add—
("(7) In any case where a service for the carriage of passengers by road would, apart from subsection (1) above, be a service of stage carriages for which, accordingly, a road service licence would be required, it shall be treated as such a service for the purposes of—

(a) section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 (grants towards duty charged on bus fuel used in operating a service of stage carriages), and

(b) section 34 of the Transport Act 1968 (assistance for rural bus services for which road service licence are required),

and the person by whom the service is provided shall be treated as "the operator", in relation to it, for the purposes of the said section 92.
(8) Notwithstanding anything in subsection (1) above, a minibus provided for use in such circumstances that, apart from that subsection, it would be used wholly or mainly as a stage carriage shall be treated as so used for the purposes of section 32 of the Transport Act 1968 (new bus grants for vehicles to be used as stage carriages).")
The noble Lord said: The next Amendment, No. 50, seeks to replace the whole of Clause 17, but on the assumption that I may be able to persuade your Lordships not to take such a drastic step I should like to move Amendment No. 49, the effect of which is to assure to minibuses that are exempt from road service licensing by virtue of subsection (1) of Clause 17 the benefit of fuel tax rebate, rural bus grant and new bus grant in relation to which such a licence would otherwise be a material consideration. I beg to move.
LORD CHAMPION: In the unhappy event of Clause 17 standing part of the
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Bill, it certainly ought to include the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, and I certainly do not object.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved Amendment No. 50:
Leave out Clause 17 and insert the following new clause:
(".—(1) In section 117 of the 1960 Act—
(a) for subsection (2) there shall be substituted the following—
"(2) For the purposes of this Act a stage carriage is a public service vehicle carrying passengers at separate fares which is required to operate in accordance with a timetable approved by the competent authority."
(b) for subsection (3) there shall be substituted the following—
"(3) For the purposes of this Act an excursion carriage is a public service vehicle carrying passengers at separate fares, not being a stage carriage."
(2) In section 120 of the 1960 Act after subsection (4) there shall be added the following subsection—
"(5) For the purposes of section 117(2) of this Act the competent authority shall be the traffic commissioners, except that in the case of a London bus service (which words have the meaning assigned to them in the Transport (London) Act 1969) it shall be the London Transport Executive.".")
The noble Lord said: Although this Amendment is, of course, to some extent tied up with the whole picture of what ought to be operating in this general sort of field, if I may call it that, there are some points in Clause 17 on which I should like very much to hear the Government's reply, and for that purpose I propose to move this Amendment. Clause 17 would allow minibuses operated on a full-time professional basis to carry passengers at separate fares, without a road service licence, subject to two restrictions: that they must not both take up and set down passengers in an urban area or on a bus route. "Both" seems to me to be the important word in this context. On the face of it that sounds reasonable and a good way to augment rural bus services without damaging them. Unfortunately, in practice the results would not be so straightforward.
There are two elements in the Bill's protection of stage bus services; prohibition of both picking up and setting down at two or more different points in an urban area or on a scheduled bus route. In respect of an urban area, the position would be most uncertain when the criterion might be the possibility—not even

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the fact—of travelling on routes with certain speed restrictions or lighting systems. There would be no notification of the service to the traffic commissioners or to other operators, and enforcement would be difficult, if not for all practical purposes impossible. Even in metropolitan areas the absence of notification would be a weak point. This is made obvious by the fact that numbers of illegal works services by non-P.S.V. minibuses already manage to escape enforcement of the law.
If the protection in the Bill of urban services is weak, that for rural services is doubly so. The very inadequacy of the definition in Clause 17 sounds the death knell of many existing bus services covering both rural routes and small towns, or feeding large towns. This I repeat again, despite the assurances that the noble Viscount gave us on the Amendment that I moved to Clause 16. Minor deviations from established routes could enable a minibus operator to pick up passengers of service operators; attractive terminal points refused to a public service operator could be available to an unlicensed service. Weekly stage services could be endangered by minibuses making the journey on other days of the week, and limited stop services operated under an express licence would be completely unprotected.
Perhaps I should point out that the distinction between scheduled stage and express services is no longer relevant. There are stage bus routes, for example, from London to Birmingham, Manchester to Glasgow, Edinburgh to Liverpool, and even over routes up to 250 miles. London's Green Line express services are licensed as stage, not express, services. But there are services covering less than 10 miles which must have an express licence. The Bill as it stands now would protect the route between Manchester and Glasgow but not those between Manchester and London—this is one of the anomalies of the Bill as it is now before us—the latter having no stage service, only express services.
The present division of licensed services is between stage and express. What ought now to be operative is for the division to cut the other way, the two categories covering scheduled and optional services; and that is proposed
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in the Amendment. The proposal in subsection (1) of the Amendment combines all scheduled services, stage and express, under the existing stage carriage title, introduces a new category of "excursion carriage" for all optional services and retains unchanged the contract carriage. I am conscious of the fact that the Amendment and the alteration proposed by subsection 9(1) of the substitute clause would have the advantage of bringing sequential amendments to existing statutes. I have not been able to prepare and table before Committee stage the complicated required Amendments, but if the Government will accept the Amendment as it now stands I will take the necessary steps to produce all the consequential Amendments before Report. Subsection (2) defines the competent authority for the purposes of the proposed Section 117(2) of the 1960 Act.
These relatively simple proposals are intended to achieve a major updating of the licensing system. Their acceptance would have the advantage of bringing our licensing system much closer to the E.E.C. regulations. E.E.C. regulation No. 117/66 provides for and defines "regular", "shuttle" and "occasional" services. The most important category, from most points of view is the regular service, which is scheduled and involves an obligation to run. The amended definition of stage carriage service closely conforms to this, and would be of practical advantage if this could become operative in British law. The realities of the situation in Britain are, of course, enough in themselves to justify a change. Indeed, since the Transport Act 1968, the concept of a bus service as a scheduled stage or express service already exists for some purposes. I realise that this Amendment, if adopted, would also require amendment on the lines of that previously moved into the Bill this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, relating to the financial aspects of bus fuel grants and assistance for rural bus services. I beg to move.
LORD TEVIOT: There is extremely little for me to add to the very detailed statement of the noble Lord, Lord Champion. All I would say is that there is extreme difficulty in outlining exactly what are "urban areas" and "stage services". He mentioned Manchester to London and various others. I am told

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that some people talk about a stage service between Thurso and London. I do not think one could possibly find a longer service anywhere. I suppose that a service from John o'Groats to Penzance would be longer but, so far as I know, there is no service covering that route. With stage services operators do have additional "perks", such as new bus grants and exemption from fuel tax.
Noble Lords may have thought that I have slept on this point, but this deals with rural transport, which was not dealt with in the Amendment on Clause 16, and when people realise that the whole thing is relaxed with private cars and, to a lesser extent, mini-buses, it is bound to add to our traffic problems. This is one point that I missed, and I do not know whether the noble Lord missed it. It is very nice for people to have extra transport, and I am quite sure that the Government want much better rural transport; but one does not want to have the streets littered with more motor cars, which I think might be the result of these two clauses.
LORD SOMERS: I wonder whether the noble Lord could inform me as to what actually is the legal definition of a London bus service. One would think at first that it is one wholly within the G.L.C. area, but of course there are many London Transport routes which are not so; and there are also buses that are not London Transport buses which come to London from such places as Reading, and other places outside London. I suppose that they would not be London bus services, but I should like to know exactly what is a London bus service.
8.12 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: The effect of this Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, taken with his previous Amendment, Amendment No. 48, is to delete the proposals in the Bill regarding minibuses operated as public service vehicles, and to substitute a new definition of stage carriages to include all services other than those that are to be defined in future as excursion services. The point about this clause, as drafted, is that it carries a stage further the relaxation of licensing requirements for minibuses in order to facilitate their use in rural areas and wherever normal bus services are inadequate. Clause 16 removed any public service licensing requirements
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from privately owned minibuses not operated for profit. This clause goes a stage further and exempts minibuses that are operated commercially from requiring a road service licence. Two very important provisions are that they do not run in an urban area or on a specified bus route. They will still require a public service vehicle licence, and indeed they are still public service vehicles, but the whole object of the clause is to encourage their use in areas where there is no regular bus service, and they will not require a road service licence.
Once again I am sure that this provision will commend itself to all noble Lords who know the problems of rural areas, and it is to help in rural areas that this Bill is so important. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Teviot that the effect of this provision will be to put a mass of extra vehicles on the roads in urban areas. This deals entirely with rural areas; any service within an urban area is specifically excluded.
LORD TEVIOT: Would not my noble friend agree that for people coming from rural areas the focal points are urban areas, and it is those areas that are going to be affected?
8.13 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: I still think that it is more important to allow people from the rural areas to have some sort of service to bring them into the urban areas. At the same time, I do not think that it can be truthfully said that there will be a vast increase in the traffic in urban areas as a result of this fairly modest provision. I do not believe that it will damage the interests of established bus operators, particularly for the reasons that it applies only to minibuses in rural areas, and where there is no specified bus route, or on days when no established bus service is being operated. So far as the urban area is concerned, this is clearly defined in subsections (2), (3) and (4) of the clause, and I believe that, because of the requirements of those subsections, it would be quite easy (the noble Lord, Lord Champion, suggested that it would be difficult) to establish what was an urban area. There would also be a 30 or 40 m.p.h. speed limit; or there are requirements on the spacing of lamp posts. So I do not think that it would be very difficult to find out what is an urban area.

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So far as the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, is concerned, a London bus service is defined in the Transport (London) Act 1969 as a service operated in or through Greater London. But for the purposes of this clause the specified bus routes are clearly defined in subsections (5) and (6) of the clause. If he will look at subsections (5) and (6) he will see what is a "specified bus route", and if he looks at subsection (2) he will see that an urban area is defined in various ways but paragraph (a) reads:
"at different places within Greater London or within a passenger transport area, …"
I think that he will find it is all there in the subsection.
We have given full consideration to the views of the bus industry on this matter; in fact, my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton received a deputation from them. We looked into their objections very carefully, but we are convinced that the proposals we have made will not damage their interests, and indeed will help the transport situation in rural areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Champion, also mentioned the new definition of "stage carriages" and "excursion carriages". I recognise that these terms are nearer to the classification of vehicles in the regulations of the E.E.C. However, we feel that we need a great deal more experience before we alter the well-established terms that we use at present. To make a change in this Bill would have some drastic effects. He mentioned the repercussions on the provisions of several previous Acts, and it would also upset the principles on which certain forms of Exchequer assistance are given to the bus industry—for example, fuel tax rebate and new bus grants. We believe that the present system works perfectly satisfactorily and we do not see any good reason to change it at present. The Bill as it stands would produce advantages in rural areas, in helping them to cope with their transport problems, and we do not believe that it will affect the interests of established bus operators. I therefore suggest to the noble Lord that he might consider withdrawing his Amendment. But if he does not, I should not like to advise your Lordships to accept it.
LORD CHAMPION: I do not know whether the noble Lord has enough "troops" in the House to establish his point of view, but I do not propose to test that. I merely looked around and saw what the position was both in here and in the Library. I am grateful to the noble Lord for so carefully explaining the Government's point of view on Clause 17. I am bound to say, on further consideration, that I regard the definition in subsection (2) of Clause 17 as the sort of definition that is bound to cause very great difficulty.
The noble Lord said that in many respects the law as it now exists is unenforceable. I believe that if we pass Clause 17 into law we shall add to our legislation one more provision which is unenforceable. The point about both taking up and setting down is of course extremely important in this connection, but because I have not the slightest desire to go beyond 10 o'clock tonight, and because I want to consider very carefully some subsequent Amendments (and I hope the Committee will consider them); and, further, because I want to consider what the noble Lord has said on this, which I regard as part of the whole system that we are trying to institute, I shall not press this matter. I shall consider very carefully before Report stage what he has said and, as I threatened on the previous Amendment, perhaps come back then with further Amendments on this clause. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 18 and 19 agreed to.
Clause 20 [Amendments relating to operators' licences]:
On Question, Whether Clause 20 shall stand part of the Bill?
8.22 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I wonder whether, as we are considering this clause, I might remind my noble friends of the point I made during Second Reading, at column 867. It was largely to do with what I considered to be an omission from this Bill which could well have been rectified within this

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clause, which considers Part V of the 1968 Act. I referred to Section 62 of that Act, which deals with the powers of the licensing authority, and in particular I was concerned that the licensing authority did not have sufficient powers to examine all the facilities that an applicant for an operator's licence should have. I drew attention particularly to their inability to look at the repair and maintenance facilities where an applicant contracted out of the repair and maintenance of his fleet. I should be obliged if my noble friends could give me any help in this matter.
LORD ABERDARE: I am grateful to my noble friend for reminding us of what he said on Second Reading. I thought that perhaps he might have put down an Amendment on this point at this Committee stage; but indeed his words did not fall upon deaf ears, and we looked very carefully into the points he raised. We are meeting on another point connected with this Bill, and I should certainly be willing to discuss these points with him then. He has brought up once again, in particular, the question of commercial garages which contract for the maintenance of bus operators' vehicles or service vehicle operators' lorries. We have looked at this point on other occasions. On the surface it appears attractive, but the point really is that it raises enormously wide questions of extending the powers of entry upon and inspection of private premises. The garage owner who undertook this work under contract would be subject to inspection, not by virtue of any requirement of his normal business but only as a by-product of undertaking maintenance for an "O" licence applicant. This matter raises wide questions of policy. It might discourage garage proprietors from undertaking this sort of work if they knew that it would render their garages subject to inspection. But I can answer these points in much greater detail if my noble friend would allow me to talk to him afterwards or on a later occasion.
Clause 20 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Amendments of Transport Act 1968 relating to operators' licences]:
8.26 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 52:
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Page 42, line 24, after ("conviction") insert ("required to be").
The noble Lord said: This is a minor Amendment to improve the drafting of the new provision in paragraph 2(a) of Schedule 4 to amend Section 64(2) of the 1968 Act. The provision as now drafted brings into the consideration of grant of a licence any convictions notified by the applicant between the making of an application and the decision on it, in accordance with the new subsection (4A) of Section 62 introduced by paragraph 1 of Schedule 4. It is possible, however, that any such conviction might be notified from other sources than the applicant himself; for example, the police. Under the present drafting, it could not be taken into account unless it was notified by the applicant. The Amendment to make it read "any conviction required to be notified" will allow the licensing authority to take such convictions into account whether notified by the applicant himself or by some other source. I beg to move.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Could my noble friend tell me whether or not it is obligatory upon one police authority to advise another of a conviction in connection with the licence of an applicant? It would seem to me that one traffic area authority could be in ignorance of a conviction that occurred in another area, yet there does not seem to be any process of liaison.
LORD ABERDARE: I should like to look into that point. I was not aware of that difficulty, but I shall certainly look into it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Schedule 4, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I draw my noble friend's attention to the remarks I made on this Schedule on Second Reading and again in regard to the 1968 Act, so far as prohibition notices are concerned? Perhaps my noble friend will recall that at that time I suggested that the revocation of an operator's licence was conditional upon certain criteria set down in the 1968 Act, to which this Schedule makes some alteration. In particular, I was concerned that prohibition orders which failed to be substantiated by the testing station stood

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against the record of an operator. An offence might be committed and the traffic authority, turning up the record and seeing on the flyleaf two convictions, five prohibition orders and the new offence, may come to the conclusion that the applicant should have an alteration to his licence, perhaps that it should be partly revoked, whereas in fact the prohibition orders were not subsequently substantiated at the testing station—and against such prohibition notices, of course, there is no appeal.
I explained that there is an appeal procedure against the refusal to grant a clearance to the prohibition, but that there is no appeal procedure against the prohibition. It would seem to me grossly unfair that a man's operating licence should be in jeopardy because of this particular provision. My noble friend may again suggest that had I felt strongly about it I should have put down an Amendment. On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross suggested that he would deal with this matter later because it was somewhat complex.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: All I said was that we would deal with it. I do not think I promised to deal with it personally.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Then perhaps "we" could deal with this matter now.
LORD ABERDARE: Certainly. Again my noble friend's words did not go unheeded. We do not see this difficulty as being so likely to happen as my noble friend suggests. He is instancing a possibility that a prohibition imposed by one examiner might be lifted by another, perhaps after appeal, without any work being done on the vehicle, and that the original prohibition would remain on the operator's record. We think this is a most unlikely chain of events. A prohibition form G.V.9. lists mechanical defects noted, which must be serious for the vehicle to be prohibited. The standard of professional training of vehicle examiners should ensure that if prohibitions are considered to be serious by one examiner they could not be disregarded by another. No such case has been reported to the
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Department. Even if it happened, a licensing authority, which seldom considers disciplinary action unless a number of prohibitions have been recorded against an operator, would be bound to take the circumstances into account. We think that a retrospective appeal would be very complicated to frame and probably its purpose would be best achieved by amending the Statute to ensure that a licensing authority was forbidden to take a prohibition into account if it was proved to be unjustified. Such a complex Amendment seems of doubtful value in view, as I say, of the unlikelihood, under present arrangements, that any injustice would be done.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I thank my noble friend for his reply. I am sure that he will permit me to give further consideration to what he has said. It may well be that I shall wish to refer to this matter again at a later stage.
On Question, Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
8.33 p.m.
Clause 21 [Exemption from requirements as to written records for vehicles fitted with recording equipment]:
On Question, Whether Clause 21 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHAMPION: On Second Reading I referred to the fact that the Transport and General Workers' Union is very disturbed about Clause 21, which makes provision for replacing the manual recording of the use of a heavy goods vehicle by the tachograph, which, I understand, is a device to record automatically the journeys of a heavy goods vehicle to which it is fitted. Having re-read Section 97 of the Transport Act 1968, which makes provision for the installation and operation of recording equipment, and Section 98, under which regulations may be made requiring drivers to keep written records, I wonder what is the need for this clause. It is the case that under the clause written records supplementing the record of the tachograph may be dispensed with by regulation. I see, however, that under Section 98 of the 1968 Act the traffic commissioners or the licensing authority may dispense with the requirement for keeping written records. Is this clause just to replace the traffic commissioners or licensing authority by some other body?

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Did not Section 97 of the 1968 Act make adequate provision for the installation of the tachograph sort of equipment, and has there been any considerable opposition to the type of recording equipment visualised in that section of the 1968 Act? I should like also to ask to what extent negotiations have been conducted with the Transport and General Workers' Union about the tachograph equipment, with a view to its acceptance. It is always best, if possible, to secure that sort of acceptance, and certainly Governments should do so. I ask these questions in order to invite the Minister to say a little more about this matter than was said on Second Reading and to give the background generally. I hope that it will be possible for the Minister to do so.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I am grateful for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has introduced this subject. I should like to emphasise to your Lordships that this clause is designed for the introduction of a voluntary scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Champion, pointed out that under Section 97 of the 1968 Act there are already compulsory powers for its introduction. I should like to draw attention to the fact that the full compulsory powers under Sections 97 and 98 have not yet been introduced. Obviously, any Government would be unhappy at having to force people to do something which they were reluctant to do, until it had been shown to be reasonable.
To put the background straight, I would say that by January 1, 1980, all vehicles will have to be fitted with E.E.C. type tachographs. That is six years away. New vehicles coming on to the road by January 1, 1976, will, under our agreement with our partners on the Continent, have to have new E.E.C. tachographs. After January 1, 1978, all existing vehicles will also have to have E.E.C. tachographs fitted. The approved version of the E.E.C. tachograph is not yet on the market. There are two types on the market which are already in use in Great Britain. If any operator fits a tachograph now, or before 1976, he may get a dispensation from fitting the approved version, which is more expensive, until 1980. This will give operators who install the tachograph now available early experience of the
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working of the instrument and will save them buying the more expensive type until 1980.
I have given the background picture and emphasised that this clause is to introduce a voluntary scheme and does nothing which could not be done by compulsion under Sections 97 and 98 of the 1978 Act. There are one or two problems which need to be emphasised. First, if an instrument is fitted now it will help to overcome the rush to get tachographs fitted during the period from 1976 to 1978, the year in which new vehicles and second-hand vehicles must have tachographs fitted. It will spread the load. And there is the concession until 1980. Second, in the individual control book a driver has, by law, to keep a fairly complicated daily sheet. It is not just a voluntary scheme; it is compulsory. If this voluntary tachograph scheme is entered into, the driver is exempted. He has a concession that items 4 to 7 in the control book will not have to be filled in. That operation does take time and it is quite a convenience to have this concession.
There will eventually be 300 stations for the installation, calibration and two-year testing of tachographs. We all have knowledge of the black box in aircraft; this is, if you like, a form of black box, but it is a form of black box which is helpful to both driver and operator. I do not think anyone is going to suggest that the drivers, or the unions, wish to protect a man who is pretending to be driving but who in fact is going to a cinema. If you want to argue that, then the tachograph will expose the fact that the lorry was not being driven—though if the man had a partner to drive it, I suppose that is another matter.
There are various benefits which amazed me when I went into this problem. The tachograph enables people to sec how well a driver is driving in certain conditions; it can prove that a driver continually accelerates and brakes. It may be surprising, but an expert, possibly not your Lordships or myself, accustomed to reading these instruments will be able to tell. If such a driver does exist, it is in his interests to be told by a friend in management, "Why don't you go out and take a drive with Bloggins whose tachograph and whose area is exactly the same

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as yours, for his tachograph shows that he is not having the same driving troubles as you? "A man can be helped in this way. There is nothing penal in this. It is purely helpful because surely if we are doing something badly we want to be told so that we can correct our mistakes.
The operators of lorries are also able to see from a tachograph which routes various lorries use and whether or not a certain route, over a period, is shown to be a had route to use because it causes more braking and acceleration. These are small items but they add up to quite a large item. So long planning comes into this. That leads also obviously to reduced costs and greater efficiency. Where there is greater efficiency, productivity comes into it. So there is the possibility that drivers will eventually get a financial gain out of this.
There is also the point that the tachograph has already been used to corroborate a driver's statement in evidence in the case of an accident. Again, experts can tell from the tachograph whether or not there has been some form of bad driving. I have to emphasise again that this is a completely voluntary scheme, before the compulsory schemes come in 1976. I should like to say that the Department with which I have the honour to be associated has had, and is having, constructive talks with the unions and the operators. I think the original feeling that Big Brother is watching to try to hit you is now being allayed. If that feeling has ever existed, it should be knocked on the head and killed at once, for this has not been, and is not, the intention of the tachograph. I cannot state that too strongly. I am hopeful that the operators and the unions, together with the Department of the Environment, will be able to convince all the drivers and all the operators concerned that it is not a waste of money but a helpful and useful instrument which will in time come to be regarded as a perfectly normal piece of equipment, just as one now regards the handkerchief in one's pocket.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: May I ask the Minister in which countries of the E.E.C. this form of equipment is now mandatory?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I cannot do more than say what I know is going to be mandatory on ourselves. I do not know whether it is mandatory at present in any of the Nine, but by 1976, as I have said, all new vehicles in the E.E.C., if the provision is not already mandatory like ours, will have to have the complicated variety of tachographs fitted. By January, 1978, all existing goods vehicles will have to have them fitted. Then by 1980 existing tachographs will have to be replaced by the new. A little angel has just come to my rescue and informed me, in answer to the noble Baroness's question, that Germany—I assume West Germany—and France already have mandatory tachographs. Otherwise, what I have said will apply.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I do not want to follow my noble friend too far down the tachograph road. I certainly agree with him that this Clause 21 ties up quite tidily Sections 97 and 98 of the 1968 Act. I should like to draw his attention to two points. One is the leaflet prepared by the Department of the Environment and printed in October, 1973. I do not have a number, but it is called, The Tachograph. This has been widely distributed, but it is a three-fold little pamphlet which states, in a most extraordinary paragraph in the middle spread:
"It can help to establish the real cause of accidents and prove to be a very real assistance to a driver".
There is no sub-heading to that middle spread. There is no further explanation. The pamphlet appears to me, and to a great number of my friends and colleagues in the haulage industry, to be a most misleading document. Of course this so often happens when explanatory pamphlets are prepared and sent out. We do not read them properly, and some of the language used is not, perhaps, everyday language that is readily understandable by some drivers, and perhaps by some operators. Perhaps I may suggest to the noble Lord that the Department, in drafting explanatory leaflets of this kind in the future, might have consultations with the various organisations to which the leaflets are going in order that they, and their members also, may understand them better.

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I want to move, if I may, to another point my noble friend mentioned. It concerns the international control book. Until 1978, the international control book will still be required whether or not the operator has installed, under the voluntary scheme, a tachograph. When the Government framed this particular clause I think they might have looked at the current regulations a little more carefully, because surely there are fairly considerable difficulties over the international control book, even now. The E.E.C. regulations require the book and adherence to the driving hours regulations, which of course are more stringent than our own. If, for example, the driver of an articulated vehicle leaves Birmingham with a trailer unit destined for a foreign country, he has embarked upon an international journey and the international control book therefore has to be completed. However, the driver takes his vehicle and load to Southampton or Dover or some international cross-Channel ferry port where he deposits the load. The trailer is taken aboard by a tugmaster, off-loaded the other side and transported by perhaps a French or Belgian vehicle, perhaps with a French or Belgian driver—certainly not with the original track unit or the original driver, who then returns unladen to his base.
Our regulations state that he may not start a second hook until the first book is finished, so here we have a driver with an entry in an international control book but no more international journeys to be undertaken. But he cannot start a second book to go from Birmingham to Edinburgh because that is against our regulations. What is he to do? Common sense says that if a man takes a unit from Birmingham to Southampton with a load destined for the Continent, it is not really an international journey, but the E.E.C. regulations say it is. Is the man therefore destined to drive up and down from Birmingham to Southampton with international consignments until the book is filled up, or what is he supposed to do? There is, of course, the allowance of one week in which he can do another journey, but one can foresee very great difficulties. If one is now going to impose a voluntary system of having a tachograph, which still requires both the international control book and our own regulation book recording entries, drivers and operators are going to be in some difficulties. I
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suggest to my noble friend that before we pass too swiftly through Clause 21 we might have another look at the whole set-up of the E.E.C. regulations, particularly with regard to the tachograph section and the written records.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I would just point out to my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth that we have not had this criticism of this little book which my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross is looking at at the moment. In fact we have had much praise from the industry and also, I would point out, from the unions concerned. They think it has been helpful. But that said, I would point out that my noble friend has been talking a little wide of what we are trying to do in Clause 21, which is merely to introduce a voluntary scheme for the tachograph. My noble friend has concentrated on the international control book, which we in this country are giving a limited exercise in saving the driver from some effort, because the tachograph will cover that.
The international control book is governed by various regulations made in pursuance of E.E.C. rules and they have really nothing to do with what we are considering at the moment. If there is any point in the regulations which my noble friend would like to bring to my notice, I can promise that I will bring it to the attention of my right honourable friend and he will consider it. It is not 100 per cent. relative to the actual tachograph. The tachograph exempts the driver from one or two everyday chores, but whether or not the everyday chores will be exempted if he goes abroad—this applies to the minority of our drivers—I do not know. But I will look at the point, and if there is anything in it I will undertake that we will do what we can to meet the noble Lord's point.
LORD CHAMPION: I am glad that I asked the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray of Stourton, for a further explanation of the clause before us, because we have had the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. Clearly he is knowledgeable on this subject and touched on many points which certainly had not been drawn to my attention. I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, who has gone into this matter with his usual care and

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efficiency. I am glad that "a little angel" came to his rescue at one point, but I must say that the way the matter was conveyed to the noble Lord did not seem to be by "a little angel" but by a big kindly gentleman, whom we know very well in this House, and we are grateful to him.
I just wonder whether the whole matter will be completely voluntary, so far as operators are concerned, and whether it will remain so until we get the E.E.C. regulations. I gather it will. I had not seen the explanatory pamphlet mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, so I hope some kind firm will send me one between now and Report, so that I may study it. I gather one is being passed across to me, though I cannot very well examine it now. This is not a question of conveyance by angel—it came to me by some other method. I gather that the opposition of the Transport and General Workers' Union is to some extent what the noble Lord said—"afraid of Big Brother"—but in this instance it would not be a case of Big Brother looking over one's shoulder but peeping out of a little black box (at least that is how I understand it). But I do not think I should go on with this subject any longer. I shall certainly consider what has been said by both the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and I may find it necessary to come back with some Amendment on Report. But that is for the future and not now.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Power of police or local authority to retain custody of removed vehicles until charges are paid.]
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I wonder whether I may ask my noble friend a question? Clause 22 has the words—
"a police force or a local authority … shall be entitled to retain custody of"—
a vehicle—
"until the sum has been paid."
The word "entitled" seems to me to imply that they would have a discretion to do what they liked with the car they had taken in—either to let it out or to keep it. Could my noble friend tell me what rules the police are going to carry
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out in this particular difficulty? It is a difficulty, if it happened late at night. One does not know whether one can release a car, whether a cheque is good enough, whether a cheque is going to "bounce", whether somebody has a fixed address, and there are all sorts of other complications. I am just wondering whether it is envisaged that the police will be guided by fairly hard and fast rules. Can the Minister help me?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, I cannot help my noble friend. I do not know whether they are going to be allowed to take cheques, with or without a Barclaycard. I can tell her what the charees are. I can tell her that "shall be entitled to" means rather better than "may"; but what exactly the terms and conditions of payments are is something that I am afraid I do not know and I shall have to find out for her. If she would like me to do this I will gladly do so, either in correspondence or as a result of an Amendment which she may care to put down at the next stage.
Clause 22 agreed to.
Clauses 23 and 24 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Variation of penalties for certain offences]:
BARONESS PHILLIPS BARONESS PHILLIPS moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 46, line 13, column 4, after ("£200") insert ("or 4 months imprisonment or both")
The noble Baroness said: With the permission of your Lordships, I should like, in moving Amendment No. 4, to speak to Amendments Nos. 54 to 59, because, as your Lordships appreciate, they all hang together. We shall now see the angelic qualities of the noble Viscount who will be speaking for the Government. I would say at the outset, in speaking to all these Amendments, on which I hope I shall have the support of several of my noble friends who are also magistrates, that no magistrate would refuse a proposal for removing a sentence of imprisonment for minor statutory offences, and in so far as this is the case, we support the Bill. But it was pointed out on Second Reading by several noble Lords that the Bill goes much further. It seeks to remove from magistrates' courts any power of passing custodial sentences in respect of road traffic

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offences, with, I think, the possible exception of driving while disqualified. The Bill takes away the possibility of custodial sentences for a number of offences, such as making false statements, withholding information, making false statements to obtain exemptions in relation to parking offences, failing to stop after an accident or to give particulars of or report an accident, and tampering with motor vehicles.
The effect of the abolition of imprisonment will be a serious one, and it will suggest that the seriousness of these offences equates with far minor traffic offences, such as failing to produce a public service vehicle licence. We all know that the powers of imprisonment are not often used, because magistrates do not restrict an offender's liberty unless it is absolutely essential. But sometimes, in the case of young offenders, where there is a suggestion of mental instability or where serious delinquency is shown, it has been the case that imprisonment has been used. The number of cases is small. The figures show that in 1972 of 6.241 male offenders guilty of dangerous or reckless driving 36 were sentenced to imprisonment, and that of 43,836 guilty of driving while unfit through drink or drugs only 307 were sentenced to imprisonment. But the power of the deterrent is there, and I would say, as a lay magistrate who has been sitting at a particular court recently, that the power of deterrent in relation to another offence has been found to be very effective. Not only is the power of imprisonment removed by the Bill—and this is the point which I think concerns us particularly—but also the power of magistrates to order several other things. For instance, community service orders, committal for borstal training, detention centre training or employment centre training, remands for medical reports, treatment under hospital or guardianship orders—these will all go if we remove the rights of the magistrates' courts to impose custodial sentences.
Again, once the defendant is convicted it is not possible for the magistrates' court to ensure his presence by the issue of a warrant unless the court wishes to consider imprisonment or disqualification; and the substitution of a fine only means that no matter how heavy the intended fine, there is no power to
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secure his presence. The removal of the power to impose custodial sentences for traffic offences will be considered, no matter what is said by the Government, as a lack of confidence in the way justices exercise their powers—although I notice that on Second Reading the Minister said that this was not intended to be a weakening of the law.
As we again mentioned on Second Reading, an important committee is sitting at the moment under the distinguished chairmanship of Lord Justice James, and this will be considering many matters, one of which, as we understand it, is the distribution of business between Crown courts and magistrates' courts. This Bill therefore seems rather to pre-empt some of the considerations of the Committee, and indeed some of their possible findings. The object of these Amendments is really to preserve the present powers possessed by magistrates' courts in respect of more serious traffic offences. I ask the Government seriously to listen to the words of those who have found in practice how the law can be. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: The noble Baroness has spoken to all these Amendments, but there is an intervening one. Are we talking about the whole block of Amendments, including drinks and dangerous driving?—because the noble Baroness quoted some figures on Sections 5 and 6. I wonder whether the whole argument hangs together.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Yes.
9.7 p.m.
LORD JANNER: I hoped when the noble Viscount intervened that he was about to say that we need not bother debating these Amendments as he had come to the conclusion that they could be accepted without further debate. Apparently he does not intend to rise now to respond to the invitation that I extend to him. Your Lordships will appreciate that this is a serious matter so far as the administration of the law is concerned. I hope the Committee will realise from what my noble friend has said, and perhaps from what I am about to say, that we are dealing with the whole of the Amendments in a sense by pointing out the necessity for them. I am dealing with the Amendments generally and will not repeat any of this later on, unless I am provoked. I think it is perhaps useful that we should

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first deal with the position in general, and deal with the particular matters later.
The more serious offences are those which involve danger to the public, such as the offence of using a motor vehicle without insurance, the serious offences of dishonesty, forgery, fraud or deceit, which happen to be statutory alternatives in the road traffic legislation to the similar offences which remain imprisonable by magistrates' courts under the Forgery Act, the Theft Act or in Common Law. These more serious offences which involve grave risk of danger to the public include reckless and dangerous driving, driving or attempting to drive whilst unfit through drink or drugs, driving with excess alcohol in the blood, and so on. In these cases the Amendments would retain the present maximum period of four months' imprisonment by magistrates' courts, but they would abolish the present higher maximum period of imprisonment for six months in respect of second offences of reckless and dangerous driving, driving or attempting to drive whilst unfit through drink or drugs or with excess alcohol in the blood. The proposals in the Bill for higher fines remain untouched; and also untouched are the proposals in the Bill to abolish the existing powers of imprisonment by magistrates' courts for less serious offences, including careless and inconsiderate driving, failure to give name, and so on, in cases of dangerous and careless driving and cycling, or of an owner failing to give insurance information and defrauding a parking meter.
The effect of the Amendments is not only to retain, as my noble friend has pointed out, magistrates' powers to impose imprisonment for the more serious offences, but also to retain the defendant's right to elect for trial by jury in such cases. May I point out, following the remarks made by my noble friend concerning the Committee of Inquiry which has been set up under Lord Justice James, that the question of trial by jury is very material? This Bill is attempting to deprive an individual of the opportunity of electing for trial by jury. If the proposals in the Bill are not amended in this way they will necessarily prejudge the very issues for which Her Majesty's Government have set up the Committee under Lord Justice James which is to consider the division of
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criminal business between the magistrates' court and the Crown Court.
What I feel about these proposals is that they represent a slur, in a sense, on the power of discrimination of magistrates as to whether a sentence of imprisonment should be imposed. If a sentence of imprisonment is imposed, there is the possibility of appeal against a sentence in any case, so that if anyone felt he had been unjustly treated by the decision of the court he could appeal against sentence and ask for it to be reduced. Sometimes, of course, it might be increased, but that is something for the magistrates to decide. These are some of the points on which the whole of these Amendments are based.
The magistrates themselves and the justices' clerks both feel that the Amendments are necessary in order to enable magistrates' courts to carry out their duties properly. Various points were raised by my noble friend, which I do not want to repeat, in relation to restrictions to be placed on them in regard to detention sentences, and so on. That is a material point. Also, as the noble Baroness said, there is the necessity of bringing persons to the court so that inquiry may be made into their means. This is a very important matter, because without the presence of the individual in the court it is impossible for magistrates to decide what kind of fine should be imposed for the offence committed. In my view, these are basic reasons why the noble Viscount should regard these Amendments as being reasonable. I think at one stage he or his officers said they thought there was reason in some of the proposals which had been made, and that they would be considered. The inference was that they themselves would introduce Amendments which would meet the various cases put to them. I hope that that is in the mind of the noble Viscount and that he will find himself able to accept at least some of the Amendments at this stage.
9.14 p.m.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I cannot agree with the noble Baroness or with the noble Lord, Lord Janner. I, too, have asked a great many of my magistrate colleagues what they feel about the Amendments that have been put down. I would have wished that the

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noble Baroness had moved Amendments Nos. 54 to 70 inclusive because they seem to me to be rather different from Amendments Nos. 71, 72 and 73 which relate to the 1972 Act, while the others refer to an earlier Act.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I thought I said Amendments Nos. 54 to 59; I have two other Amendments which deal with totally different matters.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I thought that, in answer to my noble friend the Minister, the noble Baroness said she had moved all Amendments en bloc. But I understand that is not correct and we are now discussing only Amendments Nos. 54 to 58.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I suggested that the noble Baroness might be speaking to all of them. If the Committee wish to reserve three Amendments until the end, naturally I would not in any way suggest they should not do so. The noble Baroness referred to alcohol in the blood, and that kind of thing, which comes in the second block of Amendments. I thought we might take those at the same time. There is nothing whatever to prevent the noble Baroness, my noble friend or anybody else, going back to Amendments Nos. 71, 72 and 73, later.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I think I am correct in saying we are discussing Amendments Nos. 54 to 70, excluding No. 69. I have discussed these Amendments. I thought we might take colleagues, including a very senior member of the Magistrates' Association. They are not trivial offences, and I do not mean to imply that they are, but they are not offences which, on the whole, are connected with the driving of vehicles upon the road. One would have thought the Road Traffic Bill would have been more connected with actual driving on the road. I honestly feel that sending anybody to prison for instructing somebody unregistered is really going beyond anything that any magistrate would want to do. I do not feel it is necessary to give magistrates that power. There are other offences, such as tampering with a vehicle and not stopping after accidents. That is a prevalent offence, certainly in the court in which I sit, but I should never dream of sending anybody to
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prison, nor would I want ever to suspend anybody from driving for such offences.
One important purpose in Amendments Nos. 71, 72 and 73 is that one should be able to retain the possibility of sending somebody to prison and thereby suspend them from driving. If the Government allowed us to send people to prison for any of these offences I do not think any of these laws would be implemented. If they were not to be implemented, I do not see why they should be in the Bill.
LORD SOMERS: Since the noble Baroness has brought up the question of suspension from driving I should like to inform the Committee that it is the opinion of the Institute of Advanced Motorists that suspension of driving is a poor penalty indeed since a driver, after having been suspended for a given period, will come back on to the roads an even worse driver than he was before. It would be far better to make him take the test again, or perhaps even pass an advanced test.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I meant a suspended prison sentence, not suspending the person from driving.
LORD SOMERS: I am sorry; I misunderstood the noble Baroness.
LORD FOOT: It is incumbent upon anybody who intervenes at this late hour not to try to repeat what has been said before and to confine oneself, if possible, to one single point. I want so to confine myself, but it is a point of considerable substance about which we have in recent months been hearing from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor.
In raising this matter perhaps I may say that I am very pleased to see the noble and learned Lord sitting on the Government Front Bench. One of the questions raised by the provisions of Schedule 5 is that of circumstances in which a person should have the right to elect for trial, to which the noble Lord, Lord Janner, has already referred. That arises in this way: under the present law if an accused person is liable on summary trial to imprisonment for a period exceeding three months then, with one or two limited exceptions, he has an absolute right to elect to be tried by jury. One of the results of removing the powers of imprisonment from magistrates in these

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so-called road traffic offences is that where previously the magistrates had a power to send somebody to prison for a period exceeding three months, and where that is now being withdrawn, the person accused of that offence will no longer have the right to elect to be tried by jury.
Going on from there, some of the offences which we are now here considering—and I am assuming that we are considering the whole range of these ultimate penalties—are offences of dishonesty of one kind or another. I think it would be true to say that if we were to take the law generally and to take a wide view of it, we should find that in the past and over a very long period of time it has been the view of the Legislature, that where a person is accused of an offence of dishonesty he should have the right of trial by jury. I say that that is a general principle which you can read into the law because you will find it provided that in those cases where a person can be summarily tried for an offence of dishonesty, generally it will be found that the magistrates have a power of punishment in excess of three months.
The first Amendment with which we are dealing here concerns an offence of that kind because this is an offence of dishonesty—making a false statement. Until now the magistrates have had the power to fine or to impose a sentence of imprisonment for four months, or both. If it is true that up to now most offences of dishonesty have been considered to be of such importance that the accused ought to have the right of trial by jury, and if that is a general principle which we have worked upon in the past, then I suggest, first, that if that general principle is now going to be breached—and that is what I suggest is being done here—we are taking a number of offences of dishonesty and we are saying that if this Bill, and in particular this Schedule, goes through, for the future they shall not have the right of trial by jury. If we are going to breach that principle I suggest that it ought to be done openly, that it ought to be made clear what we are doing, and it ought not to be tacked on to the end of a comparatively trifling Road Traffic Bill.
I suggest that this is an important principle. It is one about which the noble
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and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has been speaking recently. I am wondering whether, in the case of some people who in the past have had the right to trial by jury, we ought to deprive them of that right and allow the matter to be dealt with by the magistrates. But if this is going to be done, surely it is wrong that it should be done by being tacked on to the end of a Bill of this kind.
It seems to me there is great force in the argument that in so far as that principle is being breached in this Schedule, that is pre-empting the considerations and deliberations of the James Committee. I say that for this reason. I have the Consultative Note which the James Committee issued, from which it seems clear that the Committee think that what is involved here, and what is being done here, is a matter which comes within their deliberations and considerations. The terms of reference of the James Committee were the distribution of business in the criminal courts between the Crown Court and magistrates' courts. The Note which they have issued attempts to set out the main issues involved. It explains the present position; it explains that there were certain offences which could only be dealt with on indictment in the Crown Court, and that at the other end there were offences which could only be dealt with summarily; in between, there are a number of what they call "intermediate" offences which may be dealt with in one court or the other.
Having revealed the present situation, the Committee pose the question that, given that it is inevitable that intermediate offences should be retained in some form, who should determine the mode of trial of such offences? That is the first question the Committee asked themselves. What is happening here with regard to these offences of dishonesty, where the penalty of imprisonment is being taken away from the magistrates, is that the Bill is seeking to answer the question which the James Committee say is one of the first matters they had to consider.
I listened the other day with attention and great interest to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor when he was replying in Committee to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, on the Land Registry Bill. I remember how he told us that he rather reproved and reproached the

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noble and learned Lord for not being consistent with his own principles. He said that what the noble and learned Lord was asking him to do under a certain Amendment was to tack on to an uncontentious Bill something which really had nothing whatever to do with that particular Bill and was highly controversial. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor thought that was not the right way to go about the matter and he said, moreover, that this is a matter which is now before the Law Commission and it would be inadvisable for us to pre-empt or prejudge what advice we are going to get from the Law Commission. He went on to say, finally, that this was a matter also where we wished to have consultations with the two legal bodies mainly concerned, the Bar Council and the Law Society.
Have we not got exactly the same situation here? We have this matter referred to the James Committee in place of the Law Commission. We have both the associations which are mainly concerned in this matter wholly opposed to what the Government are proposing to do, that is to say the Magistrates' Association and the Magistrates' Clerks Society. Both have declared their opposition to what the Government are proposing to do. Is it right that this essential principle should be breached in this Bill as a sort of tail end to a Bill which is primarily concerned with something quite different, that is, road traffic offences and road safety? I hope that between now and the next stage the Government will seriously consider whether it is right or appropriate to introduce into a Bill of this kind this major change in the principles of the law.
9.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: There are, I suppose, those who are still here in Committee at half past nine who might say that this is a matter that has been tacked on the end of a long Bill. But the fact is that there has been no secret about the inclusion of these provisions in the Road Traffic Bill, and I can only commiserate with all those who, like myself, have to deal with Clause 24 and Schedule 5, instead of having it dealt with as Clause 6 and Schedule 1, for example. The noble Lord really cannot get away with the allegation that this has been tacked on to something to
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which it is not appropriate. I will not have it. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that there has been considerable discussion about this matter in a number of quarters, and this is no afterthought. This is an important matter, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Janner, himself said, and I agree with him. So let us not try to deal with it in that way but rather look at the merits of the various points made by those who have spoken.
I seem to remember since I have been making speeches here representing the Home Office point of view that there are quite a number of Members of this House who are not in favour of sending people to prison unless it is absolutely necessary to do so in order to protect society from them and from their activities. That is certainly the attitude towards imprisonment which is most earnestly held by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I was extremely glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, endorsing that view at the very beginning of her speech. I am bound to say, although it may not be immensely complimentary to the Prison Service, that I am not sure what good a three or four month sentence for a driving offence does to anyone. We may do our best for them, but I cannot believe that it is something which is very rehabilitative or really anything that must be imposed; indeed, this does seem to be the view of the magistrates on the whole, because they do not usually use it. So let us start off with the assumption that if we can get rid of imprisonment for offences for which it is not necessary, we should take every opportunity to do so.
This brings me straight up against the argument about the James Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, makes a huge issue of principle about this. What does he wish us to do? Does he wish us to stick to our principles and try to get rid of imprisonment in cases where we think it proper to do so, or would he wish us to wait for ever and a day until the James Committee have reported, and some huge Criminal Justice Bill is introduced? We had one last year so that we might have to wait years and years before we had the opportunity. Would not the noble Lord, upon reflection, and others who have considered this matter at length and at large, agree that it is worth while

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bringing before Parliament, when we have a suitable opportunity, the proposition that we should take away the power of imprisonment if it is not necessary, and if we can satisfy other criticisms which have been raised—and I shall attempt to do this—about the consequences of changing the law in that way? I really must put the onus on noble Lords who would suggest that prison is still the right penalty to retain, at any rate for the majority of these offences. If we have to be selective, I pray that it will not be to-night but on a subsequent occasion. Let us go through the whole list, and I should like to know why noble Lords wish to retain prison for a whole lot of these offences.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, produced an argument about the dishonesty offence, and it follows from the Amendment he put down earlier. It is, if I may say so, the most classic example of the circular argument I have ever heard. The noble Lord says that there is a general principle that for dishonesty offences you provide for the election to go for trial by jury. He derives that principle from the fact that, for the most part, the maximum penalty that magistrates may impose is over three months; in other words, four months. That automatically allows you to elect to go for trial by jury, and I think the reason why you are given the opportunity to go for trial by jury is because you are liable to go to prison for four months, or indeed liable to go to prison at all. Once the suggestion that a man may go to prison is removed, the complete edifice of Lord Foot's argument falls apart. There is no principle; there is no necessity to go for trial by jury; there is no prison, and the complete argument collapses around the noble Lord's ears. This matter must be seriously considered by those who have already picked up the point that the removal of the power of the magistrates to send people to prison for these offences indeed removes the possibility that a person may elect to go for trial by jury. Why does he want to go for trial by jury if he is not in danger of going to prison? What is the tremendous attraction of the jury trial if the maximum that he can be sentenced to is a fine and, it is true, disqualification?
LORD FOOT: The attraction of the matter is that if a person is convicted of
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an offence of dishonesty, as opposed to a traffic offence like dangerous or careless driving, it can damage his whole career. That is the difference between the conviction for an offence of dishonesty and a conviction for an ordinary traffic offence. It can be absolutely injurious to a person's reputation. He may be denied the opportunity of following his employment if he has been convicted of an offence of dishonesty. That is the difference, and that is why we want to retain the right of a person to go for trial by a jury in all cases where a man's reputation, and therefore his livelihood, may be at stake.
LORD JANNER: Would the noble Viscount forgive me if I also intervene for a moment? He has overlooked one point that I did my best to bring forward at Second Reading. It is not only a question of imprisonment; it is a question of a man who wants to have his case tried by a jury. It is a question of a person who values his reputation, even though only a small fine were imposed. Many people go to courts feeling very disturbed at the fact that they are brought to the court at all, even though it may be a very small matter so far as fines or anything else is concerned; and if they want to go before a jury, surely they should have the right to a jury trial. That is what it amounts to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: As to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that appears to be the view of the Liberals. So be it; it is on record that the Liberal Benches think that you ought to retain imprisonment in the magistrates' court for these offences, which it is perfectly true could be said to be alternatives to dishonesty offences under the general law of dishonesty but which in fact are offences under the Road Traffic Act. The noble Lord takes that view. I respect his view, and I respect the Liberal Party in thinking that that is the right way to deal with it, but I do not agree with them.
As for the noble Lord, Lord Janner, I say again, more in sorrow than in anger, that I cannot reconcile what the noble Lord has said with what used to go on around my ears when I attended quarter sessions in Devon. I know why people went for trial by jury. I have heard it discussed in the robing room, in

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the corridors, and all over the building. I know why they went for trial by jury, and it was not the reason that the noble Lord gave. I think that any magistrate or practitioner in the courts, if he searched his heart, and has carried through even a modicum of the cases that I did, knows perfectly well why people want to be tried by a jury.
I wonder whether my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve will forgive me. Although she did not want to talk about the final group of Amendments, it might be convenient—I know that I could come back to this—if I developed my argument on the matter as I went along.
As an example of what I suppose must be the most serious cases, and certainly the ones where people most frequently elect to go for trial by jury, let us see what has been happening. Let us take, first, that famous business about driving when you have too much alcohol or drugs in your blood, or under the old offence—and this is something which I know will fascinate the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, because he is very interested in this. We did a survey—a sample survey, it is true—and we found that of all the cases which went on election to the Crown Court for trial, 96 per cent. were at the option of the defendant. So it was in less than 4 per cent of the cases that the prosecution thought the case was worthy of presentation on indictment before the Crown Court. I wonder why that is. I know, of course, why that is. It is because it is a very strange and, I am afraid, a known fact, that one can persuade juries of things about which, on occasion, one cannot persuade magistrates. Why is it that, of the reckless or dangerous driving cases that went to the Crown Court in which there was a choice whether to be tried by the magistrates' court or in the Crown Court, no less than 100 per cent. in my sample was at the election of the defendant? I suggest it is for the very same reason.
Let us see what the effect was on the Crown Court business. I will take the second case of reckless or dangerous driving. These cases were 1 per cent. of the total and took up 1·4 per cent. of the whole length of time taken in the Crown Courts for that period of time. Now let us look at the drink and driving
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cases. These made up 5·5 per cent. of the cases and took up 6·1 per cent. of the time. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, was making the point on Second Reading that to deal with this matter under the old offence—after all, you could always argue that you could walk along the white line perfectly well—if you go under what used to be the 1967 Act, is a purely technical matter: either you had that percentage of alcohol in your blood or you did not. You can make up every defence under the sun—people have, and cases have on occasion been brought up to your Lordships' House on several extremely ingenious propositions—but the fact of the matter is that the essence of this case is: have you or have you not got 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood? That is all there is to it.
LORD HACKING: Not quite.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: Very nearly. It ought to be all there is to it. Why did 96 per cent. of the people who had the election go to the Crown Court for trial by jury on that sort of thing? I think it stands to reason—and this is what we really want to be arguing about. I would suggest that we have here a very much better package. Let me now go through some of the positive sides, because I fully recognise that we must be careful about taking away powers which are really useful, and we must certainly be very careful indeed about any imputation that the magistrates are not doing their job or that they are being hampered in the proper exercise of their judicial functions. There cannot be any question that this group of Amendments underestimates the seriousness of these offences. That is why we have so remarkably increased the penalties in the Bill. We have put up the fines tremendously, and this is a mark of the seriousness that we consider attaches to these offences. I should have thought that the type of case which the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, mentioned, where the traffic offence was merely, as it were, a symptom of a very disturbed young man—and I recognise these cases because I see them not infrequently myself—would be an obvious one for the prosecution to take on indictment to the senior court, where in any event we should want to have opinions from doctors and the other material that

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is necessary. I should have thought that was a natural case; and noble Lords will recognise that all these cases can still be taken on indictment to the Crown Court if they are serious enough.
As to its being a deterrent, I do not know about that. Deterrents are always terribly difficult to argue about, but if the noble Baroness thinks this really is a deterrent I must genuinely accept her view about it. But it is something that will remain a deterrent, in that when somebody drives like Jehu down the middle of the road he is not going to know whether he will be taken up on indictment to the Crown Court, from where he may still be imprisoned, or whether he will be fortunate enough to appear before the noble Baroness who can only fine him. I should have thought that there was some element of deterrent left in so far as one still has the indictment proceedings.
I recognise some technical difficulties. I am aware that if these powers are taken away there will be no further power to use community service orders, detention centres and attendance centres; and indeed, if the case is dealt with on indictment there may be difficulties about hospital orders and that sort of thing. There is also the technical problem about bringing a person before a court for a means inquiry on a fine. It can be done in the end under the fine enforcement procedure, but I appreciate that there are difficulties. Those are matters, not custodial methods of treatment, which I think we should be perfectly prepared to reconsider, if the magistrates would like to have those instead of the power to send someone to prison. There are difficulties, but I am not certain that they are insuperable. I should like to look at this matter again and that is why I am glad of this specific discussion. If the noble Baroness mentions this, as she did, I am delighted, and I should like seriously to consider it.
Certainly that kind of approach, and particularly after what I have said, cannot be taken as showing any lack of confidence in the way magistrates use their powers. It is really nothing of the kind. We are giving them these extra powers and reflecting on the fact that
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they, like us, will find that imprisonment is seldom necessary in these cases. Finally, to clinch this, and to cope with the point made by my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borne about suspended sentences (and I appreciate that a court cannot impose a suspended sentence unless it can impose real imprisonment straight off) let us look at the figures. Let us take first dangerous driving. This is the latest set of figures for 1972, of magistrates' court appearances on these charges. There were 8,439 findings of guilt for dangerous and reckless driving. Immediate imprisonment occurred in 113 cases and suspended sentences in 131. Let us take the drink and drugs, the old, now rather superannuated, offence which has been largely replaced by what was in the Road Safety Act. We had 1,520 findings of guilt; 40 immediate imprisonments and 31 suspended sentences. In the more common offences of driving with excess blood alcohol, there were 42,074 findings of guilt; 311 immediate imprisonments; 388 suspended sentences. And in cases of failure to provide a specimen (which is really an alternative if it is not possible to get the man or woman technically on the blood alcohol count), there were 1,933 findings of guilt; 48 straight imprisonments; 49 suspended sentences.
Bear in mind those percentages. They are very small. None of them is more than 5 per cent., and in some cases the figure is smaller than 5 per cent. What would happen if the vast preponderance of those cases went on indictment to the Crown Court? I do not believe that this would amount to anything like the burden on the Crown Court now imposed by those who elect to go for trial. On the other hand, we should still have the worst cases being dealt with by a court which could impose not only direct but also suspended sentences. I suggest that figures like that for the last year indicate that the magistrates, although they have been using imprisonment to some extent, have been doing so very sparingly, probably for the reason that they did not think this was an apposite penalty for this sort of offence. Therefore they will find that they are remarkably little hampered in that element by having the power taken away. I take the point about the other things and I will study

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those again. But the actual power of imprisonment seems to me something that is not being used very frequently. That is the general argument. I know that the Amendments are in themselves selective and do not cover all the matters we have dealt with, and I am grateful for that. But if we want to go back and look at it offence by offence by statistics, perhaps we could do it on another day. Perhaps it has been an advantage to hear the arguments that the noble Lords and noble Baronesses have put forward about their general approach to this matter. I should like to think about those arguments. Perhaps they would also do me the courtesy of thinking about the arguments that I have put forward, and the figures—because I believe that we are not so very far apart. What may have seemed initially a very difficult matter of principle is one that we shall be able to resolve in the end. I am grateful for the way the noble Baroness has handled this subject: it has been very expeditious. Certainly the discussion has been useful to me.
9.51 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I should like to thank the Minister for his very thoughtful reply. I am of course in some dilemma, in that it is not only my name on these Amendments. So I shall obviously have to consult with my noble friends. The noble Viscount is quite correct, of course, in his comments on the attitude of the average magistrate toward imprisonment. If I were to engage him in a debate on the whole philosophy of imprisonment, I would say that I have certainly been very puzzled why with certain people, such as a prostitute, imprisonment was almost inevitable, whereas when a man does something quite disastrous with a car one has a much longer and much more protracted discussion about this. In other words, what I am really saying is that the whole philosophy of crime and punishment is one that I would like to debate with the noble Viscount on another occasion; but not to-night.
I know that it sounds easy and straightforward to say, "Put up the fine". But I think perhaps in the later stage of the Bill it will be interesting to know the extent of the unpaid fines. To me it is useless to impose heavy fines if we do not
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enforce what should happen to people when they do not pay their fines. But my main concern—and the noble Viscount has indulged me in answering this—is that I do not see imprisonment as a deterrent. I am a great believer in deterrents (I know that this is not a fashionable view nowadays), but I think it has value. I believe that one of the most effective ways of dealing with road accidents was the kind of frightening poster of the black widow. Frighten, fear or deter are words which nowadays we do not like to use. Possibly my Catholic upbringing makes me believe that there is a great virtue in these things. I think the fear of imprisonment has shown that it can be brought into play. I quoted earlier the case of the shoplifter, where people went on for months trying to avoid fines which were not paid—in some cases by foreigners who were leaving the next day. In fact, they were nearly always leaving the next day, so far as I can see. They were merely collecting a few gifts they could take back. But the moment the deterrent was brought into play—not by lay magistrates—it had an effect. So I think there is a virtue in deterrents. Particularly my own interest is in the non-custodial powers. All magistrates know that so often there are things they want to do which they cannot do unless they are dealing with a certain sort of case and have certain powers.
I would only say to the noble Lady, Lady Macleod of Borve, that I am amazed that she did not think that failure to stop and report an accident was a serious offence. I was recently, outside my own front door, practically run down by a car which disappeared into the night. I was extraordinarily lucky that I escaped not only real injury but death. The police said that either the driver was drunk or he had stolen the car. In my experience, the person who does report an accident is the reasonable person who has nothing to fear. Surely it is the type of hit-and-run driver whom we are thinking about. I am sorry she does not think that serious.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I am sorry. I was not aware that I actually said that. I felt that that, out of all the cases, was the most serious. That was my view.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: But the noble Lady did not think that it merited imprisonment as a possible punishment. However at this point I do not wish to prolong the debate. I cannot speak for all the other noble Lords who have spoken to the Amendment; they have dealt with other points. I would say particularly that I am interested and very heartened that the noble Viscount is going to look at the question of non-custodial powers. I am very happy to leave it there. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Janner would like to speak.
LORD JANNER: The noble Viscount has already indicated that he is prepared to consider the question with some of the points on detention centres and so on.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I said attendance centres or day training centres.
LORD JANNER: Perhaps at the same time the noble Viscount would consider the others as well, because they are of importance so far as magisterial work is concerned. Perhaps he would also consider, before we come together again, that the very argument he is using, that imprisonment was so very rarely used by the magistrates, is something which should encourage him to allow the magistrates to continue in the manner that they have been in the past. They do not exercise these rights in any way other than in the best interests of justice, and they have practised what the noble Viscount has referred to; that is, they have not sent people to prison except in exceptional cases. I think that speaks very favourably for the magistrates themselves, and perhaps covers the other points that
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they are complaining about in the event of the present provisions of the Bill being carried into effect. Perhaps he would consider the matter in that light and come to the conclusion that because they exercise that particular discrimination, and so very rarely send a person to prison, there is no need to worry about this. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Clauses 25, 26 and 27 agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Enactments Repealed]:
9.59 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 65, line 21, column 3, at end insert:
("In Schedule 4, the amendment of section 130 of the Road Traffic Act 1960.")
The noble Lord said: This further repeal, overlooked during the drafting of the Bill, is consequential upon paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 which provides that Section 130 of the Road Traffic Act 1960 shall cease to have effect. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD ABERDARE: I beg to move Amendment No. 80. This rectifies a misprint.
Amendment moved—
Page 65, line 57, column 3, leave out ("(5)") and insert ("(6)").—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with the Amendments.