HL Deb 02 July 1973 vol 344 cc103-20

7.10 p.m.

LORD MOTTISTONE

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, that the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Mottistone.)

House in Committee accordingly.

[The VISCOUNT HOOD in the Chair.]

Clause 5 [General regulations]:

LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 4: Page 6, line 5, leave out from beginning to ("regulating") in line 6 and insert ("(h)").

The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 4 I wonder, in view of the pressure of time about which we have just been advised, whether it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we discussed Amendment No. 5 with it. They both deal with the same area: namely, the question of charging fees and licensing agencies in that respect. Amendment No. 4 is a fairly substantial Amendment and has the effect of giving the Secretary of State power to make regulations restricting the charging of fees to employers by persons carrying on such agencies and businesses. As at present drafted the Bill proposes to prevent the Secretary of State from having that power. The other Amendment which we could perhaps discuss at the same time relates to page 6, line 14, and is to leave out from "fee" to the end of line 15. That has the effect of preventing an employment agency from charging any fee at all. So we are now discussing the general question of charging of fees. One point is whether the Secretary of State shall have power to regulate the charging of fees to employers, and the other is the question whether agencies shall charge fees at all. I recognise that these are fairly substantial Amendments, but they are moved so that we might get the position clear.

There has been in existence an I.L.O. Convention on this subject for a very long time, and here is a Bill which could make an "honest woman"—rather late nevertheless, better late than never—of this country by providing that fees should be restricted. As I understand it, that is one of two methods by which we could subscribe to the I.L.O. Convention doing the various things which are in the Bill plus one further thing for which this Amendment provides.I should have thought therefore that there is a very good reason for doing this and that a responsibility rests upon the Government to say why they are not seeking to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, to amend his Bill so that the country could subscribe to the I.L.O. Convention. That is one major reason.

Another major reason is that in the years that have passed since the I.L.O. Convention was signed we have become a member of the European Economic Community and are therefore interested in how other members of the Community regulate these affairs. I refer to what the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, said at col. 345 of the OFFICIAL REPORT On June 8 when we gave a Second Reading to this Bill. It is true"— he said— that, in most E.E.C. countries, private permanent placing agencies are generally prohibited"— not merely is there a restriction on the fees charged but agencies are prohibited. The noble Earl went on to speak about temporary hire agencies, which need not concern us now (we have discussed them on a previous occasion), and a few lines further down he continued: The E.E.C. Commission is at present examining this question"— that is, the question of having to harmonise or agree provisions affecting employment agencies throughout the Community because of activities of agencies across international boundaries— and the Bill will, so far as we can see, enable us to comply with any Directives which might emanate from Brussels. I think the noble Earl has to explain that statement. I should have thought that the addition of the Amendment might go some way towards justifying it. It is a statement which I welcome, but I do not see the justification for it on the Bill as at present drawn. Therefore, I should have thought that the fact that we are now members of the E.E.C. is a further reason why this first Amendment should be accepted. I have already referred to the second Amendment and to what the noble Earl said about the position so far as most E.E.C. countries are concerned. Again quoting him, he said that " private permanent placing agencies are generally prohibited".

The second Amendment refers to not charging a fee at all. I daresay that if no fee was charged there would be quite a few private employment agencies which would not be all that keen to open up business, incurring the overheads of rents, rates, telephones and what-have-you. I daresay, therefore, that this Amendment might be quite fairly read as meaning that a private employment agency would be in effect prevented from carrying on profitable business, except of course for temporary hire work. That is, as I say, a substantial Amendment, but it is moved because the noble Earl drew attention to the fact that in most E.E.C. countries private permanent placing agencies are generally prohibited, and it is the Government's intention, apparently, that we should be in a position to comply with any Directives which might emanate from Brussels. That is the reason for the first Amendment, and I think that the arguments in support of the first Amendment touch on the second Amendment and it is therefore saving time to discuss them together. I beg to move.

7.18 p.m.

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Mottistone wishes to deal with these substantial points here. I imagine he will wish to do so, but the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, made an appeal to me to substantiate certain remarks that I made at an earlier sitting of this Committee and also to deal with the point concerning the International Labour Organisation. If I may deal with just those parts of his remarks, I will then sit down and leave the remainder to my noble friend Lord Mottistone. I must say right away that it is true that, without the provision which the first Amendment would make possible, it will not be possible for the United Kingdom to ratify I.L.O. Convention 96. But it is generally believed that, although that Convention refers to the control of fees, in general the real spirit was to prevent employees from being charged. This Bill takes note of the spirit of Clause 6 of the Convention which prohibits the charging of fees to employees, except in circumstances prescribed by the Secretary of State.

The noble Lord showed his concern, in his colourful phrase, to make an "honest woman" of Britannia in this respect. I imagine he would be satisfied as to her honesty if I.L.O. Convention 96 were ratified. I must say to him that there are many, indeed the majority of, members of that organisation who have not seen fit to ratify. However, the noble Lord will have noted that this Bill goes a considerable way towards meeting the spirit of the Convention by the prohibition contained in Clause 6; and this seems to me to be consistent with my earlier remarks.

The progress of this Bill has been marked by an unusually accommodating spirit. The noble Lord himself is very accommodating, if I may say so, to move the two Amendments together, so I ask him to accept the compromise which Clause 6 offers by withdrawing this Amendment.

LORD MOTTISTONE

If I may take up the other points about this Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond said, these Amendments would effectively rule out any form of fee charging by employment agencies, whether immediately or in the future. Under the first Amendment which we are considering it would be possible for a future Government (I trust not this one) to so frame the regulations that no business could remain viable and comply with whatever regulations were put forward. Therefore it gives the Government immense power to push the employment agencies out of business altogether, and I would have thought that was not really part of the spirit of this Bill. The Bill is designed to provide what one might call "reasonable regulations", to ensure that agencies behave in a manner which, on the whole, is acceptable and agreeable to us in society at the moment.

The other point is that there exists experience on where a limit to the fee charges has been imposed—I can think of at least one, and there are probably others—and this has the effect of removing incentives to good standards from all the agencies. A particular place where this has occurred is in New York, where all the agencies charge the maximum fee and there is no incentive for them to improve on this at all. So the whole purpose of the employment agency is taken from it, and one could ask: "Why not do away with employment agencies in private business? "But that is not the purpose of this Bill; this Bill is designed to provide a framework for them. It may he that with the passage of time, what with the I.L.O. restrictions and the E.E.C., we may get to a stage where that will come about. Speaking from these Benches, I personally hope we do not; but I ask noble Lords to think of the matter in terms of this Bill, to improve agencies and to ensure that they can operate under the optimum conditions to conduct good business in an orderly fashion, to satisfy what Parliament wants them to do.

VISCOUNT FURNESS

Perhaps my noble friend Lord Gowrie can confirm that Her Majesty's Government have been forced to denounce the I.L.O. Convention 88 because of the introduction of fees in the State areas. If we have fees in the State areas, is it not reasonable to have fees in the private sector as well?

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

I am not sure whether I can be very helpful to my noble friend Lord Furness on this, but as I understand, in general, the Common Market countries prohibit permanent placing agencies. Brussels is only considering temporary agencies. I do not know whether that helps my noble friend, but if it does not, I will look at the point in more detail.

LORD DIAMOND

I will come back to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, in a moment, but perhaps I might ask the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, whether that last remark meant that the justification for what he said on June 8 about complying with any Directives which might emanate from Brussels is to be taken in the context of temporary hire only? Do I gather that is all they are considering?

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

Yes.

LORD DIAMOND

Then that explains the statement, and so long as it is clearly understood that this Bill certainly does not give the Government powers automatically to comply with any Directives which might emanate from Brussels, dealing with permanent placing as well as private placing, then I think any misunderstanding has been removed. I am grateful to the noble Earl for that.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. What he said is quite right and the points are taken. I was particularly concerned as to the second Amendment, not in regard to what he had said but what the noble Earl had said, and I thought this was a suitable opportunity to seek clarification of that.

As to the first part, the noble Earl has asked me to say whether I am satisfied that in this modern and somewhat permissive age Britannia might be held to be an honest woman notwithstanding that she has not fully complied with everything which her Victorian agent required. I think we can accept that, and in those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD DIAMOND

May I ask the noble Earl whether he has had an opportunity of looking into the question I asked him on the last occasion, as to whether the regulations which the Government have in mind and which are covered in this clause would include the question of requiring agencies to see that the National Health insurance cards of prospective applicants for a job were or were not in order? Has the noble Earl had time to look at that and, if so, what is the answer?

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

I am afraid the answer to that is "No". I apologise if I should have done and I will try to chase up that point.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clauses 7 to 11 agreed to.

Clause 12 [Regulation and orders]:

7.29 p.m.

LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 6: Page 9, line 8, leave out ("cases ors").

The noble Lord said: As at present drafted, this subsection provides that regulations under this Act may make different provision in relation to different cases or classes of case. I can understand the need for the reference to "different classes of case". What I am concentrating on by this Amendment is the question of whether it is necessary to have regard to individual cases, because if it is we are entering again on a most difficult field of delegated legislation and I think we ought to be either prepared to justify it at the time that Parliament is giving the Government these powers, or at all events to realise the difficulties that arise from hybrid delegated legislation of this kind. As I understand the position, the clause as at present drafted would make it possible for regulations to deal with a single case. Such an order would clearly be a hybrid order and therefore I think one's attention should be drawn to it. It is in order to seek the justification for that, that I beg to move this Amendment.

LORD NIOTTISTONE

I think this is a matter of endeavouring to identify what the Bill is trying to deal with. When one talks about classes of cases as opposed to cases, what one thinks "classes" are really matters. The fact is that there are different sub-classes, as it were, within classes, which are cases. For example, one could have an agency dealing with domestic staff, but it might be dealing with domestic staff from the United Kingdom only or it might be dealing with domestic staff from the United Kingdom and overseas. The regulations for these two would need to be slightly different. Another example might be secretarial agencies. There might be a secretarial agency which dealt with providing staff for overseas work, and another one which dealt with staff for work at home; and again, the regulations would need to be slightly different. It is in order to give a flexibility to allow these different applications of classes that there is a sub-unit, let us say, of cases by themselves; that is, cases within classes. I hope that is a sufficiently good explanation for the noble Lord.

LORD DIAMOND

Well, we all have hopes, and I hope the explanation I shall eventually receive will be good enough, but I do not think we have got there yet.

My difficulty is that I think those promoting the Bill have the responsibility of showing either that it is essential to deal with individual cases, or that the words "classes of case" are not sufficient for their purposes. The noble Lord has described what to my mind are subclasses—and he used the words: "classes" covers sub-classes. He has talked about classes of case only in my view—I am not a lawyer, but as I understand what he was saying, he was referring to classes of case and not to cases. The trouble I want to avoid is a regulation dealing with Mr. X or Messrs. X Limited, full stop; not a category, however small a category, because that is something with which we are all familiar. There are provisions for dealing with categories, however unsatisfactory and however difficult they may be, by way of delegated legislation, especially in another place. But dealing with hybrid delegated legislation is a specially difficult matter, and I want to avoid that difficulty by preventing Parliament from enacting the possibility of a Government's issuing regulations in that form unless it is essential.

The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, said that there are classes. Therefore I say that then it is not essential to have the word cases ", unless he is telling me that through my ignorance of the law I have misunderstood the meaning of the word and "cases" does not mean, does not include and could not include an order affecting a single case—Mr. Jones or Messrs. X Limited, as the case may be. What I am seeking to do—and the noble Viscount, Lord Furness, ought to be on my side—is to prevent a Government by edict affecting a single individual agency unless there can be shown good reason for it here and now. So I ask the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is he proposing to give the Government power to affect a single agency, and, if so, for what reason?

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

It might be helpful if I came in here. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, as we should all expect, has not misunderstood his law; he has used the word "case" perfectly accurately. It could, of course, apply to an individual case. The noble Lord talked about difficulty, and this is both a difficult and a knotty point. It is difficult to state very definitely at this stage whether any individual case would be the subject of a regulation, but I must tell him that this might be so in connection with exemptions under the powers of Clause 13(7). It might be so if it were deemed appropriate to exempt some particular quasi-public service from the requirements of the Bill—for example, the Crown Agents who, technically speaking, are covered by the Bill, although the Crown itself is excluded from its provisions. Therefore we do find this Amendment, though I think it has been helpful to pinpoint this difficulty, somewhat restricting, since the effect would be to require regulations to refer only to classes of agency as my noble friend, Lord Mottistone said, and not to individual cases.

LORD DIAMOND

What the noble Earl has just said is important. What he is saying is that the words in the Bill mean what I thought they meant, which gives the Government power to issue regulations affecting a single case, but that they envisage using that power only where that case is a public body or a Government body of the kind he has mentioned. If that is so, I can well understand it, and that comes into my second category of justifying that particular use. But that would mean that Parliament would, of course, have to be very watchful indeed if by any mischance or oversight any Department—of course, the Minister would not necessarily be aware of it—should seek to use this machinery for hybrid Instruments affecting a private individual. I am most grateful to the noble Earl and seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 12 agreed to.

Clause 13 [Interpretation]:

LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 7: Page 10, line 2, leave out from beginning to end of line 17 and insert ("the Manpower Services Commission established by any Act of this Session establishing such a Commission").

The noble Lord said: Although we are very comfortably winning the race against the clock, it would be sensible, if I may suggest it, that this Amendment should be discussed with Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent. I understand it is agreeable to him. He is also quite agreeable that it should be discussed with Amendment 9 as well, which says very much the same thing as Amendment 8, because all three affect the same point, namely, who the licensing authority should be. As at present drafted "the licensing authority" means a number of different authorities for different purposes, different areas, but excluding the most local of local authorities, namely, the district council, and excluding the most general control, namely, the Government or Government agency.

The reason I think these Amendments might well be discussed together is that I see two main arguments for deciding on the licensing authority. One is the very familiar one that one wants an overall licensing authority so as to secure equality of treatment in all respects against all those who are affected and over those who are affected. That would mean either the Government, or, as we are happily dealing with a Bill at this very moment which sets it up, the Manpower Services Commission. That would seem to me, at all events, to be the ideal body to take over this responsibility, if one accepted that as the major argument. Indeed, it has many points in its favour. It means, for example, that any unsatisfactory employment agent whose licence in a particular area had been withdrawn for some reason or other—assuming a licensing authority restricted to an area—would not be pre-vented from attempting to set up in another area in the hope that he would not be known in that area, moving across the boundary, if the licensing authority covered only an area within a boundary; whereas if you have an overall licensing authority, such as the Manpower Services Commission, there would be a central register and this would be a satisfactory remedy for that evil. That is an additional argument in favour of an overall authority.

It so happens that the Manpower Services Commission, which is almost certain to be set up, would be advantaged if it could have the information which would stem from the employment agencies themselves in terms of the movement of labour, which jobs were becoming scarce and which vacancies were becoming scarce. It would be more likely to get that information and to require that information if it were the overall licensing authority. So it would assist from its own point of view. Then again it would ensure that there were equal vigour and enthusiasm brought to bear in the deployment of the licensing provisions as respects all employment agencies, wherever situated. It would not be the case that employment agencies in the South could get away with things that their competitors in the North could not, or vice versa. At all events, these are reasons why the familiar administrative arrangement of overall control could be accepted as the dominant argument.

As against that, there is an alternative point of view. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, found it surprising that I should express difficulty in understanding at Second Reading that I should contemplate two alternatives. I do not think it is beyond anyone's breadth of imagination to contemplate that either there is that argument or there is the alternative argument; namely, that what is the most important thing is that the licensing authority should know its customers and know them well, and, therefore, should be the local authority; namely, the district council. A district council would know all those who have licences within its area. On Second Reading, I gave the example of Southampton and of Plymouth as being areas where the district council would know not only what was going on in their cities, which the county would not know, but the district council would be the body which would know what was mainly happening in the county, because what was happening in the county was in fact happening in the city, the rest of the county being more or less a vacuum so far as employment agencies are concerned. They are all concentrated, in those two cases, within the one major city in the county, and the rest is not the kind of industrial setup which requires or feeds employment agencies. So I repeat that the alternative point of view is that you want to have as local a body as possible, and that is why the second Amendment provides for a local body.

As noble Lords will know, I am anything but dogmatic, and could well accept either point of view if either could be fully justified. What I find difficulty in accepting is the kind of compromise at which those who built the famous bridge over the famous river arrived. Those responsible for building it were told that the ships they had to accommodate were sometimes very tall ships and sometimes very low ships, and so the decision, no doubt emanating from a politician, was, "Let us have a compromise and build a bridge halfway between the two." That is the kind of compromise which it seems to me is the sole justification which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, adduced at Second Reading for the licensing authority being the county. The county is not local. If I may quote what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, said, I think he will find it valuable to have his memory refreshed. He said on June 8, at column 346—this was in the days when there used to be a publication called Hansard: We are talking about something that concerns people every day within their own local community. On balance, this is the sort of thing which needs to be handled locally rather than even as a subordinate department of some central body like the Manpower Services Commission."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8/6/73; col. 346.] The noble Lord, to be fair to him, was obviously dealing then with the argument about a central body, but his argument against a central body was in favour of a purely local body. He used the word, "vicinity". I think either would be satisfactory, but the halfway house would be unsatisfactory. It is for those reasons that I beg to move the first Amendment.

LORD DERWENT

As we are discussing all these Amendments together, perhaps I may speak next. I do not think this is a matter of principle. I believe it is a matter of good administration; therefore, I do not like the first centralised method of licensing, because I believe it will not be efficient. That will doubtless be answered by my noble friend Lord Mottistone in due course. May I go straight to the question of district licensing. This is not only a matter of Plymouth or Southampton. There are many counties under the new set-up which are very large geographically. In London, which, after all, is very large geographically, with an enormous population, it is not the G.L.C. who will do the licensing, it is the borough councils. Why? Because they will know what happens in their local boroughs. In the metropolitan counties exactly the same applies: it is not the metropolitan county which will do the licensing, it is the small towns. Then suddenly we come to these non-metropolitan counties and we are told that the county is going to do the licensing.

May I, as an example, nothing more, take my own part of the world. We do not know quite where our new county council is going to be; it is either going to be at Northallerton or at York. Most of the employment agencies are in the holiday resorts down the coast, Scarborough, Whitby and so on. They are all between 40 and 50 miles from York and they are all between 40 and 50 miles from Northallerton. If it happens to be York eventually, the far end of the county is 80 miles away at Ripon, where they do have employment agencies. A wretched inspector will first of all be asked to make inquiries. How can he cover these districts and expect to know what is going on? He simply will not know at all. On the other hand, in a town like Scarborough, for instance, if there is something a bit fishy about somebody who wants to set up an agency, somebody will know locally, and over a pint of beer will say to the inspector, who has asked "Do you know anything about this fellow"?, "We do know a bit about him. You had better watch him". If he lives 50 miles away, he will not have a clue. That is how these things work.

There is one other matter. There will be a local authority inspector at a place like Bridlington who will have to inspect the premises of these agencies under the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act. He comes under the local authority. Are we going to have yet another man brought in from 40, 50 or 60 miles away? If the inquiries are made by the district, without doubt the same man will be doing both inspectorates. It is not good administration to bring officials from miles away who will not know the locals.

VISCOUNT FURNESS

I want to intervene briefly. My noble friend Lord Derwent, whom we all respect as a former Minister, mentioned the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, and what he said is no doubt true. But in fact the licensing of employment agencies, while technically on an individual basis, will also be to a great extent the licensing of a particular employment agency which may have many branches scattered throughout the county. I submit to your Lordships that a large inspectorate would be more useful from the point of view of having a satisfactory inspection. Having said that—

LORD DIAMOND

May I interrupt the noble Viscount and ask him whether, with his great knowledge of these matters, there are likely to be agents who would have branches not only within the county but covering several counties?

VISCOUNT FURNESS

I must concede that to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, immediately. However, I was about to come to centralised administration and all I can say is that I support the noble Lords in front of me who have already rejected that argument.

LORD DERWENT

May I add that in my part of the world they are small employment agencies. I know several of them and they are almost one-man firms.

LORD MOTTISTONE

We really have two arguments. May I take what one might call the "maxi" solution first and go to the "mini" solution afterwards? On the "maxi" solution, I would endorse what I said at Second Reading and I am delighted that there was a Hansard to read it from. I rather felt from what the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, was saying that the great advantage—and I entirely acknowledge this—of some manpower services commission authority dealing with the work would be the centralisation of information so that one could compare the previous records of agencies and that sort of thing. Indeed, on the Second Reading I mentioned the fact that this particular subject had been considered by the Employment and Social Services Sub-Committee and the Expenditure Committee which made various recommendations which are embodied in the Bill, one of which was that there should be a central register for just this sort of purpose. In fact I am advised that there is provision within the Bill, in Clause 8(3), from which such a central register can and—subject to what my noble friend on the Front Bench will say —will be built up.

The "mini" solution is a more difficult one. I owe the Front Bench a great deal of gratitude, in that they forced us to split our Committee stage of this not very big Bill, which gave me time to consult with my own county council and my own district. The county council said, "Oh, there is no problem over this question, within the Bill as it is framed, of who should have the licensing responsibility within the county, because in Clause 101 of the Local Government Act authority is given to counties to delegate any suitable functions to districts "and I am advised that the Department of the Environment say that this particular part of the Act will apply to this licensing regulation within this Bill. Therefore there is provision by which, within a county which has this problem of perhaps rather more agencies than another county, and one which has the geographical problem of 90 miles travel, such as my noble friend Lord Derwent mentioned, the district could well say to the county—and one hopes that they will be on very good terms—"This is something which in your own interests you should delegate to us". From two people to whom I spoke in my own county I am sure that this is the way in which they would handle it and that there would be no problem.

It is perhaps recognised—though I have not heard the noble Lord, Lord Diamond do so yet—that there are some counties in which the county authority is probably the best one from the point of view, as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, put it, of efficiency of administration. If the county is relatively small and has only a few agencies within it, there is much to be said for having it on a county basis. If, on the other hand, there are other factors applying which make it more suitable to have this decentralised or delegated to the district, there is the opportunity for this to be done under Clause 101 of the Local Government Act. I hope that these two suggestions of the "maxi" solution and the "mini" solution to the problem will be acceptable to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond.

THE EARL OF GOWRIE

My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, wants to add to that. It seems to me that the questions have been expeditiously replied to and that my noble friend has dealt with the point admirably.

LORD DIAMOND

I agree immediately that the question has been dealt with admirably, but I do not want to convey to the noble Earl that there is ever an occasion on which we are not delighted to listen to him. I understand the arguments full well now—that the noble Viscount, Lord Furness, wants county authorities because of employment agencies which are going to cover the country at large, and the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, wants county authorities because the counties are going to delegate all the work to the districts. So we have here the two points of view very well argued. All three of us seem to be in agreement that there are arguments for the overall basis, or the "maxi" solution, and there are arguments for the "mini" solution; but nobody except the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, thinks that there may be counties to which the intermediate solution might be appropriate. But he has not given the reasons for saying that that might be the case. We have all heard the reasons for saying that either the "maxi" or the "mini" solution is the appropriate one. I am in a little difficulty here because the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has also put down—

LORD MOTTISTONE

I am sorry if I did not convey the full flavour of what I was trying to say, which is that the solution that seems to me to be the best one is in fact the middle solution, as I said at Second Reading, bust that in those counties where it would be more efficient to do it another way there is this provision available. But the middle solution is my preference.

LORD DIAMOND

I may be wrong, but if the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will forgive my being personal for a moment, he was at one stage, I believe, an ornament to the Navy. I am surprised therefore that he is putting forward the "ship" solution after I carefully explained what would happen to the top of the mast of those tall ships attempting to go under the bridge. However, this is not the time, nor is it appropriate on a Bill like this, subject to what the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, wants to say, to pursue these matters too far. I thought it was worth while to put down the Amendment to hear the reasons for it, and it is obvious that one will have to watch how the administration is going and hope that the solution will be a practical one. It will probably mean that in most cases the district will, at the end of the day, do the work. Therefore, if the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, is content, I would seek to withdraw my first Amendment and not to move the second one.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Whether Clause 13 shall stand part of the Bill?

8.0 p.m.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

Clause 13 deals with interpretation and Clause 5 deals with regulations. This excellent little Bill has, as one of its objectives, the desire to see that persons recruited from overseas have some protection. I hope when regulations are made that they will be more helpful in regard to prohibiting the taking of large fees, and in giving some protection to girl workers from overseas who might suffer like the Filippino girls did in the Rochdale affair. This can still be done under regulation, and there is no need to develop a long argument about it because it is self-evident. I hope to see this Bill become law, and when it becomes law I hope that some organisation is set up by means of which girls who come from overseas, or workers from overseas, will receive pamphlets and leaflets in their own language, so that if they are in real distress they can get some comfort and succour from a Government organisation.

Clause 13 agreed to.

Clause 14 [Short title, repeals, commencement and extent]:

On Question, Whether Clause 14 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD DIAMOND

Could I perhaps hold up the Committee for one further moment and say that I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, on the way he has handled this Bill. I wish him every success with this Bill. It is quite an honour to be as closely concerned as he is with something which is going to affect the lives of so many people, and we on this side wish the Bill well.

Clause 14 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.