Lords Sitting of 8 May 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 of Portsmouth.

FRENCH NUCLEAR TEST IN PACIFIC
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the protest made to the South Pacific Forum representing eight Commonwealth nations, they will now make strong representations to the Government of France to cancel the projected nuclear test on the Muraroa atoll.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, following the recent talks between the Prime Minister of Australia and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, we have drawn the attention of the French Government to the communiqué of the South Pacific Forum.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while welcoming back the noble Baroness from her rather exciting experiences, may I ask whether something more than this indication of the Australian point of view is not necessary? Is it not unprecedented that a whole continent should have protested against an event of this kind—including even the Polynesian representatives in the French Parliament? Could not Her Majesty's Government protest very strongly on behalf of the two British possessions, the Pitcairn and Solomon Islands, which are in the neighbourhood of the atoll where this test will be carried out.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his welcome, I would say that the French Government are very well aware of our views. We have often said that we hope that France will accede to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which prohibits nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she has seen the report of the Australian scientists based on the United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of atomic radiation: that there will be in distant Australia for the next 30 years one death each year from cancer arising from this radiation? Will it be within the terms of reference of the International Court at The Hague, when the case is brought there, to suggest that tests should be stopped until there is an international investigation into the effect of radiation on health and pollution.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I understand that the New Zealand Government is considering bringing a case before the International Court and therefore I could not possibly comment on what would be in order there. So far as our own responsibilities are concerned, we found that the monitoring we carried out in previous years indicated that there is no danger to health in the area.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware—I am sure she is partially aware—that some of us believe that there is between the great Powers a conspiracy of silence about the devastating effects of radioactivity? Will the noble Baroness try to take some action to bring it home to the Powers that be that science is being prostituted for the sake of power politics in the case of these continuous experiments in exploding radioactive material all over the earth.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think that that goes a little wider than the specific Question on the Order Paper, but no doubt the noble Lord will recall that when Australia and New Zealand cosponsored a United Nations resolution to suspend atmospheric tests, we supported them.

SOUTH AFRICAN WAGE RATES: PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY
2.43 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they recognise the possible undesirable consequences of Parliamentary Committees being set up to investigate the internal affairs of foreign countries; and whether in particular they appreciate the damage to British trade which may be caused by the current investigation by such a Committee into wage rates in the South African Republic.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I can only speak for this House, but I understand that the Parliamentary Committee of another place has not yet decided precisely how it intends to carry out its task.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that it seems regrettable that a precedent like this—to interfere in the internal affairs of another country—should appear to be established, and that a considerable amount of the time of people in this country will be taken up by the procedure which is referred to and to which attention is being drawn? Would she not also agree that technologically educated productivity is what is really desired in South Africa, and that the danger of too rapidly extending this might well be to harm the Bantu workers because thereby unemployment will be increased, particularly so in an area where there is a mixture of sustenance and cash economy.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Baroness answers that supplementary question, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether it is customary for us to ask Questions in this place about the proceedings in another place? This Question would not be admissible in another place, and it seems to me that we shall get into the gravest trouble if we attempt to pursue matters which concern the procedure of another place who are them-
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selves entirely sovereign in what they wish to do in the matter of Parliamentary Committees. May I ask the noble Earl whether he would sense the feeling of the House that we do not pursue this matter further.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I think that there is a phrase in Erskine May which runs as follows: that Questions which criticise the decisions of either House of Parliament are inadmissible. I think that I would agree with the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition—and I have taken advice on this—that this subject would not be open to questioning in another place. I think also that in the interests of good relations between the two Houses, and in view of the quotation from Erskine May, we should be careful in pursuing a matter of this sort here, and especially careful not to cast reflections on what a Committee of another place has decided to look at, whether they are right or wrong in their decision. I would suggest to my noble friend, with all respect, that we should tread very carefully on this particular ground.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, of course I defer in advance to the ruling of my noble Leader. But would he not agree with me that my Question refers to interference in the affairs of other countries, a matter which is frequently raised by Questions in this House—regrettably in my opinion—and is the case in respect of this Question which I have put down? Surely no infringement on the prerogative of another place is involved in the Question which I have asked about conditions in South Africa.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am not certain whether that question was addressed to me or to my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir. I was not suggesting to my noble friend Lord Barnby that he was in any way out of order at the moment, but I was suggesting that this is very delicate ground on which it would be right for all of us to tread very carefully. I would suggest to noble Lords on both sides of the House that it would be better not to pursue this line of questioning too far, if it were thought to be implying criticism of the procedure and proceedings of another place.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I support the noble Earl on that

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point. First of all, would he agree that the burden of this Question is not what goes on in Africa but is basically the action of a Committee of another place? And whether it is in order or out of order, which is always an arguable point in our House, is it not contrary to the practice and the manners of our House that we should do this.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, will noble Lords allow me to support that observation? The Question refers specially to current investigation by such a Committee. Surely we are on very dangerous ground in respect of the relationship between the two Houses if this type of implied or explicit criticism is contained in Questions on our Order Paper.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their support. I am grateful to my noble friend for the action which I suspect he is about to take in not pursuing this line of questioning.

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND KENYA ASIANS
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of Press reports that the Government of Kenya has given Asian residents notice to emigrate in the near future, and, in view of recent announcements that nonwhite immigration into this country will henceforth be very restricted, what they propose to do should such expelled residents seek entry into the United Kingdom.
THE MINISTER or STATE, HOMEOFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government keep closely in touch with developments affecting our passport holders in Kenya. The Government's immigration policy makes provision for the continued admission of United Kingdom passport holders from Kenya and elsewhere, in a controlled and orderly manner, under the special voucher scheme.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of that Answer is it to be understood that in the case of Kenya there has been advanced by the taxpayer some £125 million since independence? Is it understood from the noble Viscount's reply that entry will be strictly limited. In the case of Uganda, in addition to the voucher scheme of, presumably, some 14,000, some 26,000 came in. Is it to be understood that there would be a strict restriction in the case of a demand of this character.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, what my right honourable friend has said is that the number of vouchers to be issued in the future is to be of the same order of magnitude as in the past, and I do not think it is very sensible to try to forecast the precise numbers which will be available in any particular country. But, as my noble friend knows, there has been a substantial restriction over recent years and in view of that, and what my right honourable friend has said, I think I can agree with the tenor of what my noble friend is suggesting.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, has the noble Viscount observed from the figures published by the Home Office the other day that the number of vouchers awarded to Commonwealth citizens as a whole was very much lower than in the preceding year? In view of this decline in the rate of immigration of voucher-holders, and also in view of the difficulties faced by United Kingdom citizens in Kenya and Tanzania, does not the noble Viscount think that it is time, as I have suggested on numerous occasions to the Secretary of State, that we should consider an additional special allocation of vouchers for our citizens in East Africa.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, we have, of course, just accepted a very large number of our citizens from East Africa in circumstances with which I think the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has been greatly concerned, and rightly so. As I understand the situation, the Government have made no decision further than I have already stated, and although we keep in close touch with the Governments of the various countries concerned, I am not aware that we are planning to make any great increase in the allocation of vouchers, particularly

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in view of the process of assimilation of those from Uganda, which is still going on.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, is the noble Viscount able to confirm that the Government have given such notice to the Asian residents of that country.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am aware of what was said, I think at the end of April, by the Kenyan Minister for Commerce and Industry, but I do not understand there to be any urgent risk of people there being expelled, or anything of that sort. However, we are in close touch with the Kenyan authorities on the whole matter.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, can the noble Viscount say whether it is the case that the Kenyan Government have co-operated in the quotas allowed under the voucher system.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, yes; I think that is absolutely right. I think we should all be very grateful for it.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that this year, as last year, each voucher carries the privilege of 4 people possibly coming in so that whatever the number of vouchers granted annually—3,000 or 4,000—the number has to be multiplied by 4 as a possible inflow.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, as a statistic, and according to the figures that I have seen, my noble friend is probably right about that.

TRAFFIC DETECTOR UNITS IN LONDON STREETS
2.52 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: 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 is the function of the aluminium mushroom-shaped objects now being installed in central London streets.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords it would seem the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is referring to
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the small boxes, often mounted on posts, containing equipment to receive signals from adjacent cable loops embedded in the carriageway to detect vehicles approaching traffic signals.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, I should like to ask him whether he is aware that one of these objects appeared in Whitehall last Friday. They are not the large boxes, but flat boxes. I feel that many citizens are a little concerned as to whether some sinister influence is afoot.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, my information is that there are now somewhere between forty and fifty of these boxes in the Metropolis. If the noble Baroness and I live another three years we may perhaps find 300 or 400. They are, I gather, about 13¼ inches high, 8 inches wide and 4¾ inches in depth, and they are designed to act as detector units to warn traffic control of queues which may be building up.

DOMICILE AND MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
PROTECTION OF WRECKS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
EDUCATION (WORK EXPERIENCE) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments to be printed.
LONDON CAB BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

PRESCRIPTION AND LIMITATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD POLWARTH): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Polwarth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Rights and obligations which are imprescriptible for the purposes of sections 7 and 8 and Schedule 1]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved the following Amendment:
Page 20, line 24, at end insert—
("(d) any right to recover property extra commercium;")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to clarify the position of this class of property in relation to the provisions of the Bill, a matter which has been drawn to our attention by the Keeper of the Records. I should explain that property extra commercium comprises various categories of things which cannot be reduced into private ownership, either because of their nature, or because of some relevant rule of law. Particular examples are court records or other public documents which are held by whoever may have custody of them for the benefit of the community at large and not for the individual possessor. Where such articles are found in the possession of someone other than the proper custodian, it has been held that the latter's right to recover them does not prescribe: the right of recovery persists, however long may be the period of time during which they have been outside the legal custodian's control. It is not intended that the provisions of this Bill should affect such items, or their present immunity from the running of prescription; and the purpose of this Amendment is to make that intention clear.
At an earlier stage the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, raised the question of the use in this Bill of language which might
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not be readily intelligible to the layman, and I did my best to explain reasons why we could not alter such long-standing terms of use in this Bill. Perhaps I could anticipate similar criticism by explaining that phrase "property extra conunercium" has the merit of long usage; and certain categories of property have been judicially defined as falling within this classification. The use of any other phrase would lose us the benefit of these judicial interpretations and, instead of making the Bill clearer, might well lead to future litigation to determine whether or not any particular item or class of property fell within the exemption conferred by Schedule 3. I should add that the proposed Amendment has been agreed to by the Scottish Law Commission. I beg to move.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, for his clear explanation of what the Amendment means. I must confess, quite frankly, that I had not so suspected.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

OVERSEAS PENSIONS BILL [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendment be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment be now considered.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
On Question Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[References are to Bill 75 as first printed for the Commons]
Clause 2, page 3, line 7, leave out paragraph (e).
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment. When we last considered this Bill, I undertook to convey to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State the very strong feelings on all sides of this House that had led to the addition of Clause 2(2)(e), the clause providing for payment of pensions to former members of the South Arabian Security Forces. This I did, and, as the noble Lords who have followed the fortunes of this Bill in

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another place will have gathered, an exhaustive study of the subject took place in the following weeks. As a result, the Government decided that they were prepared, on grounds of hardship, to make the same arrangements for former members of the South Arabian Security Forces as already existed for civil pensioners of the South Arabian Forces. My right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development announced this decision in another place on April 18, and, with your Lordships' permission. I will repeat the relevant part of his announcement. He said:
"…we are prepared to make ex gratia loan advances with effect from April 1, 1973, to bring payments up to the level of pensions due for service given up to November 30, 1967. The Government have taken this step to try to alleviate the hardship suffered by individual pensioners. It in no way changes the Government's view that responsibility for these pensions rests properly with the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen. I expect the annual cost to be between £100,000 and £200,000, and a Supplementary Estimate will be presented later. In general these arrangements will apply to all entitled officers, but I must make it clear that the Government reserve the right to deny a loan advance in any case where we are satisfied that there was disloyalty to the former British Administration."
My right honourable friend went on to explain that the Government already had power to make these loan advances without the inclusion of Clause 2(2)(e) that it was therefore unnecessary to retain it in the Bill, and that, more importantly, its retention would breach the principle that that legal responsibility for these pensions rested with the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen. The Government's announcement was warmly welcomed by Members of the other place, who then agreed to delete Clause 2(2)(e) from the Bill. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that we have already taken action to establish the administrative procedures for making these payments. Officials of the Overseas Development Administration are now in Aden arranging to obtain the necessary evidence of entitlement.
So far as the Bill is concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said in this House at the Third Reading on February 20 that his Amendment was probably not satisfactory and implied that its purpose was to secure an undertaking from the Government to help these pensioners.
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The Government are persuaded that those who deserve our financial assistance should get it, and I therefore hope that noble Lords will agree that the purpose of the Amendment has been achieved and that it would be undesirable, for the reasons I have stated, to retain Clause 2(2)(e) in the Bill.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Baroness Tweedsmir of Belhelvie.)
3.3 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I personally am grateful, and I have no doubt that other noble Lords will feel the same, for the Government's capitulation in this matter. I should like to thank the noble Baroness, but I do not see—and I am sorry to be ungracious—any thanks going to the Government for their handling of this matter. The noble Baroness told us that the Government had undertaken to reconsider the matter after the decision taken in this House. She then went on to refer to the announcement that was made in another place, but I am bound to say it was a little disingenuous not to mention the fact that the Government had in fact suffered another defeat on this very point by the expressed views of Parliament, both here and in Standing Committee in another place, where the Government in fact attempted to delete this Amendment without giving an undertaking and argued strongly against making these payments. Thanks very largely to the brilliant advocacy of my honourable friend Mr. Ivor Richard and the support he had throughout the Committee, including Conservative Members, the Government were beaten and gave in. I think that this is a measure over which Parliament as a whole can feel some satisfaction. In this matter we have met the obvious wishes of Parliament that promises solemnly entered into regarding payments to members of the Hadrami Beduin Legion should be honoured. After making comments which I fear are rather less gracious than I should have liked to make, I think this is a matter of great satisfaction to your Lordships' House.
There are only two points I should like to make now. First of all, as I understand the Government are now proposing—this is the phrase which is used—to "top up" pensions, I presume they will

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pay the pensions on the same basis as is used for the Civil Service. I will not pursue this point, but I can foresee further difficulties for the Government in the formula they have used in this matter.
Secondly, it should also be noted that there is apparently no question of making any back payments of pensions. To that extent, the members of the South Arabian Forces who are now going to receive these loans—and I fully accept that this is the only way to proceed, and it is the way in which we proceeded—will receive them only from 1973. Though I am glad that the Government have moved so quickly in order to set up administrative arrangements, I think it is a pity that they are not making back payments. Nevertheless, I accept there is a certain rationality about their actions and that they are attempting apparently to alleviate the hardship. However, many of these people—and there are some who have been almost penniless, having used up all their savings—could have benefited very much from the payment of back pensions. I wish that even here we had been a little more generous.
I have previously expressed the view that in some respects the record of this country in regard to those who served us in Empire has not been as generous as one might have wished; and I received support in this respect from several Members of your Lordships' House, including the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, and my noble friend Lord Segal, who also wished that we had taken a more generous view of our obligations to those who served us so faithfully, often at risk to their wives and families. Nevertheless, I would now recommend the House to accept the Commons Amendment. The Amendment which I put down was not drafted with the intention that it should remain as a permanent part of the Bill. As the noble Baroness said, it was done to enable us to raise the matter; but it seems to have served its purpose rather better than many better-drafted Amendments.
3.8 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I should like to support what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has just said. This is a most agreeable way of expressing thanks to the many Colonial Servants for the work they undertook. There was some obligation to local officers overseas
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who gave us so much faithful service. I would not care to go into quite so much detail as was given by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, concerning the procedures which occurred in another place, but I am most grateful to the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for the speech she has just made; and I am grateful to the Government for now having accepted the need to honour these obligations, as I consider them to be.
There is, however, one other matter which impresses itself upon my mind at this time; namely, that this Bill originated in your Lordships' House, and after the powerful speeches that were made here it went to another place. I have only just had the opportunity of reading some of the speeches made there, but in general it seemed to me that what we had set out received general support in that place and, going back just a little into the history, when one realises that the whole of this issue was raised by a former administrative officer in Aden, who took up the case of these local officers, I cannot help feeling that this is democracy working in just the way the British people would like to see it working.
I emphasise that point in the few remarks I have to makeֵ We are grateful to the Government for the decision they have taken. I take that point. But I feel there is great force in what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has said regarding the back-dating of these pensions to 1971. Only a few officers are involved—possibly something in the region of 103 or 104 former members of the Armed Forces of the Crown. If we could do that I should consider, as I said on Second Reading, that we shall have discharged our obligations with honour.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, in view of the Government's categorical statement that the responsibility for payment of these pensions ought to rest on the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen, would not the Government now feel that an obligation rests upon them once again to direct the attention of the Government of the Yemen to this fact and give the widest possible publicity to that Government's reply.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, I want to make one point for myself about this matter which my noble friend my noble Leader knows that I feel. I

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am not sure that when we were the Government we were as committed in this respect as he thinks we were. I am not sure that the Labour Government's original position was as vulnerable as it has been made out to be, because it is difficult here to identify those who loyally served and those who disloyally served. It should be said that some of us think that a number of the latter will receive payments in this way as well as a number of the former, and I do not believe that we ever committed ourselves as a former Government so far as we pretended. But none the less I am willing to go along with what has been said.
I should like to put to the noble Baroness a question which nobody else has asked. I would have thought that many other Members of your Lordships' House more legally qualified than I would have put the question: Why is this to be in the form of a loan payment? Unless there is some special meaning to the term "loan", it is a payment to be repaid. I am sure that my noble Leader knows why it is put in that way—indeed, he so indicated—but it seems odd to me, if we are genuinely fulfilling a genuine commitment which we genuinely believe we have, to pay people a pension for ever, Amen, that we should call it a loan. Would the noble Baroness please enlighten me.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I have the leave of the House to clarify a point? I cannot speak again, but under the rules I may clarify a point, no new matter being introduced. I referred to the promise. There is no doubt that those officers—and they were unanimous—who were there made such a promise. I have satisfied myself, and I am sure that the noble Baroness can do so, that there is a record that they were authorised to do it by the Foreign Office.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: Not by the Foreign Secretary.
3.14 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, if there is no further clarification required on points already made perhaps I could thank all noble Lords who have spoken and answer the points that they have put
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forward. First of all, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, talked about the topping up of pensions. He will remember that the loans are a topping up payment to add to what the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen are paying to bring the total up to the pension level due. He also asked why it was not possible to pay these pensions—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Baroness? She referred on the last occasion to the announcement that I made previously with regard to the civil servants. We did not then speak about topping up; it was a loan, and I fully accept that. I think she may wish to leave the topping up point, and I will pursue that further with her later. It is an unfortunate phrase.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: But, my Lords, I think it was the noble Lord who first used the phrase about topping up.
LORD SHACKLETON: Would the noble Baroness tell me when I used that phrase.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the noble Lord used the phrase—and I know the House will endorse this—in his opening remarks, not in his clarification, and I wrote the words down. He used the phrase to top up pensions, and that is why I wrote the words down. When the noble Lord looks at Hansard he will see he did in fact use this phrase. He also asked about not just paying the loan advances as from April 1, 1973, but about retrospection. Retrospection was not given earlier when loan advances were made to the Aden pensioners in 1970, nor in 1971 to the Zanzibar pensioners. My right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development explained in another place that payments are intended to relieve hardship now and in the future. That is why we have down the starting date from April 1 1973.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was not as generous in his thanks as was my noble friend Lord Gridley. It is perfectly true that the Government did indeed suffer a defeat in both Houses of Parliament, but they have, after all, taken into account the expressed wish of Parliament as a whole. My noble

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friend Lord Gridley was quite right to point out that this Bill started in this House; and it was because the expression of opinion among your Lordships was so firm on this matter that the defective Amendment was left in the Bill as a marker to those in another place who would be considering this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Segal, asked me whether we would make clear to the Government of the Yemen that it was still their responsibility to pay these pensions. I can assure him and the House that we shall certainly do this. Two officials from the Overseas Development Department will stay in Aden for about two or three months to try to receive and process applications from pensioners and security forces.
The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, said that he felt that the Government's original position—that was the Labour Government of the day—was not so vulnerable as it had been made out to be. He mentioned in particular the question of disloyalty. It is difficult now to assess what was the feeling in Parliament at the time, but as my right honourable friend has said—and I should like to repeat it—if after this period of time he can find any evidence of disloyalty through the normal processes of an application for a loan advance, he must reserve the right to withhold the payment until we are satisfied that it should be paid. We had a long discussion about this point in an earlier stage. Lastly, the noble Lord asked me why we were paying this in the form of loan advances, which theoretically must be repaid, and not in fact in the form of pensions. This is because, as we have always stressed—it has already previously been stressed—the principle of the legal responsibility for pensions rests with the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen. I stress that once again. I should like to thank all those who have taken part in this debate, and I am happy that your Lordships feel that we should now delete the paragraph.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT FUND (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1973
3.20 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I beg to move that the African Development Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1973, a draft of which was laid before this House on April 16, be approved. The purpose of the Order is to confer upon the Fund, and persons connected with it, the privileges and immunities which are required to be conferred by the Agreement establishing the Fund. Although we signed the Agreement on November 29, 1972, we cannot ratify it unless this Order has been made.
The African Development Fund is an international organisation established to supplement the activities of the African Development Bank, the membership of which at the moment is restricted to African States. In future those taking part in the Fund will be the African Development Bank itself and about 13 to 15 non-African countries. Others may join later. The object of the Fund is to make loans on "soft" terms to those African countries which are members of the Bank and which, because of their economic situation and prospects, need assistance on such terms. The Bank itself makes loans on harder terms and is therefore not a suitable source of loan capital for the poorer African countries.
The scale of privileges and immunities to be accorded to the Fund is very similar to that accorded to the Caribbean Development Bank, a similar financial organisation, in respect of which a draft Order was approved by this House in January last year. When ratifying the Agreement we shall make certain reservations permitted by it. These will have the effect of restricting the privileges and immunities which the Fund and its personnel can enjoy in this country. For example, it will mean that the Fund and persons connected with it will still be liable to prosecution for traffic offences, and persons connected with the Fund who are resident here will have to pay United Kingdom tax. These and other limitations on privileges and immunities are described in the draft Order. The Fund shares the headquarters of the African

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Development Bank at Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. We do not in fact expect it to set up an office here, and therefore the practical application of this Order will be very small. I trust the House will approve this Order and so prove this country's continuing support for measures which are designed to promote the economic growth of the poorer countries of the world. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft African Development Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1973, laid before this House on April 16, bet approved.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I am sure the House would like to thank the noble Baroness for the very clear explanation that she gave of this Order. We very much welcome the setting up of these softer terms of loan. The Order is very similiar to many others made under the 1968 Act, and we welcome it from this side.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATURE CONSERVANCY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
3.24 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [The Nature Conservancy Council]:
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK THE EARL OF CRANBROOK moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 19, after ("the") insert ("carrying out")
The noble Earl said: This Amendment, which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Inglewood and myself—Lord Inglewood has asked me to
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apologise to your Lordships because important public business keeps him in the North of England—is fundamental to our whole modern conception of conservation, and the decision which your Lordships will reach this afternoon will probably condition the way in which the Nature Conservancy Council will work for the next half generation or so. I hope, indeed, that it will, because the Conservancy has been pushed about from pillar to post for far too long and it is essential that it shall now have some continuity. The Conservancy was set up in 1949 with the three fold function of acquiring and managing nature reserves, giving advice on conservation and organising and developing the associated research, and it was obvious from the beginning that the third is a prerequisite to the first two. You cannot choose a site of scientific importance by eye for its amenity value, as you would a National Park. It has to be chosen after full investigation, on the advice of an investigating team, for its scientific value. Research into the ecology of that reserve is essential if you are to produce a good management scheme, and the credibility of any advice which you give must depend upon its being seen to be dependent upon research.
Now the reserves themselves are field laboratories usually chosen as representative of some habitat, like mountains or moorland, which is common throughout the country and of which the reserve is a typical example, and field work in them must be reinforced by work in the laboratory. For example, a study of the inter-action of grazing animals with the vegetation is as essential in managing a reserve as it is on a farm, but with wild animals it is much more difficult and must involve analysis of their droppings in order to be able to recognise the remains of the various plants found there and see what relationship the quantity of that bears to the quantity of the same plant in the fields. So, as well as nature reserves, the conservancy had to set up research stations of which typical examples are Monkswood in Huntingdonshire, dealing with woodland and lowland grass research, Bangor in North Wales, dealing with upland pasture, and Banchory in Scotland, dealing with mountains and moorland.
The Conservancy therefore has been a science-based unit from the beginning,

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and the conservation staff and the research staff have been virtually interchangeable, moving from one to the other, from the very beginning. It is that close contact between the conservation and research branches, at least those in the research branches engaged in tactical research, that has made the Conservancy what it is to-day, and my Amendment is intended to retain that position. In 1971 the Lucas Committee, which was investigtting the relationships between the Conservancy and NERC, said the following:
"The strength of feeling concerning the worthwhileness of conservation was most impressive. The word 'evangelical' was used by one witness to emphasise it. To it can be attributed the enthusiasm for conservation work that runs through all levels of the Conservancy. We do not doubt that this enthusiasm is evident to the people who are given advice. We were also most impressed with the conviction held throughout the entire Nature Conservancy that research and conservation were inseparable."
That was said of evidence given before it at the latter end of 1971 and the early part of 1972, and in case I should be accused of suppressio veri I should add that the Lucas Committee was in favour of keeping the Conservancy within NERC. This teamwork has been wonderfully successful. The Conservancy's advice has been increasingly sought by local authorities, by naturalist trusts, by farmers, foresters, landowners, and of course by Government Departments; and I would include foreign Governments, who have looked upon the Conservancy as a sort of model conservation body and have asked for advice as to how to set up such a body in their own countries.
Later this evening your Lordships will, I hope, give a Third Reading to a Bill on the conservation of badgers under which the Conservancy will have to give advice to the Minister on those animals. It is already engaged in investigating the effect of pesticides on badgers, but if it is to give all the advice that the Minister may need it will have to undertake much more research into the habits, behaviour, distribution and the like of those animals—because the Conservancy must always be looking ahead. It has to be ready to give advice on such matters as the effects on the countryside of a Barrage in the Wash or at Morecambe Bay, or on such less spectacular matters as the apparent
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decrease in the numbers of some species of butterfly or peregrine falcon. In all those investigations both the conservation branch and the research branch—and, indeed, amateur naturalists as well—work closely together, because it has been found that much which was previously looked upon as being mere natural history can produce vital evidence in the study of the effects of pesticides provided that the evidence given is collated and analysed by scientists.
That is how the Conservancy developed, and your Lordships will well understand how in 1935, when it was suggested that the Conservancy should be merged with NERC, there was a tremendous outcry in case that contact between the conservation bodies and the Conservancy, and that close co-operation between research and the conservation side, should be lost. In the event, the Conservancy went into NERC With its functions exactly the same; with the same duties as it had had before, the acquisition of reserves, the provision of advice and—I quote from the Charter of NERC:
"carrying out and supporting such research as the Conservancy considers appropriate."
However, by 1971, for reasons into which we need not enter, the machine was not working smoothly, and it was suggested that the Conservancy should be taken out of NERC. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said on Second Reading, the Government received two entirely opposing pieces of advice: that the Conservancy should stay within NERC, and that the Conservancy should once again become independent. But the one point on which almost everybody was agreed at that time was that conservation and research should not be separated; and I have just quoted the Lucas Committee who found exactly the same.
The Government, rightly I think, decided that the Conservancy should again become independent, and within the Department of the Environment. That is a good move. It is in line of what happens in a good many Continental countries where there are close official contacts between bodies concerned with recreation and amenity in the field and those concerned with conservation and research. But, having taken that first step, Government seem to have faltered

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at the second and, without the appreciation of the situation which Solomon showed, they chopped the baby in half. That has been proposed once before. The Slater Committee suggested when NERC was about to be set up that only the research part should go in and that the conservation side should stay out. At that time the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, was a member of that Committee and produced a Minority recommendation to the other effect. Indeed, it was his evidence I think before the Trend Committee which finally decided that the Conservancy should go into NERC with conservation as well.
The proposal of the Government was apparently not made in order to ensure that the new Nature Conservancy Council would be a better body than the Nature Conservancy had been. The only reasons given to us on Second Reading were, first, that it fell in line with the customer/contractor principle laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild; and secondly, it was suggested that NERC would be unable to carry out its statutory function of carrying out research into ecology if it no longer had the ecological work done by the Nature Conservancy under its own control. That last problem of NERC and some other body having concurrent powers of research was well in the mind of Parliament when the Act setting up NERC was passed. It was known that the Forestry Commission was to retain its research stations; that the fisheries laboratories of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries were to be retained. Nevertheless, NERC was given the duty of carrying out research into both forestry and fisheries. Indeed, it has not prevented NERC from setting up the Institute of Tree Biology which, as NERC says in its annual report, is complementary to the tactical and strategic research carried out by the Commission; and it has not prevented NERC from doing some admirable research work on fisheries, including a rather interesting survey on the food of herrings in the North Sea.
Your Lordships will therefore see that if the Conservancy Council was to retain the capacity for tactical research, and possibly for strategic research as well, that would not in any way preclude NERC from carrying out basic research in ecology as it does in fisheries and forestry.
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Indeed, this is much to be encouraged because the Conservancy is I think carrying a certain amount of dead wood, from the conservation point of view, in the shape of too much basic research carried out at some of its stations; and much would be gained if NERC were to retain control of those stations and of the research carried on in them. Indeed, I should add that in 1971 NERC felt that it should be responsible for both basic and strategic research in all of it. I would not myself squabble very much with that view, although I think that possibly the new Nature Conservancy Council should have the power of commissioning strategic research as well.
The noble Lord also spoke of implementing, as I have said, the customer/contractor principle; but he did not say that that was going to make the new Council any better than the Nature Conservancy had been in the past, and unless it does so I think we must reject it. Because surely the object of this Bill must be just that: to make the new Nature Conservancy Council at least as good as the Nature Conservancy has been, and preferably better. If this new body has the same functions of conservation, of the giving of advice and of the carrying out of the appropriate research as the Nature Conservancy has had in the past, it will be at least as good. If to that is added an association, within the Department of the Environment, with other bodies concerned with the preservation of the countryside it should, I think, be better. For that reason I welcome the major provision of this Bill.
In conclusion, I should like to stress the point which I made at the beginning: that any decision reached now must last at least half a generation for the sake of the staff of both and for the sake of the members of the Conservancy and of NERC, none of whom have known where they were since the separation of the Conservancy from NERC was first suggested in the middle of 1971. Therefore it is essential that the decision which we take to-night should be such that no pressure to reverse it is likely to arise for some considerable time. I believe that if this Amendment is rejected there is bound to build up strong pressure to give the Nature Conservancy Council at least the power to undertake tactical research, and that that pressure will come not only from

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outside, from the voluntary conservation movement, but even more strongly from its own staff. It will build up pretty quickly if that staff is good, and it would not be fair to resist it, unless the new Conservancy Council is going to be satisfied with the second grade. We shall not get and hold good staff if we are going to say to them that they are not fit to undertake research. On the other hand, if the Conservancy Council has the power to undertake tactical research, I cannot see any pressure arising to try to remove that from it. In short, I believe that the new Nature Conservancy Council could be an improvement on the old Nature Conservancy if it could carry with it into the Department of Environment at least the power to undertake tactical research. I think that only if it has that power will it be able to continue on an even keel for the next half generation or so. I beg to move.
3.43 p.m.
LORD KENNET: At the Second Reading of this Bill I said on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House that we were in broad agreement with what was proposed, not so much because we thought it was necessarily the right solution as because (a) it was a workable solution that the Government had clearly adopted, and (b) the Nature Conservancy had been so much "mucked around" over recent years that any tolerance of this would be better than further change. I did not mean to imply by that statement that we were necessarily committed to every detail of what was proposed in the Bill as it was introduced into the House, and I think the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has made a powerful case for permitting the new Conservancy Council to do some of its own research.
Let us look for a moment at the extent of the change which would be made by the Amendment. The Bill as it stands at the moment says that the Council may commission research and may stimulate research; it may do everything in favour of research except actually research. The Amendment before us simply says that as well as stimulating, commissioning, promoting and so on it may actually do some research. If I understood the noble Earl aright, he was laying particular emphasis on the doing of tactical research, which I take to be the rather small localised jobs which could be done
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on one of the Council's own sites and which it would clearly be rather absurd to invite somebody else to come in and do for it, particularly as it has the staff.
So I am slightly torn in two directions: first, a desire that the Government should get what they want in this connection; and, secondly, by the intrinsic reasonableness of the case advanced by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, for his Amendment. At the moment I should be inclined to advise the Committee to vote in favour of this Amendment, unless the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, can tell us that the Government have it in mind to introduce at Report stage some other Amendment, giving the new Conservancy Council the power to conduct some research of its own.
LORD CRAIGTON: I am going to ask your Lordships to resist this Amendment and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, will be convinced, by what I have to say, that my noble friend on the Front Bench is right. I agree with my noble friend Lord Cranbrook that before the Government proposals in this Bill were known last July there were in the Nature Conservancy two factions among those concerned with conservation: one in favour of staying in NERC and the other seeking an independent status outside NERC. But my noble friend said that both sides wished to see research and conservation remain integrated and in the same organisation. In that event, as my noble friend said, the Government decided to attach the Nature Conservancy in its new form, as the Nature Conservancy Council, to the Department of the Environment. This was an important if not a vital step, as I believe that only as part of D. of E. can the new Council give its best and most effective service to the nation.
Here I part company with my noble friend in connection with this Amendment. As compared with being under NERC, the new N.C.C. will indeed be a better body. It will have the money, the power and the advisory powers to achieve what it knows has to be done. But of course the price the conservationists have to pay for this great step forward is the loss of the ability to conduct a considerable amount of research. This is a price that I am prepared to pay—not that I do not appreciate the other side of the

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case but because (and this is one very good reason) I agree with the Government's grand strategy for research. I appreciate that just as changes in responsibility for research will, for example, be accepted by the water industry—which has duties somewhat similar to conservation—so we who are concerned with conservation are right to accept this change in the national interest.
I go further. Are your Lordships aware that the majority of those employed by, or directly concerned with, the Nature Conservancy Council accept this decision and will genuinely try to make the new arrangements work.
LORD SHACKLETON: If I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment, I did not realise that he was speaking for the civil servants who work for the Nature Conservancy. Can he justify his statement? It is very important, and I should have thought that this was probably a matter which we should hear from the Government.
LORD CRAIGTON: If the noble Lord had waited for a moment I was going to give my noble friend an opportunity to justify it. As I say, the new Nature Conservancy will genuinely try to make the arrangements work. It realises that in the goodwill and determination to succeed there are undoubted advances in the present arrangements. I was about to say that the Minister will be able to tell me whether I am right in saying that since July the Conservancy and its committees have accepted the Government's proposals on the N.C.C. functions, even if regretfully, and that this acceptance was recently reaffirmed.
If this Amendment succeeds it will be the Nature Conservancy and its staff which will suffer. As my noble friend has said, it has experienced two years or more of uncertainty about the future. To plunge it back now into that state would really be unforgivable. Planning on the new basis is well advanced, and is it not now time to stop fighting old battles and to give an opportunity for the new organisation to be created.
I suggest to my noble friend, and I offer a solution to my noble friend and to your Lordships, that there is one step the Government must take to reassure
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us all about the consequences of the loss of so much direct research. They must undertake to provide more money than they have initially proposed for the commissioning of research on the the customer/contractor principle. As the position now stands, the N.C.C. will be able to commission work only to the value of a mere £300,000 a year. That is a ludicrously small sum. For the new Council to have enough money to spend on research is the one factor that will keep the two bodies to a considerable extent dependent on one another in their relationships, and it is a far better solution than that referred to in my noble friend's Amendment. I beg the Minister to give us his assurance (I know that he cannot go any further than that) that he and his colleagues will look again at the amount available to the Council for commissioning research under the present policy and at the benefits that there will be for the whole field of conservation if that amount was substantially increased. The best way to get the best research for the new Conservancy is to ensure that it has enough money to pay the experts, with all their facilities, to do it for them, and not for the Conservancy to become a separate and perhaps ultimately an isolated research unit doing the job for itself, probably on a shoestring.
3.52 p.m.
LORD HURCOMB: Like the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, I speak with some direct, and indeed long, acquaintance with the Nature Conservancy both as a member of the Conservancy and for a time its chairman, and even now a member of its England Committee. I have felt what I think the senior members of the staff and those best qualified scientifically to speak really think, but I am not going to claim to speak for the Civil Service or the Scientific Civil Service because I do not think that is my proper function.
There are really two points here: first of all the reorganisation and, secondly, the future Council's function in regard to research. On the first question, my own view always has been, and remains, the same as that expressed to me in the corridors of this place by the late Lord Howick a fortnight or so before his death. He felt that the right solution was to leave the Conservancy as part of NERC with some adjustment to correct any

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deficiencies that have shown themselves in the working of the system in recent years and with some redefinition perhaps of its research function. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, himself mentioned that view expressed by Lord Howick, otherwise I should not have felt myself entitled to refer to it. We both had come to the same conclusion after knowing all the arguments and divisions of opinion that have been expressed recently about the precise relationship between the two bodies.
I believe that the able officials and the scientific staff could have worked out a good system within the main structure of NERC, but I am not going to argue that. It has been decided otherwise, for reasons which are not very clear to me. But it has been decided, and I can understand the feeling of the staff that they do not want to be left in uncertainty any longer. They have worked under great difficulties for the last two or more years and they all came to the conclusion that it was time that this ended. So on that main principle I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, that that part of the system should be left undisturbed. Whether it will in fact lead to anything being better conserved or anything being better researched into, I confess I am a little sceptical.
In my time there was no difficulty in dealing with different problems of research whether you labelled them tactical or strategic—they are all basic. It may be that the old Conservancy did not farm out to universities or others as much as it might have done, but if that position were to be made clear to it by the Government, or through NERC, I should have thought that that could have been cured without much difficulty. They ought not to try to do too much themselves. There is always a tendency in every organisation—Government, and, I suspect, non-Government alike—to do as much as possible for yourself. Everything done for a soldier in the war eventually had to be done by a soldier and any frictions that arise from that one cannot really cure.
But the Amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, raises a sharp clear-cut issue: are we to say to the staff who are left with the Conservancy: "You are not to carry out research"?—and I suppose that means,
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"You are not to waste your time in thinking about it." That seems to me to be an impossible situation. If the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, does not mind, I should like to look a little more closely at what he said. In effect it is that the Conservancy may have people who are labelled "scientists" and they are not to have a research capacity (whatever that means) but they must have a scientific competence, whatever that means. He then goes on to say—and I think the Government scheme implies—that with that distinction drawn you will still get men of high scientific quality to join the Conservancy. Why should a man of high scientific quality take up a post in which he is told almost as an instruction, "You are not regarded as having any research capacity, and, what is more, you are not to spend your time on any form of research. On the other hand, we must be sure that you have the right scientific competence, otherwise we cannot have you at all"? That is going to be a very difficult line to draw and I do not believe that it will attract the right kind of scientist. Surely the good scientist will fight shy of taking up any post of that sort.
There is the risk, which showed signs of developing years ago, of dividing the scientific staff into two groups—the people who really were researchers and those who were only some sort of superior park-keeper for conservation—and then saying that all that is wanted is a good superintendent of a park, with some scientific background. I do not think that that is the right way to tackle this problem, and I cannot believe that it will lead to the right solution. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, seemed to me to be encouraging. He did not pontificate and say, "This is the only way to do it"; he said he would be very willing to hear arguments from both sides. Is that not the best way of making progress: to think again, not necessarily agreeing to adopt Lord Cranbrook's wording that the new nature body is to carry on research, yet not saying specifically, "That is entirely outside your sphere"?
I believe that the eminent geologist who now presides over NERC and his able staff, and the people in the Conservancy, could, if they were given a little more time, find a better, more acceptable

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and more workable solution than that now proposed. I differ entirely from the noble Lord, Lord Craigton. If the staff now take the view that he says they take, it is merely because they are tired out, worried; they have been pushed about here and there for so long that they say, "Let us accept what is now proposed and make it work." As an old civil servant, I know of course that once Ministers have made up their mind that something has to be made to work, or to seem to work, for a time, the ability of the civil servant is equal to meeting their demands. But whether it will work for long satisfactorily is quite another matter.
I do not think this House ought to be influenced by what the current view of a certain number of civil servants may be. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cranbrook, I have met practically no one who thinks that this divorce between conservation and research is sound. What seems to me to have happened is that the Government, faced with this conflict of view, have jumped on the new principle of the Rothschild solution (as it may be called) of a contractor/customer basis. They have jumped on to that principle as though it were a raft on which they could float safely out of these troubled waters. I do not for a moment dispute that that principle may be a salutary and sound, and probably right, one in dealing with an engineering problem, a defence problem, a mining problem or perhaps anything which is directly a physical problem. I remain quite unconvinced that it is a right principle, for dealing with medical research (and I shall be interested to know what the distinguished physicians of the Medical Research Council really think about it, if it is to be strictly applied to medicine), and I am quite sure that it does not fit and is not applicable to the problems of conserving or studying fauna and flora living in natural conditions.
One can understand the desire of a Government to apply the same principle all over the field of research, but it seems to me that the problems are fundamentally different, the qualities of the people who work on them are often different, and that our administrative machine ought to adapt itself to the real underlying characteristics of the problems and not force on the problems a machinery which does not fit. I would therefore
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urge the Minister, who has shown an open mind—or, if not an open mind, certainly not one completely wedded to what he has proposed—to think again, perhaps going a little further than he did on the Second Reading in showing how far he was willing to take account of other opinions on this very difficult problem. I believe that if he does that, and talks to the right people, something better can be found than the Bill as it stands. I deplore, as all your Lordships do, the fact that we are deprived at this moment of the statesmanship and love of nature which were found in Lord Howick, who certainly, though I think already feeling tired from his illness, said, "This has been done by the Government; we must make the best of it". He would be willing to fight a little harder, if he were still here, for the point of view which I believe practically the whole of the scientific staff of the Nature Conservancy believes to be right.
May I pass for a moment to a rather difficult point? There are no doubt advantages to be obtained by giving the Nature Conservancy in its new form independence of the Minister, with the power to go to, in my view, the right Minister, the Minister responsible for the environment, without having to explain any problem to the Treasury, or whoever it may be, through NERC, who in turn will pass it on. That has been the only cause of friction that I know of in the past, and the faults, I am sure, have not been all on one side.
But what rather alarmed me was the glee with which those who have changed their view see that they are going to get direct control of the cash. They say that it is too little, and ask, what is the good of£300,000? Of course it is very little, but I think that is a matter which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, will want to think about. He may be quite sure that those who now accept this solution as right are thinking, "We have only to wait a few years and we shall have built up a parallel scientific establishment; whether they have got research capacity, or not. They will say, "We must have our own people. We cannot have these problems worked out and solved by people who are not part of our organisation."
May I conclude by saying that in the early days of the Conservancy I was

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repeatedly struck by the immense advantages which arose from having scientists of different points of view, and different interests in a way, working side by side, going into the field together and feeling that they were part of one organisation. I remember very well when I joined the Conservancy Sir Arthur Tansley, the inventor of "ecology" as a science and one of the most distinguished ecologists we ever had, saying that to me in the field. He said, "This is going to develop in the way I want and in the way the country needs." You get these people with different training—the academic scientist, the Fellow of the Royal Society, the practical naturalist—and they are not hived off into two separate groups. They feel that they are colleagues, that they are working on the same problems, and that they will be solving them best if they work in close conjunction.
I do not know whether I am entitled to vote. I am a member of a conservancy committee at the moment, and if the noble Lord, Lord Sandford says he would rather I did not vote then I shall not do so. But I cannot disguise my conviction that essentially the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, is right; nor my belief that another look at this difficult problem and consultation with the right people will find a better solution than that which is before your Lordships at the moment.
4.11 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: I hesitate to intervene in this debate, because I am too well aware that most of your Lordships who have spoken, or who are likely to speak, are far more experienced than I am. I am myself a lay person and I have no pretences whatever to scientific knowledge or competence. But it so happens that, through certain activities, I have been in very close touch with some members of both the Nature Conservancy and the NERC, and I am very much worried about the Amendment which the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has put before us. It appears to me that if we accept it as it stands and at its face value it could completely upset the balance which I believe is the basis of the Bill and which—and my information is the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Craigton—has been broadly accepted by those most closely concerned.
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The difficulty about the Amendment is that if we accepted it it would elevate to one of the main functions of the new Nature Conservancy Council the function of research. That would be regrettable, because the main function of the Nature Conservancy Council is the conservation and management of the nature reserves and areas of scientific interest; and what is sometimes called basic research or strategic research does not seem to me, on balance, to be a major function of this body. I was particularly concerned that, in the course of his remarks, the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, referred, first of all, to practical research and then went on to mention strategic research as well. That seemed to me to be a misconception and made me all the more worried about the noble Earl's proposition. We may be in some danger over semantics and over what precisely we mean by "research", and I hope that when he speaks the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, may help to clear our minds.
While it would be wrong to elevate research to being a major function of the new Nature Conservancy Council, it is also plain to me that there are some activities, which, by certain definitions, might be called "research", which would be inescapable functions of management. If that is what we mean then of course such functions should be part of the Nature Conservancy Council. I should not have thought there was any quarrel about that. But it is not quite clear in the Bill that this is so, and I have very great sympathy with the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who asked the Government to think again, because even if some of us feel it impossible to accept the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, as it stands, equally it is arguable that the Bill should be plainer, indicating that there are certain functions of monitoring, observation and so on which are absolutely essential to the activities of the Nature Conservancy Council. Therefore, I hope that at the end of our discussion this afternoon we shall not come to a hard and fast decision; in other words, that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, may feel disposed not to press his Amendment. But he could be expected to do that only if the spokesman for the Government gave a clear indication that the Government

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themselves were also prepared to go part of the way in clearing up what is at least open to dubiety. There could be difficulties over the interpretation of the Bill as it stands, and there might be limitations on the activities of the new Nature Conservancy Council under which I do not think any of us would wish them to labour.
I have tried to study the arguments both ways and I have sought information from those who are scientifically much better able to judge than I am myself. I think it would be fair to say that there have been quite strong criticisms by people in certain scientific fields of the work of a research nature undertaken hitherto by the Nature Conservancy. I am told, for example, that some of the conservation research which has been undertaken has had an inadequate scientific base. It has been pointed out to me that there is the temptation, which the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, touched upon, if one does not have an adequate scientific complement and wants to go into certain fields—and conservation is becoming a more and more complex field—to set up one's own little research organisation, rather than take a wider view and go outside to those who could probably do the job very much better. I am also told that there are suggestions of a certain imbalance in the spectrum of information taken into account in reaching conclusions at the present time.
If we are to suggest that the new Nature Conservancy Council should undertake a great deal of its research—I am sure that even the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, would not suggest that it should undertake all of it—then it seems to me that these possible deficiencies of working from too narrow a base, of working with too narrow a spectrum of information, will be intensified. There is also a danger of duplication if we accept the suggestion of the noble Earl, and the new Nature Conservancy Council might undertake work which could be far better undertaken by other organisations. I am thinking partly of such studies as geology, marine or freshwater biology and so on. There are other bodies which are particularly fitted for research of that type, and it would not really be in the general interest to encourage what might be—I hate to use
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the term, but your Lordships know what I mean—second-class research, or less adequate research than that which could be undertaken by some of the other existing scientific organisations.
There is also the very important point which has been touched upon, of whether, if one limits in any way the research functions of the new Nature Conservancy Council, one will then be able to attract adequate staff. It is difficult to predict, but I am told that there is considerable interest in such posts as chief scientific officers; that is to say, persons who need to have quite considerable scientific competence in order to make the necessary Judgments, who are not themselves necessarily primarily interested in research but are more concerned with what in a broad sense might be called scientific management problems rather than academic research. One noble Lord—I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Craigton—mentioned the Water Resources Board as a case in point. I do not want to discuss that because the Government are determined to kill it. Nevertheless, I, too, at one time had some dealings with the Water Resources Board, and I have made inquiries in that direction on this very point. I am assured that they have found no insuperable difficulty in attracting people of very good scientific attainment although they themselves commission most of the research that they require from other bodies. So that although the question of staff is an important one, it does not appear to me to be by any means insurmountable.
To sum up, it appears to me, as I said, that to accept Lord Cranbrook's Amendment would alter the whole balance of the proposed Bill and would elevate into a major function something which at most, it seems to me, should be a subsidiary function of the Nature Conservancy Council. Equally, I think we are absolutely right to press the Government to indicate ways in which the Bill might be amended in order to show quite clearly that there are activities—such as management trials, surveys, monitoring and so on—which are entirely proper to the staff of the Nature Conservancy itself, and that if they feel that, arising out of these activities, there are subjects which require research in depth, then they should be given adequate funds with which to commission such research.
4.22 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I wonder whether I might speak for a moment now because I have a Joint Select Committee meeting at half past four. Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I am a member of the Red Deer Commission and I am nominated by the Nature Conservancy. As my noble friend Lord Cranbrook has put down no Amendment to Schedule 1, which at the bottom of page 4 refers to the Deer (Scotland) Act, I do not think that in fact I shall be affected by this Amendment, but I just feel that I ought to make it clear that I might have some slight interest.
I should like to support my noble friend Lord Cranbrook for two reasons which I do not think have been given so far—and I shall be very brief about them. First, I have been extremely impressed by the work which the Nature Conservancy have done, both on the Island of Rhum and in Glen Feshie, on red deer research as well as management, and in my opinion it would be extremely difficult to split these functions particularly on the Island of Rhum. Secondly, a House of Commons Select Committee on Land Use in Scotland recommended that the Nature Conservancy should be strengthened. They also recommended that the Countryside Commission for Scotland should be strengthened; and this was, as they put it, to create constructive tension with the two heavyweights in Scotland, the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Commission. I think that almost everyone with whom I have spoken agrees that this recommendation was a good one, and I should have thought that if the Government went through with their present plans and split the Nature Conservancy management functions from their research functions the Nature Conservancy would be weakened rather than strengthened, and that to do such a thing would go totally against the recommendations of the Committee which reported to another place about four months ago. So I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Cranbrook will succeed in his Amendment.
4.24 p.m.
LORD ZUCKERMAN: It is perfectly plain from everything that has been said that the issue we are debating is as old as the Nature Conservancy itself. The
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noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, has indicated quite clearly what the basic considerations were when the Conservancy was set up. I, too, happen to have known about the start of the Conservancy. Sir Arthur Tansley was somebody who mattered a great deal in my life; and I was reminded only yesterday—and I have been reminded again to-day—that the particular issue we are discussing at this moment is one about which I expressed a strong view, many years ago. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, referred to the work of the Slater Committee. I had forgotten about this when I was talking yesterday about the matter of this debate, but I looked up the Record and was reminded that I was in a minority of one on the Slater Committee, refusing to accede to the view that the functions of the Nature Conservancy should be divided as between management, acquisition and so on, on the one hand, and the conduct of research, on the other.
My view was not accepted by my colleagues on the Slater Committee, a Committee in the genesis of which I had also played a part, because of the peculiar position of biological research in the country at the time. But I see that my view was accepted by the old and now defunct Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, and subsequently by the Trend Committee; and, as we have heard today, the same view was reinforced by the Lucas Committee only a little more than a year ago. I am therefore torn at the present moment between, first, my desire to see this matter settled, because I know many of the people concerned in the Conservancy and have known them over the years, and I believe and agree fully that the state of uncertainty which now prevails is not a good one. I am also very concerned that the Government take the right decision now because, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has said, we want to see this matter settled from the point of view of reason for at least a generation ahead. Yet this is a matter which has come up constantly.
My other problem is that of being consistent with the views I have stated before, which are in print and to which reference has been made. Here, I would take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Craigton. We are not fighting old battles. This is a current battle, and I

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think the Government are as much concerned as is the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, that the right decision be taken now. The question is whether or not that decision can be made consistent with the wider lines of strategy which have been defined and accepted by the Government for the conduct of such research as is paid for in the public sector. As I say, I consulted the record last night and then I asked myself: has anything changed? Has anything changed that really makes it necessary now to separate the whole function of research from that of management? I am using the word "management" very broadly with respect to all the other functions of the Nature Conservancy.
Frankly, I am somewhat amazed, because I understand (I am open to correction if I am wrong) that until very recently, and practically without exception—and reference has been made to this already this afternoon—the members of the staff and the director of NERC itself and the old Conservancy Council, as the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, has said, all argued for keeping together the functions which it is now intended to separate. What has happened, then, over the past year and a half? What new considerations have really entered the substance of the matter to make it necessary now to suggest this change? Frankly, I do not know, except in so far as we are dealing with definitions. The noble Baroness, Lady White, has asked whether we are not discussing semantic issues. Frankly, so far as I am concerned, there are many semantic issues here. I do not know what strategic research is. I am still doing research, but I do not know whether I am doing strategic research, basic research or applied research. I have not an idea what it is I am doing. I am doing research which is related to the particular interests I have at a given moment; and I do not believe that anybody in management would dream of separating the right of inquiry from the responsibility of execution. I do not believe, therefore, that the new Council could really work if it were precluded from carrying out research itself. But I also believe that the new Nature Conservancy Council could well hand over to NERC a lot of research of a continuing kind—call it what we will, strategic or
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basic—and let us hope that a few of those who do this research win Nobel Prizes for doing it.
But there will be also research which I am confident will have to be carried out by the new Nature Conservancy Council. Let me say at once that I, for one—and I am here consistent with what I believed before—believe that the Government are right (and perhaps I would here depart from the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb) in transferring the Nature Conservancy to the D.O.E. That is right. But I should like to be certain that the people who work at the bench are not inhibited in the way they might be if the words of the present Bill are interpreted too severely by civil servants. My erstwhile colleagues, I know, are very competent at interpreting words. I should therefore like to be assured (as I am sure would other noble Lords to-day) that the Government are not going to take too rigid a view about the particular words in the Bill. I believe that whatever the shortcomings of Lord Cranbrook's Amendment, it should be accepted by this House.
Here I depart from the noble Baroness, Lady White. I think that you cannot subcontract research. If you are an original person, you do not get an idea and say, "I have a brilliant idea—you work it out." Friends of mine on the Cross-Benches have carried out research and they know that it does not work this way. If the purport of the Bill and the particular section of it which the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, wishes to see amended would be that there would be more paper work, pushing documents around, with, finally, the same chap doing the work he would have done if he had not passed paper around before it came back to his own desk, then I think it would be foolish not to pay attention to this very serious matter which is brought before us to-day.
In the long term I believe that what is suggested, as I said when the whole question of Government research and development was considered in this House, is a step in the right direction. But we must be careful that it is not an immediate step into a pitfall. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, is right and that the people in the new Conservancy—and the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, made the same point—will be doing research. I think there is also

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a job for NERC and that the Research Council can pursue many inquiries of a kind which do not immediately impact on the responsibilities of the new Natural Environment Research Council; but there is research work that needs to be done by that new Council. In the long term I do not think all this will matter at all. I trust that the long term will not be so long term and that I shall still be alive to hear that the whole of NERC is handed over to the D.O.E. and that the responsibility for research in this field is taken by the Department which has a responsibility to Parliament and to the people of this country for looking after all matters of management of our physical environment.
Therefore I would conclude by asking the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, to consider whether there is some way of interpreting the words, or reconciling the words, of the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, with the words in the Bill so that the Nature Conservancy Council is not debarred from undertaking—whatever is the right description of the research which is immediately relevant to its executive functions—the responsibility which it is discharging on behalf of the D.O.E. Secondly, I should like to be certain that it is the Government's intention to see that the new Council is furnished (and furnished in relation to the other staffing jobs in the Department of the Environment) with a strong chief scientist organisation to make certain that the right questions are asked at the right time in such a way that too much time is not wasted before jobs are done.
4.35 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: It might be convenient for the Committee if I were to intervene, not so much to answer fully at this stage my noble friend's arguments, but to take the opportunity my noble friend's Amendment provides of setting out the Government's intentions as to the ordering of research in the natural environment, explaining in some detail the reasons behind those decisions and outlining the way in which we see them working out in practice. I look forward thereafter to hearing the views and suggestions of other noble Lords before intervening a second time to answer the debate.
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I first turn to the basic concept of having D.O.E. and NERC. The creation in November, 1970, of the Department of the Environment, in which I serve and which has wide responsibilities in relation to the conservation of the environment in many fields, has enabled us to take a total approach to the environment to ensure that priorities are regularly reviewed and that problems which interact are not treated in isolation. We are concerned with the conservation of the countryside and the safeguarding of the National Parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty together with all sorts of other aspects of conservation. We are naturally concerned that policies on the conservation of wild life and of areas of scientific value should be developed within the context of our policies in other fields.
But since 1965 we have also had a Natural Environment Research Council—a council which is concerned with research into the whole range of earth sciences and ecology, nature conservation, geology, hydrology, oceanography, forestry, and marine and freshwater biology. Each of these benefits by being conducted within a system which provides a multi-disciplinary approach and by being able to draw on the resources of a widely-based research organisation. Under the present proposals a new Institute of Terrestrial Ecology is to be formed in NERC. Although this will comprise a number of geographically scattered stations and elements, it will be closely knit as regards policy and administration.
It is against this dual background that we have to consider the roles that are to be performed in relation to nature conservation, research into it and how they can best be developed. There is one aspect on which we can all agree. With the intensive and increasing pressures on the land of our small island and the importance of safeguarding its environment, an effective organisation capable of appreciating the significance of developments and of being able to implement sound nature conservation policies is vital.
The carrying out of research is one function. Another function of a different

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sort is that of judging what research should be commissioned and the application of the results of that research. Whatever the arrangements, the combination of these two separate functions in a single organisation can of itself lead to difficulties. The Government have considered it right that the commissioning of research should be based broadly on the principle of a customer/contractor relationship—a close, intimate working relationship. This approach is being adopted, wherever it is appropriate, throughout the whole range of work of the Research Councils.
There is in our view no reason why the arguments for adopting that principle should not also apply broadly in relation to nature conservation. The Government obtained independent advice on the arrangements which should be made to set up the new Nature Conservancy Council by appointing Mr. Neville Heaton, who was formerly a deputy secretary in the Department of Education and Science, and has latterly been a deputy secretary in my own Department. He visited the Nature Conservancy's establishments and had discussions with the staff concerned. We are indebted to him for producing proposals which have clearly demonstrated the practicability of the Government's decision, and have met with the approval of the bodies directly concerned.
The Government are convinced that under the proposals we have put forward and embodied in the Bill the new Nature Conservancy Council will be able to derive the full benefit both of the research capability of NERC and of a close association with the Department of the Environment. My noble friend Lord Craigton asked about the resources available to the new Council. The amount which has been provided at present enables the existing level of research to be maintained. The future resources that may be made available will need to be considered both in the light of the new Council's proposals for its programme of work and their priority and also within the context of environmental policies generally. The Nature Conservancy Council will, of course, still need to have its own scientific competence, and there will also be a need for close links between the N.C.C. and NERC in order that the
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full benefits of the new arrangements can be fully realised.
I should like to say a word about that. First, I should like to refer to the announcement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on April 26 that he proposed to appoint Sir David Serpell to be the Chairman of the new Nature Conservancy Council. Sir David was the first Permanent Secretary of the Department of the Environment when it was formed in November, 1970. Sir David is just as convinced as I am of the vital importance of close co-operation between the new Council and NERC, and I am sure that he will do his utmost to foster it. I hope that noble Lords will join with me in wishing him well in this new venture. A first vital step in establishing close cooperation has already been taken by my other right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who has appointed Sir David as a member of NERC. We regard cross-membership between NERC and the N.C.C. as particularly important; and, of course, there will need to be liaison at all levels, regional as well as central. More thought will be necessary as to the details, but some ideas have already emerged.
One important idea is that NERC have in mind giving one of their members a positive responsibility for keeping the liaison between the two bodies under review. We expect the new Council to consider whether there should be cross-membership on appropriate committees of either body. At officer level it has been suggested that NERC should participate in any advisory committee which the Chief Scientist—for which the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, rightly called—of the new Nature Conservancy Council might set up to help in determining what research the new Council should commission; and that the new Council should be represented at meetings of any NERC group particularly concerned with research of interest to the Council. At the operational level similar formal arrangements for consultation will be needed between the staffs of the two bodies. Joint consultative committees might be set up to consider particular problems where this course was justified, and there could well be movement of staff between the two bodies.

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Several noble Lords have already introduced the question of the scientific competence of the N.C.C. While the Government are clear that it would not be right for the Nature Conservancy Council itself to carry out substantial research, they are equally clear that it will need a proper scientific competence. There will be over 100 scientists in the regional staff of the new Council and we propose that there should be a Chief Scientist, as the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, suggested, supported by his own team. The Chief Scientist and his staff will assess and co-ordinate requirements and priorities for commissioned research. They will be responsible for forecasting future trends, assessing their effects on nature conservation and advising generally on the scientific aspect of the new Council's work.
Clause 1(4)(b) expressly gives the new Council power
"to do all such things…as are incidental or conducive to the discharge of their functions under subsection (1)(a)."
This would cover, for example, the carrying out of investigation in the context of the Council's management function, though it is not intended that it should go as far as research. But we should certainly expect to see the regional staff and wardens—as the noble Baroness, Lady White, envisaged—continue to carry out surveying and monitoring work in carrying out their management and advisory functions. Many of these scientists in the regions are highly qualified and extremely knowledgeable men in their own right, and it will be important that they do not lose touch with their practical contacts with ecology and natural history. If the new Council were to have an exclusive, separate and substantial research capability, as would be allowed for under my noble friend's Amendment, this would mean that there would be less opportunity for the regional staff to keep themselves closely involved in scientific work. This has been a continuing problem throughout the life of the Conservancy. We are confident that under the Government's proposals the new Council will be able to attract and to retain the right kind of scientists and will have an appropriate scientific standard in relation to other bodies.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am trying to follow very closely what the noble
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Lord is saying. Is he saying that these 100 scientists are not going to be able to do research? He said that they can monitor and do ancillary duties. He also said that they must not lose touch with ecology. But nature conservancy is ecology. I do not understand: are they not going to be able to do any research at all?
LORD SANDFORD: This, of course, is the main argument that we are having. As I said in my opening remarks, I thought that it would be helpful to set put the broad basis and background against which we are having this debate. I am anxious to hear the views of noble Lords, particularly about the way in which the kind of research they want to see the N.C.C. carry out might be defined. It is not defined at all in my noble friend's Amendment. Perhaps we might come to that later. If I may concentrate at the moment on setting out the background against which we have to conduct this debate—
BARONESS WHITE: I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will appreciate the great importance of this. If he is opposing his noble friend's Amendment it seems to me that he will succeed in carrying the majority of the Committee with him only if he can give more satisfactory assurances about Clause 1(4)(b) than so far he seems to me to have done.
LORD SANDFORD: I hope that I shall be able, before I finish, to satisfy both the Committee and also the noble Baroness. But, if I may, I should like to concentrate, as I have been doing, on the background and the outline of the arrangements against which we shall very shortly have to take a decision. The final points I want to make relate to the views of those actually involved in working these arrangements and on whom we rely to make the progress which we all wish to see. Several noble Lords have recognised how very important they are, after all the controversy and uncertainty in this field. There have been differing views and conflicting advice on the form which the organisation should take. But it is true to say now that both NERC and the Nature Conservancy Council have accepted the Government's decision, and this I regard as being of very great importance. Their acceptance of the

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decision was reiterated at meetings which those bodies held last month. Both bodies have welcomed the Government's detailed proposals for implementing the decision. I would suggest that noble Lords must surely let this fact weigh with them in considering this Amendment.
In response to my noble friend Lord Craigton's request, I shall be glad to confirm the views of the NERC and the Conservancy staff sides, and I will quote from a passage in the comment they have submitted. They say:
"In general, given the decision to place the Conservancy research and conservation functions in separate organisations (N.C.C. and NERC) the Staff Sides welcome the proposals from DOE and NERC for implementing this decision. These show, at least in principle, that the new arrangements for the Nature Conservancy are being worked out in ways that can benefit conservation and staff interests alike. With goodwill and determination from all concerned both the conservation functions and research associated with these should develop satisfactorily and in harmony. The Staff Sides intend to do all they can to achieve this, since the careers and livelihood of our constituent members are at stake. We look for a firm and positive lead from the two Councils and their Chief Executives in bringing the new arrangements into being successfully and as quickly as possible."
In an area where there has been so much controversy, I think it is remarkable that there is now such a widespread feeling that the Government's proposals set out in their consultation papers should be implemented with the minimum of delay and further uncertainty. I cannot stress too strongly the unsettling effect that there would be on the work of the Conservancy and on staff morale if the whole basis on which we have been proceeding so smoothly was now changed.
I have thought it helpful to intervene early in the debate on my noble friend's Amendment to set out broadly the reasons behind the Government's decision to establish the N.C.C., to set forward the arrangements we propose for arranging research into nature conservation in the future, and the way in which we see these arrangements operating in practice. I believe the Committee will recognise them as being practical and well suited to the present structure of Government in which environmental research and environmental policies are now being handled. I should now very
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much welcome the further views of noble Lords before fully answering all the points of rather greater detail which noble Lords have raised.
4.53 p.m.
LORD IRONSIDE: This Amendment seeks very simply to enable the N.C.C. to "carry out" its own research in addition to "commissioning and supporting it". This is different from the statement which appears in the Nature Conservancy article of the NERC, which merely refers to "carrying out and supporting", the main difference being whether you do it yourself or sponsor somebody else to do it for you. But I think here we are dealing with words, as many speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady White, have already said; and, so far as I can see, we are in difficulty about the definition of "research", which means one thing to my noble friend Lord Cranbrook and another to other noble Lords. To me, it means carrying out genuine research, and not such things as management studies. My noble friend Lord Sandford has drawn attention to the way in which the so-called research can be fulfilled by the N.C.C. under the terms of Clause 1(4)(b). I do not pretend to be in any way an environmental scientist, but I have been concerned with research for many years and it seems to me that the functions of the Nature Conservancy Council will not be impaired at all by the terms of Clause 1 as drafted.
The so-called research function has in the past been related primarily to conservation management and advisory work. This is not, strictly speaking, basic research, which in recent years has become so important in the environmental field. Nature Conservancy research teams did undertake basic research where it was necessary in order to resolve underlying ecological problems, but I think that this shows that the Nature Conservancy have never really had these research resources on tap, so to speak. In fact, Nature Conservancy has now become even more strongly concerned with the establishment of management of nature reserves, and basic research has advanced to such an extent, widening in scope and disciplines, that it would be difficult to mount effective programmes, as my noble friend Lord Sandford has said, without calling on special multi-disciplinary teams

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with considerable resources at their disposal, so that they can work above the threshold level which is likely to assure the successful outcome. Surely, this is where NERC as a whole is able to offer the best solution. The very object of the Research Council is to promote the advance of fundamental knowledge about the environment and to contribute to the training of the scientific manpower of the country. The resources at its disposal will ensure, to my mind, a co-ordinated research programme to back the programmes of the various bodies concerned with the environment, and it will have the ability to command the necessary funds.
With priorities to consider, I cannot see a satisfactory research wing of the N.C.C. developing and attracting the right sort of scientific staff for meeting the advanced research objective, except at the expense of duplication. I think my noble friend Lord Sandford has explained the management and advisory functions of the N.C.C. extremely well, but I should like to digest these later when I read them in Hansard. It is clear that they are by themselves very considerable indeed, without taking into account any research work which might be undertaken or commissioned.
I should like to say a word or two about commissioning research. This is not a lesser way, or a more inefficient way, or a poor man's way of having research carried out; it can be done as effectively, and very often more efficiently and promptly. But more thought has to be given to the reasons for doing it, and more consultation has to take place in order to make a case for the work to be done and to avoid duplication. The results obtained in this way are, from my experience, as valuable as those obtained in-house. Very often, the sponsor saves himself the cost of a large number of specialists and their facilities, all of which constitute a running expense which has to be maintained over the years.
Finally, the Nature Conservancy Council is surely not intended to be a research council. I think this is becoming plainer as the debate progresses. But I do not see that it will be prevented by the Bill from carrying out its functions in terms of trial, monitoring, observation and that sort of thing. I do not think you can
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call this genuine research. I should be glad to hear what my noble friend Lord Sandford has to say in detail about Clause 1(4)(b) and the powers that the N.C.C. will have under that clause to carry out these functions which my noble friend Lord Cranbrook believes are research.
4.59 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we are taking a very long time over this one Amendment, but it is extremely important and goes to the very heart of a piece of legislation which, although modest in size, is of great national importance; namely, the whole method of conduct into conservation and research which will increasingly play a major role in human planning and human activity. I must confess that the more I have listened to the debate the more depressed I have become by the somewhat mechanistic approach of the Government to an issue of the greatest sensitivity. I have the greatest sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in his task in trying to use appropriate language for a Minister in an area where almost inevitably one goes back into the philosophic realms into which we were launched somewhat dubiously a little while ago by the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild. It is indeed unfortunate that we are having to discuss again the customer/contractor relationship, though I was interested to note the definition given by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford (though of course it may not have been meant as a definition), that a customer/contractor relationship is a close and intimate working relationship. This has not always been the case in customer/contractor relationships. Perhaps the noble Lord is saying that that is what it ought to be—
LORD SANDFORD: —and is, in many cases.
LORD SHACKLETON: —and is in many cases. I do not doubt that the arrangements the Government are making with regard to the working relationships of this rather high-sounding Terrestrial Ecology Institute—and again one would like to know more about that, and to know whether they will be doing straight botany or biology or whether they really will be the ecological or the nature conservancy wing of NERc—are the best arrangements that can be made, given

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the split in the old Nature Conservancy. If I understand it correctly, the old Nature Conservancy had two wings: a research wing and a wing responsible for the management of nature reserves. I do not know whether co-location is possible. Of course it will not be possible where the research stations are, and I imagine these will form the heart of the Terrestial Ecology Institute.
Incidentally, if I may quarrel with the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, whose memory and vigour is so much greater than is the case with many of us, I think he said it was that very great man, Professor Tansley, who first used the word "ecology". My information is that the word was first used by Thoreau in the middle of the 19th century. If there is one subject with which the Nature Conservancy is concerned, it is ecology. I share the views of my noble friend Lord Kennet, that we do not want to vote against the Government on this Amendment and we are not in any sense approaching it on a Party basis. So far as I am concerned, my noble friends on this side may go whichever way they think the argument has taken them, because this is not a Party issue.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that I am worried, not about the immediate effect but about the long-term effect of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, specifically refused to say at any point that any of the scientists who will be working for the new Nature Conservancy Council—these hundred scientists—will be able to do research. Again, if I may go back to the noble Lord, Lord Rothschild—and the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, will confirm this—it is absurd to talk about scientists. It may be all right in the electronics field—I am not sure, but I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Ironside, is a physicist—but in this field it is impossible to think that scientists cannot do research. Yet it appears that under this Bill they are forbidden to do so. If they are not forbidden, it must be explicitly stated that they can do research. If we look at the particular provision contained in Clause 1(a)(iii), we see this:
"(iii) the commissioning and support (whether by financial means or otherwise) of research which in the opinion of the Council is relevant to the matters mentioned in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) above…"
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We have been told by the Government that they can do surveys and that they can monitor; but supposing that a particular scientist working in a particular field of research, such as the nature conservationist area in the island of Rhum—it is almost entirely a research project but none the less it is a conservation area where people are concerned with the control of red deer, their breeding, herd management and so on—wants to do some research. As we know from my noble friend Lord Snow and others, there are sometimes conflicts in the corridors of scientific power and it will be possible for the Secretary of State for Education and Science to say, "This is not allowed under the Bill". Noble Lords may say that it would be absolutely absurd to say that. I quite agree, and I should like to ensure that the Bill is explicit enough to allow this.
If I may say so, it was not my intention originally to support the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, but to urge him, in the light of the discussion, to have another look at perhaps a narrower Amendment on Report stage. But even now any danger of destroying the research part of the old Nature Conservancy—the old part which is left behind in NERC—can be prevented because the Secretary of State has absolute powers to give directions in this matter.
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the person he referred to; that is, a person who wants to do research, can apply for a grant from NERC in fact and still carry out the research.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I feel very hesitant to say to somebody with as much knowledge as the noble Lord, Lord Ironside, that I really do not believe that it is possible for scientists working in the field to work in this sort of way. I would much rather the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, explained how this might be done. But what is the definition of research? Whether we like it or not, in fact the Nature Conservancy Council will be contributing to research: and I should like to see in this Bill either the form of words proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, or a form of words indicating that this capacity is here.

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We have heard a great deal about the desirability of getting a decision from the point of view of the staff. I do not doubt that it has been a very weary time for them. I have also talked to members of the staff of the old Nature Conservancy, and have had the same advice; but in Parliament we have to take the right decision on this matter. I do not think we have it yet. It may well be that the Minister will be able to satisfy us when he comes to speak again. I hope we can be given some explanation. It may well be that we shall not need to vote, but if there is not a proper assurance—and I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, but I doubt whether he can give us the assurance that he will tackle this on Report stage with a different form of words—then my advice to my noble friends will be that they are free to make up their minds and, if they wish, free to support the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, if he decides to take the matter to a Division.
5.10 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, may I intervene for one short moment? We all ought to be extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Cranbrook for initiating a far better Second Reading debate on this Bill to-day than we had at Second Reading, and a much fuller one. Also, if the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, will forgive me, a most splendid remark fell from his lips this afternoon which I shall long remember—I wrote it down. He said:
"I am still doing research and I have not an idea what it is I am doing."
I know exactly what he meant, but it is an awfully good remark, and we must send it off to Private Eye.
LORD ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, if I knew what I was doing, I should not be doing my research.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: You would not be doing your research. If you knew what you were doing you would not be doing it. That would have been a different remark. However, my Lords, we must give great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, said sometime ago about the difficulty of a scientist taking on a job which is going to fulfil him fully and his skills and knowledge if he is to be specifically divorced from his laboratory or work bench. When we
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had the debate on the Rothschild Green Paper there was a great split of opinion, and the point came out tremendously strongly that scientists, if they were worth the name of scientists, must go on being scientists. They all feared being diverted into administrators.
I heard an example of that only the other day in a different sphere. A bank official with whom I was connected was being recommended the registrar's department of his bank. Several of his friends said, "I hope he does not get diverted into that because this man is a banker". We were assured that he was a banker, and a skilled banker, and he would conic back into the main stream of banking, and that he was not going to be diverted for life into being a registrar, which, however honourable a profession, was not his. The point the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, made is an extraordinarily important one. I hope that when we are considering Lord Cranbrook's Amendment we shall give it very deep consideration. Shall we get in the future the right staff on this Council who are to be scientifically qualified to have what is called a "scientific capacity" but they are not allowed to practise their art—because that is what it comes to—or science. I have grave doubts about this, and we should bear this in mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and also perhaps my noble friend Lord Sandford, spoke as if a wrecking Amendment had been moved by my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, and that the whole of this carefully thought out Bill was going to be destroyed by this Amendment. It was as if Lord Cranbrook's Amendment were a Motion to reject the Bill on Second Reading. If your Lordships read what my noble friend Lord Cranbrook proposes to do now, I do not think it can be considered to be a wrecking Amendment. If you insert the words he asks to be inserted in line 19, the clause will read:
"the following functions, namely…the carrying out the commissioning and support (whether by financial means or otherwise) of research…"
All he is doing is adding the fact that they may, they can, they are not precluded from doing or individual scientists are not precluded from doing, direct research as well as the other matters which they must do in commissioning

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research on the contractor/customer principle. The point we are now being asked to consider, as I take it, by my noble friend Lord Sandford the noble Baroness, Lady White, and presumably my noble friend Lord Sandford, the noble Baroness, Lady White, and presumably my noble friend Lord Craigton, is that these two things cannot be run in double harness, that you cannot have these scientists doing any research themselves if they are part of an organisation which has been set up as a customer to give out with its money contracts to other more qualified contractors. We must consider this carefully: do these destroy each other, or can they run in parallel? I hope they can.
I was slightly surprised, when my noble friend Lord Sandford was speaking, when he said that this principle—may we call it the Rothschild principle?—which I believe in, provided that it is not taken to extremes, had been adopted by Government and therefore there were not going to be any Councils doing research any more; it would all be done by contract. I must be very naÏve and foolish, but I had not realised that both of the research institutes with which I am interested—and I immediately say not as a scientist but as a layman, a poor administrator—which receive all their funds from the Agricultural Research Council are precluded from doing research. Neither the director of the Meat Research Institute, of whose Advisory Committee I am Chairman, nor the Director of the Fruit and Vegetable Institute at Long Ashton, is precluded from going near their benches or from writing up the results of their work in Nature or from maintaining their own laboratories. The argument when we were debating the Rothschild Green Paper was that many scientists had great fears that they were never again going to be allowed to go anywhere near their laboratories, or a piece of apparatus; that the rest of their lives would be spent in an office answering telephones and writing minutes. We hope that that fear has been allayed in practice, that research activities are still going on, and that scientists have not been turned wholly into administrators.
Heaven knows! We all want passionately that the Nature Conservancy shall be allowed to settle down and get
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on with work which is becoming increasingly important. But must we now see these people—perhaps these people alone—being made the example of the principle right to the end: "No science at all; only administration for you, though all of you must have the correct scientific knowledge so that you can commission the right things"? But who are you going to get to work along those lines if this is being hammered home like that? I hope that we may be able to say that my noble friend Lord Cranbrook has not moved a wrecking Amendment, but that he has moved a sensible Amendment, and one that we can vote for in this House. Perhaps it is not in the right order, perhaps it should be reworded so that it might read that they may carry out research as well as commissioning it. Perhaps it would seem better to my noble friend Lord Sandford that the Amendment should read that the Council should have the power to commission and support research; and he might like to have the relevant words put in brackets or in small type at the end of the sub-paragraph. It might make all the difference if that were how it was put. I hope that this is not too simplistic. I hope that we shall be able to do this.
May I digress for one second on an interesting point? The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that Thoreau first used the word "ecology". I thought it was Stapleton. But what matters is how you spell it. If you look up the word in the dictionary, in a 19th century dictionary, you will find it spelt with an "œ"—"œcology". It is only the modern word, which perhaps is different from the œcology, spelt with a diphthong, that is in modern dictionaries and is the "ecology" that we are talking about to-day. My Lords, I have spoken for too long, but the clock has stopped.
5.20 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: I have the greatest sympathy with those who worked with the old Nature Conservancy, who had to fight for it in its earlier days and who had to fight for its money to do research. They had to fight to get the absolutely essential research off the ground. But I do not think we should allow that battle of bygone days to dominate our thinking at the present time. I myself am inclined to the view that an established administrative department should not normally

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do research itself—not that it should necessarily not do it, but that it should not be a normal function of an administrative department to do research. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White, when she said that if it does research there is a tendency for it to take its eye off its main task. I think that that is a very cogent argument indeed—at least, it is with me.
The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, questioned whether we should get good staff for the Nature Conservancy if they were not allowed also to do research. I think the Fulton Report and the action that stemmed from the Fulton Report, leading to the interchangeability of scientists in the fields of administration and research, has put a different complexion altogether upon this matter, and the proposal of the Government in this Bill I think facilitates the interchangeability of scientists within NERC. From the scientist's point of view, I think it is far more important that you should get a squad of scientists in the Nature Conservancy, as the Amendment suggests. The ecology scientists themselves will have a much better opportunity if they are in NERC and not under the Conservancy Council.
There is another scientific reason that I think holds good for the Government decision, and it is that we cannot forecast at the present time what are going to be the sciences and fields of knowledge that will have to be brought in to deal with ecological problems. If we put the scientists under the Council at the present time, then there may be a barrier between getting the answers from associated fields which may indeed be fundamental. For that reason I think that the proposals are the right ones. I regard this Bill as the logical evolution of the whole subject in the organisation of matters concerning the environment. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sandford—and I am speaking only from information, as I might say, on the scientific worker's desk. It seems to confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said: that the scientific staff concerned on the whole support the Government proposals. If my information is correct, they are very apprehensive that these proposals as they stand in the Bill before your Lordships just now may not go through. In the words of one scientist, they have been
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already too much bashed around, and if scientists get bashed around they do not do very good scientific work. I support my noble friend, Lord Craigton, in resisting this Amendment.
LORD SOMERS: I hesitate to add anything to what has been about a two-hour debate on a single Amendment, but I think that there is a psychological point to be considered. If you know that you are the only person who can do something, the chances are that you will not bother to do it. If you know that other people can do it as well, you are much more likely to. As the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, pointed out very correctly, this Amendment is not confining research to the Nature Conservancy; it is merely allowing them to do it, and surely that is a very sensible thing to do. The result will be that it will be much more likely to be done. Therefore I sincerely hope that your Lordships will accept the Amendment.
LORD SANDFORD: Having heard the views of all noble Lords who have taken part so far in this very valuable, extensive and thorough debate, perhaps I could now deal rather more fully with my noble friend's Amendment. What is envisaged by my noble friend in proposing his Amendment is that some research should be carried out by the Nature Conservancy Council and some by the Natural Environment Research Council. His Amendment does not seek to show where the dividing line should be. Indeed, one of the difficulties is precisely as the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, has indicated. It would be extremely difficult to mark out this boundary, and the problem is not honestly solved by saying that the division can be dealt with administratively. We should still find that the precise boundaries between the research functions of the two bodies would be extremely difficult to define.
The research which it has been suggested the Nature Conservancy Council should carry out must be carried out from a sound scientific base. If the N.C.C. were to undertake much of this they would need a much larger organisation. That could well result in uneconomic expenditure and there might well be duplication of effort as between the N.C.C. and the NERC, as well as confusion of aim within the N.C.C. itself. So we are convinced that

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if the main research function in relation to nature conservation is to be performed effectively it is essential that the carrying out of the research should not be divided broadly between the NERC and the N.C.C. A matter that we consider to be really important is for research to be undertaken, at least in the main, by the body concerned with the whole range of earth sciences and ecology. This ensures that research into nature conservation and other environmental research can be properly developed and integrated as a whole, and their interrelationships, which are considerable, fostered and safeguarded.
If the carrying out of research were divided broadly between the NERC and the N.C.C., the sorting out of which research should be done by the new Council and which by NERC, and how the properties and staff should be divided, would be extremely difficult, and any such division would be a continuing fruitful source of friction between the two bodies. To give the new Council a full research capability would inevitably lead to its drawing apart from NERC and to an increasing isolation from the mainstream of environmental research efforts. By contrast, under the Government's proposals there could be a close and working relationship between the two bodies, and the integration of nature and wild life research with other related research in other fields of the environment.
Now perhaps I could just give one example out of many of why it is good sense for applied conservation research as a general rule to be carried out on a scientific base within NERC, and how difficulties would arise if this were to be done by the Nature Conservancy Council. Take just as one example, out of many that could be given, the Toxic Chemicals Section at Monks Wood, which I was looking into myself only two days ago. This is a section that was formed at Monks Wood in 1960, and it is an example of how there may develop a need for a major reorientation of a research effort. The section was originally formed when suspicions first arose of trouble from the organochlorine pesticides. This problem has now largely been dealt with and is broadly under control. But in future the section will need to turn part of its attention to new kinds of pollution and problems arising
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from the non-agricultural sources, such as heavy metals. These new problems are not confined to terrestrial wildlife in agricultural areas, and research on them will need to be undertaken in conjunction with freshwater and estuarine pollution research undertaken in other NERC institutes and laboratories. To attempt the redeployment and regrouping that is now needed would be impossible if this capability resided exclusively within the Nature Conservancy Council. As I say, there are many other examples I could quote and that is just one.
LORD SHACKLETON: Why should this redeployment take place as a result of this Amendment? I simply do not understand. As somebody who has followed closely the progress at Monks Wood, it never occurred to me that this would be moved to the new Council. But that is not the argument, as I understand it.
LORD SANDFORD: The point I was making was that the N.C.C., if it had a major research capability of its own, might well have tackled a problem of that kind, finished it, and then, if the capability resided in the N.C.C., it would not have the capability of adjusting itself in the broad front which is possible in a body which is based inside an organisation with a broader range of disciplines.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGS-BRIDGE: I think this must be made clear to us. I do not understand this at all. I have followed this debate with the greatest interest and it is important. But if the N.C.C. does a piece of research which leads to problems which it is not equipped to deal with, what possible reason is there to stop it from passing them over to NERC? I simply do not understand the argument at all.
LORD SANDFORD: Perhaps I could continue rather than dwell too long or, that particular example. It is pertinent—and perhaps this leads on from what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has just been saying—to mention that, even under the present arrangements, the Nature Conservancy does not carry out research by any means in all the fields in which it gives advice. Perhaps that is the point the noble Lord was making and I am glad to be able to confirm it. For example, much of the Conservancy's advice on the status of bird populations

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has been based on work commissioned from the British Trust for Ornithology and the Wildfowl Trust. As regards the conservation of geological features, advice by the Conservancy has been based on research carried out by the I.G.S. and by universities. So that demonstrates that the new Council can operate in independence of in-house research. What is important is that the Council has a scientific competence to commission the necessary research work and to interpret the results obtained by others. That is what the Government are aiming to ensure that it will do.
I have already explained at some length the reasons which underlie the Government's proposals, but I recognise the great value of the many expressions of opinion that have been given by noble Lords in this Committee this afternoon. I should like to take time for the Government to think further and carefully about what has been said because it is of such value. We could consider whether we would be able to recommend at Report stage an Amendment in a form of words which might help in bridging the gap which at present divides the Government and my noble friend Lord Cranbrook in the bald Amendment which he has down on the Order Paper to-day, which has enabled us to have this extremely valuable debate. So I should like to follow up the suggestion which has come from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, and maybe the valuable suggestion of my noble friend Lord Waldegrave about using small print in brackets, in order to meet some of the views that have been expressed.
To adopt the Amendment in the bald form which is now before us would pose considerable difficulties in sorting out the respective roles of the NERC and the new N.C.C., and I should have to ask the Committee to resist that if my noble friend were to press it. But I ask my noble friend not to press his Amendment to-day, on the understanding that the Government want the benefit of the views that have been expressed this afternoon, and to take time to do it and look further into the matter. I give my noble friend the assurance that when we have done this I will write to him so that he will have time to consider his position further before the Report stage.
LORD KENNET: By and large we on this side were not convinced with the noble Lord's reasons for rejecting the Amendment as it stood, because it seems to us that if you give a body freedom to do research you do not thereby automatically incur all the confusion and competition which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, described. It is not an impossible administrative problem for the NERC and the new Nature Conservancy Council to settle between them a frontier on the kinds of research they might be doing. I repeat that merely to give the new Council the power to research, as opposed to having no power to research whatever, would not by any means be such a receipe for confusion. But, having heard what the noble Lord has to say about the Government's intention of looking at the possibility of introducing later an Amendment which would, as he put it himself, bridge the gap—and one can see many ways in which the gap might be bridged; one can see many research powers which might be given to the new Council under certain limitations, limitations which would ensure a tidy frontier such as the Government wish—let me say that I think many of us on this side, although this is not a Party matter in any sense, would be glad if the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, were to feel it right to withdraw his Amendment at this stage. He can always put down the very same one again later if he does not like the Government Amendment he sees. But if he did not withdraw the Amendment we should not feel able to advise the Committee to reject it; we should not feel able to join with the Government in advising the Committee to reject it.
5.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I feel as if I am now about to reply to a Second Reading debate because this debate has been more like that than a Committee one. If I may deal first with the points of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I must confess to having been profoundly disappointed in his reply, because by and large he did not answer any of the points which I made in introducing this Amendment. His basic principle seemed to be that NERC and the Conservancy Council, having power to undertake research, could not coexist. I think I showed when I moved this Amendment that many other bodies

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with exactly the same powers as NERC —I quoted two: the Forestry Commission and the laboratories of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, both of whom have exactly the same remit of research into forestry and fisheries respectively as NERC has had—can and do co-exist, and it has not made the slightest difference to NERc's being able to undertake research. The example the noble Lord chose of being one of the things that ought not to have been done by the Conservancy could scarcely have been a worse one.
Your Lordships may not be aware that when there were first indications that wildlife was being affected by toxic chemicals research into this was started at Monkswood, and one of the remarkably interesting things which turned up was that in the Highlands of Scotland eagles were dying like flies and those which did not die were laying eggs which were not fertile, whereas the ravens were continuing to flourish and breed like rabbits. They both feed on the same food, very largely carrion; and in fact up there it was dead sheep. If this matter had been left to a series of boffins in a research department they would have thought this a most extraordinary thing and started to look for some other reason. In point of fact, the people working there were in close contact with workers in the field. One man in the research department had a man who had worked in the fields for many years and knew that when an eagle eats a dead sheep, like nearly all the other such types of bird, including hawks and owls, it eats a great deal of the wool which had been impregnated with poison, whereas the raven pecks away at the meat and eats very little of the wool. That is exactly the sort of reason why the field worker and the man in the laboratory must be in touch; indeed, one ought to have the same people working side by side in the same organisation.
The time has now come when that work has got beyond tactical or strategic research, or whatever we call it (it is very difficult to define these stages): it has become basic research, and I think it is perfectly correct to say that it is time that work passed to a body responsible for basic and not for tactical
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research. The noble Baroness, Lady White, had the same sort of difficulty in trying to define where one started and the other finished. If she will look at the Bill she will see that my Amendment would make no greater difficulties than exist already, because the Conservancy Council is going to be able to commission and support undefined research. It might even be the effect of pesticides on the pancreas of a golden eagle, but the research cannot be defined in the Bill and that is the fundamental difficulty I shall have when I come to meet the suggestion of the noble Lord that I should withdraw my Amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, made a point which I also made when I moved this Amendment, and again the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, did not really reply to it. It is that there is bound to be constant pressure to start some form of research going in an organisation where we have (as I hope we shall have) scientists who are really keen on their jobs. Such pressure is just the thing we have to try to avoid. What we want now is stability; that the new Nature Conservancy Council should be established in such a way that there will be no pressure coming from outside or inside to deflect it from the course which has been laid down. I believe there are bound to be pressures if research is introduced; it is bound to set up the sort of "empire building" squabble between NERC and the Conservancy which we are all so anxious to avoid. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, tried to answer that point at all.
We then come to the point that has been made, of the difficulties under which the staff have worked. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, read a resolution of the staff, the preamble to which was. "Given the decision of the Government"—to do this. That has been the whole trouble, and it is bound to be the trouble that we shall have to face up to when we deal with this problem. What in fact has happened is that the Government have started to take steps to implement legislation which Parliament has never looked at. The result has been that people have been told into which pigeonhole they will be put if certain things happen, and now in fact if something else happens they will get into more distress. The fact that

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there has been a muddle, the fact that the staff have been muddled up by the Department of Science and by the Department of the Environment does not mean that just for that reason we have to reach the wrong decision to-day. I believe that the right decision is to accept my Amendment.
The noble Lord said—I am afraid with every sort of equivocation that he could, as he went through it; and I do not in any way intend to be rude—that he might be able to find a way of bridging the gap. I do not see how the gap can be bridged unless my Amendment is passed. The only way of bridging the gap is to define the sort of research which the new Conservancy Council is going to undertake. That will be no more difficult if my Amendment is passed than if it is withdrawn. I believe your Lordships should establish the principle that you feel it is
impossible to divorce conservation from research, which I think was the unanimous opinion of the whole of the staff concerned with this a year ago. All that has happened since then is that they have been so "mucked about" that they are saying, "For heaven's sake! leave us alone; we will take second best if we cannot get first best". I believe it is our job to start this new Council off on the right lines, and unless the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, can stand up once more and say, quite unequivocally, that he will find some means of ensuring that the new Nature Conservancy Council has the power to undertake some research I am afraid that I must press my Amendment.
5.49 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?.
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 126; Not-Contents. 47.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Ferrier, L.

Raglan, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Fiske, L.

Redesdale. L.

Albermarle, E.

Fulton, L.

Rhodes, L.

Allerton, L.

Gainford, L.

Ridley, V.

Amulree, L.

Garner, L.

Rowallan, L.

Archibald, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Royle, L.

Arran, E.

George-Brown, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Arwyn, L.

Gisborough, L.

St. Davids, V.

Atholl, D. [Teller.]

Granville of Eye, L.

Segal, L.

Bacon, B.

Greenway, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Scrota, B.

Balogh, L.

Hale, L.

Shackleton, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hanworth, V.

Shinwell, L.

Bernstein, L.

Henderson, L.

Slater, L.

Beswick, L.

Henley, L.

Snow, L.

BIyton, L.

Hood, V.

Somers, L.

Brockway, L.

Hoy, L.

Soper, L.

Burntwood, L.

Hughes, L.

Stamp, L.

Carnock, L.

Hurcomb, L.

Stocks, B.

Champion, L.

Hylton, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Chorley, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Clwyd, L.

Jacques, L.

Strang, L.

Coleridge, L.

Janner, L.

Strange, L.

Colyton, L.

Kennet, L.

Strange of Knokin, B.

Conesford, L.

Killearn, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Kindesley, L,

Tanlaw, L.

Cottesloe. L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Cowley, E.

Landsdowne, M.

Vivian, L.

Cranbrook, E. [Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Waldegrave, E,

Crook, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Davidson, V.

Long, V.

Williamson, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Loudoun, C.

Willingdon, M.

de Clifford, L.

McLeavy, L.

Willis, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Maelor, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Wise, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Milford, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Dundonald, E.

Northchurch, B.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Elliott of Harwood, B.

Onslow, E.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Penrhyn, L.

Wynford, L.

Energlyn, L.

Phillips, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Faringdon, L.

Platt, L.

Zuckerman, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Eccles, V.

Milverton, L.

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Monck, V.

Balerno, L.

Gage, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Barnby, L.

Gowrie, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Belstead, L.

Haig, E.

Polwarth, L.

Blackett, L.

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

Rankeillour, L.

Bledisloe, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Ironside, L.

Shannon, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Courtown, E.

Jessel, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Craigavon, V.

Kemsley, V.

Teviot, L.

Craigton, L.

Lothian, M.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Daventry, V.

Mar, E.

Vernon, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

White, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Merrivale, L.

Young, B. [Teller.]

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Advisory committees of Council]:
5.58 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON LORD CRAIGTON moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 34, at end insert—
("( ) a committee for the purpose of giving them advice about the discharge of their functions in England, and").
The noble Lord said: My noble friend has asked me to move this Amendment very shortly. Clause 2 says:
"The Council may appoint committees."
but that,
"Without prejudice…it shall be the duty of the Council to appoint"
committees for Scotland and Wales. When on Second Reading I suggested that there should be a separate committee for England, my noble friend Lord Sandford said in reply that he wanted the. Bill to permit the Council to provide whatever committees for England it considered best for English conditions. But there is nothing in the Bill as it stands to prevent the Council, as it might well wish to do, from appointing a second committee for Scotland though it has not been suggested that Scotland should not have a statutory committee. The Council may, if the Minister suggested, eventually wish to have English provincial committees, but these could not and should not be a substitute for a statutory committee to consider England's problems as a whole. There are many problems which can be considered only in an English committee relationship.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will remember, I spent a decade in this House and in another place fighting on every Parliamentary battlefield for a square deal for Scotland. It is a refreshing change to be fighting for a square deal for England; and this Amendment is no less than that. I do not think we run the risk of the Council deciding at some time not to have any committee at all for England, but without this specific reference the Bill does create unnecessary misunderstanding. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My noble friend is perfectly right. The Bill continues in effect the requirement for separate committees in relation to Scotland and Wales but makes no provision at the moment as regards England, and the reason for that is exactly as he reports me as having said at Second Reading. What more I want to say is that, now that the Chairman-designate of the Nature Conservancy Council, Sir David Serpell, has been appointed, I am sure the best course would be to discuss the matter with him in the light of any views expressed on this Amendment beyond those already expressed by my noble friend. We could then consider this Amendment in the light of his views, and those of his Council about the provincial arrangements, if the Council and the Chairman wish to have any, so that the committee and your Lordships will know precisely what arrangements are being made for England. I hope that, with the assurance that we will consider the Amendment on that basis, and shall be able to return to it with that extra information at Report stage, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his Amendment now.
LORD CRAIGTON: In view of that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Administrative and supplementary provisions relating to the Council]:
6.3 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page line 15, at end add (" and any other land occupied by them shall be deemed, for the purpose of any rate on property, to be property occupied by on or behalf of the Crown for public purposes.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 3. This Amendment deals with the status of the property of the Nature Conservancy Council, other than nature reserves, for the purposes of rates on the property. Under the Amendment such property will be regarded as being occupied by or on behalf of the Crown for public purposes. The effect of this is that the Nature Conservancy Council will not be under a requirement to pay rates but, as in the case of Crown property, a contribution will be paid in lieu. The Amendment does not apply to the Nature Conservancy Council's nature reserves. Paragraph 15 of Schedule 3 already provides for the Council to be treated as a Government Department in relation to land in which they have an interest and which they manage as a nature reserve. As a result of this, for rating purposes all of the Council's property will be treated in the same way. I beg to move.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with the Amendments.

LAND COMPENSATION BILL
6.5 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(Lord Sandford)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 2 [Interests qualifying for compensation]:
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD POLWARTH)THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD POLWARTH) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 42, after ("of") insert ("(a)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and the next one standing in my name, to which I should like to speak now, with your Lordships' agreement, are the first of the Amendments which were originally tabled for Report stage but which have been deferred until now at the request of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I can appreciate the noble Lord's dismay on first perceiving the bulk of these Amendments, but as my noble friend Lord Sandford explained at Report, there is no need to be intimidated by this. Most of them simply adapt to the law of Scotland provisions already in the Bill or apply those provisions to the peculiarly Scottish kinds of agricultural tenants. It is a complicated subject and also one on which there are a great many small differences between Scottish and English law.
I should like to explain these special kinds of tenure, for the benefit of those noble Lords who do not share the familiarity with the subject of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. Crofters, cottars, landholders and statutory small tenants are peculiarly Scottish classes of tenant. Crofters and cottars are found only in the seven counties of Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Orkney, Ross-shire, Sutherland and Shetland. Landholders and statutory small tenants are confined to the rest of Scotland. A crofter is the tenant of a croft, which is a small agricultural subject, who enjoys security of tenure virtually in perpetuity as well as the right to assign or bequeath his holding. He is responsible for providing his own house and buildings and is entitled to compensation for them on renunciation or removal from the croft. The only limitation on his security is that the landlord

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has the right to apply to the Scottish Land Court for authority to resume the whole or part of the croft for a reasonable purpose having regard to the good of the croft or the estate or to the public interest.
A cottar is the occupier of a dwelling-house with or without agricultural land attached to it, who may or may not pay rent, but is in occupation with the consent of the landlord. He or his predecessors will normally have provided the dwelling-house, and he has similar compensation rights to a crofter. A landholder is the tenant of a small agricultural unit outside the crofting counties who in most respects is comparable with a crofter. He enjoys comparable security of tenure and is responsible for providing his own house and fixed equipment, for which he has similar compensation rights to a crofter. Statutory small tenants are a diminishing class, comparable to landholders but distinguished from them by the fact that they have not provided the greater part of the improvements on their holding.
In addition to the Scottish Amendments which have been carried over from Report stage, we have found it necessary to introduce some small drafting improvements, but these are quite straightforward and I shall explain them as we come to them. Turning first to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, the purpose of them is to bring within the scope of Part I of the Bill the interests of crofters and similar classes of tenant who are peculiar to Scotland. The Amendments recognise the fact that the crofter is normally required to provide his own equipment on his holding for which he receives compensation on outgoing. It is possible that this compensation or the sum which he receives for the holding on assignation may be reduced by the injurious effect of the use of public works. It seems reasonable, therefore, to regard the interest of the crofter in this context as more analogous to that of an owner-occupier than of a year-to-year tenant, who does not normally have to provide his own equipment. We are therefore extending the definition of "owner's interest" in this clause to provide for this. The position of landholders, statutory small tenants and cottars is broadly similar to that of a crofter, and they
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are therefore also covered by the Amendments. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, said, I feel obliged at this late stage of the Bill to object to so many Scottish Amendments coming up at such short notice on so complicated a subject, much of it very highly legal and technical in its aspect. I have used the time that has elapsed between Report stage and to-day to make inquiries in Scotland as to the effects of these Amendments and about the way in which they have been received by the main agricultural interests. The noble Lord will be glad when I say that nothing that I have been told—with one exception, which is the subject of an Amendment that I have tabled—has given me any cause to believe that I should oppose any of these Amendments that have been re-tabled by the Government to-day.
However, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, spoke to me early this afternoon about this Amendment, and said that he feared he would not be present when we reached it. If he had been here, he would have asked (I may be wrong, but I think this arose from discussions he has had with the Law Society) why in this widening definition a liferenter has been excluded. I do not know whether in fact a person who holds the liferent of a property which is affected under Clause 1 would benefit if liferenters were not specifically mentioned. Perhaps the noble Lord can say what is the position of a person who holds a liferent of a property in Scotland and who is affected under provisions where other people are being given protection.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, did indeed inquire of me earlier about this point. I have made inquiries and, as I understand it, the reason for the exclusion of a life-renter as such is that a liferenter does not have a realisable interest which could be depreciated as a result of the use of public works. On the other hand, a crofter, or one of the other specified categories here, is entitled on renouncing his tenancy to receive compensation for his buildings, and this compensation is what could be depreciated by the use of public works. As I understand it, where there is a liferent it is the trustees who will be entitled to receive compensation,

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not the liferenter direct; and presumably the liferenter would benefit through the fact of the assets of the trust being added to by this compensation. I understand that that is the position.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I thought that that might be the position, but can the noble Lord go a little further? He said, "as I understand it", but that is not the same as saying that the trustees will receive compensation and the liferenter will therefore benefit indirectly. Perhaps, even if it may be a little out of order, when the noble Lord can get specific information he will be able to say that the trustees will be in exactly the same position as any other owner. It is just possible that I have spoken sufficiently long out of order to enable the answer to be given.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords. I am sorry to say that that is not the case. But I will certainly endeavour to obtain confirmation in time to give the noble Lord a reply at a suitable moment later on.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 45, at end insert ("and
(b) a crofter, a landholder, a statutory small tenant and a cottar in the land.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it did not seem to me that anybody said anything. I heard no murmur of "Content" at all, and I certainly did not say "Not-Content". I think noble Lords ought to say something.
Clause 4 [Assessment of compensation: general provisions]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 5, line 43, after ("or") insert ("to a contract made after the relevant date").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. As subsection (4)(c) stands, in cases of contracts for grant of a tenancy entered into before the relevant date there could be duplication of compensation because both parties to the contract would be entitled to
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claim. A correction is required to secure that both could not, and the Amendment secures that the landlord's interest is valued subject to the contract for the tenancy. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 8 [Other restrictions on compensation]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 8, line 38, after ("by") insert ("the use of").
The noble Lord said: my Lords, this is another drafting Amendment. It ensures that the depreciation referred to in subsection (1) is depreciation caused by the use of the works (which is what Part I is all about) and not by other factors, such as the construction of the works. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 19 [Interpretation of Part I]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 18, line 16, after ("always") insert ("since 17th October 1969").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is the last to Part I, and it is a technical one. Part I applies only to highways first opened to public traffic on or after October 17, 1969, and the word "always" thus needs to be qualified to bring it within the terms of reference of Part I. Without the date the provision could be held to deal with situations in the indefinite past, which is not what it was intended to do. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 20 [Sound-proofing of buildings affected by public works]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 19, line 5, at end insert ("and the area in which a building must be situated if a duty or power is to arise in respect of it").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, regulations under Clause 20 may make provisions for the level of noise giving rise to a duty or power, and may specify the classes of buildings in respect of which a duty or power is to arise. By subsection (3) they may also provide for the

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relevant level of noise in a particular case to be determined by reference to certain documents. It is envisaged that the regulations will require responsible authorities to determine the relevant level of noise in a particular case, either by prediction in accordance with a formula evolved and contained in a published document, or by measurement in individual or groups of cases, and, in the case of prediction, to publish a map in advance of the construction of the works showing the area in which the relevant level of noise is predicted to be reached. The intention is that buildings situated within that area shall be eligible for sound insulation work on the application of some person. The powers need to be wide enough to enable responsible authorities to publish such a map or take other steps which would result under the regulations in some buildings being eligible and others not. As drafted, subsection (2) does not quite ensure this; hence this technical Amendment. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 7, is consequential on Amendment No. 6. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 24, after ("noise") insert ("or the relevant area").—(Lord Sandford.)
6.20 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 19, line 42, at end insert—
("(5A) Regulations under this section may authorise the council of a London borough to contribute towards expenses incurred under the regulations by a responsible authority in respect of the insulation of buildings against noise caused or expected to be caused by the use of any highway in that borough in relation to which an order has been made under section 6 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 (traffic regulation orders in Greater London).").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 20 enables the Secretary of State to
"make regulations imposing a duty or conferring a power on responsible authorities to insulate buildings against noise caused or expected to be caused by the construction or use of public works or to make grants in respect of the cost of such insulation".
The term "responsible authority" is defined in subsection (11) of the clause
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as including, where it relates to a highway,
"any authority having power to make an order in respect of that highway under section 1 or 6 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967…".
Section 1 deals with orders outside Greater London, whereas Section 6 covers orders in the Greater London Area. In Greater London the authority having power to make an order as respects roads other than trunk roads is the Greater London Council. In the case of trunk roads it is the Minister or, with his consent, again the G.L.C. Subsection (5) of this clause enables regulations to be made to
"authorise or require local authorities to act as agents for responsible authorities in dealing with claims and in discharging or exercising the duties or powers of responsible authorities under the regulations, and may provide for the making by responsible authorities of payments to local authorities in respect of anything done by them as such agents".
As I have stated, the G.L.C., and not the London boroughs, is the authority which has the power to make such regulations in Greater London on highways other than trunk roads, and cases could occur where the G.L.C. could make an order at the request of a London borough, and that borough, being willing to make a grant to the G.L.C. towards the cost of any subsequent sound insulation scheme, may find itself unable to do so because of the restrictions of subsection (5) as it now stands. I am advised that subsection (5) is restricted to anything done by local authorities as agents for responsible authorities, and there is no circumstance in which the G.L.C. would be acting as agent for a London borough in this matter. The purpose of the Amendment is to enable a London borough to contribute to the expenses where the G.L.C. is acting as a result of a request from a London borough and that borough is willing to contribute towards the costs. I am assured the Amendment is acceptable to the London Boroughs Association, and I hope it is in a form which the Minister can accept. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for moving and explaining this Amendment, and I am glad to confirm that it is acceptable to Her Majesty's Government.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 19, line 43, after ("section") insert ("may contain such supplementary provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient and")
The noble Lord said: This is a technical Amendment. It provides for the regulations to include such incidental, consequential and supplemental provisions as may be necessary for the purposes of the sound insulation scheme, since it is impossible to visualise and hence specify in this clause everything which it may be desirable to include when the regulations come to be drafted and presented to Parliament. I beg to move.
Clause 21 [Sound-proofing of buildings affected by aerodromes]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 20, line 29, at end insert ("but a scheme under that section need apply only to such classes of buildings as the Secretary of State thinks fit").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment has a little more substance than the ones I have been moving immediately prior to this. Clause 21 extends the meaning of "dwelling" in Section 15 of the Airports Authority Act 1965 to enable sound insulation to be installed in "buildings". This was done so as to match the new provision for sound-insulating buildings in respect of other public works in Clause 20. The existing powers in Section 15, however, are at present not adequate to enable regulations introduced under it to specify the classes of building in respect of which insulation might be installed, and the parallel with Clause 20(2)(b) is thus incomplete. This Amendment, therefore, simply provides powers in relation to aerodrome schemes which Clause 20 already provides for other schemes. I beg to move.
Clause 22 [Acquisition of land in connection with highways]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 23, line 16, leave out ("and other land").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 11 simply corrects a mistake in drafting which results in more of subsection (4) being left out of the Scottish application than was intended. I beg to move.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it seems to me that this is perfectly reasonable and, looking at this, one wonders why the words that are being altered were inserted in the first place—
"open space or fuel or field garden allotment and other land".
If it had read,
"open space and other land"
in the first instance, would that not have included a fuel or field garden allotment, or can they be regarded in some ways as not being part of any other land? However, it is not the Scottish application and I will not press it.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will excuse me from dealing with that English matter.
Clause 26 [Acquisition of land in connection with public works]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 26, line 32, after ("highway") insert ("or in Scotland a road").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, in moving Amendment No. 12 I will speak at the same time to the two subsequent Amendments. These are necessary because "highway" has a different meaning in Scotland from that which it has in England and Wales. In Scotland a highway is a road maintained by a highway authority. There are also roads built and maintained by other public authorities, such as the Forestry Commission and the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, to which the public have access. In England these would be highways, but in Scotland they are just "roads" and are not therefore excluded from Clauses 26 and 27 as they are worded at present. It is, however, desirable to exclude such minor roads which are not the responsibility of a highway authority in Scotland as well as in England and Wales, and the effect of these Amendments is to achieve this exclusion.
If your Lordships would allow me, while dealing with this question of highways and roads might I try to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on the point which he raised at an earlier stage in relation to definitions, arising, I think, under two previous clauses, Clauses 18 and 19—the definition of a "highway authority" in Scotland. While in Clauses 1 to 18 of the Bill inclusive the expression "the appropriate highway authority" is used, the definition of that expression in Clause 19 is given in terms of the words "highway authority", and the words "highway authority" also appear in subsection (3) of Clause 19. So the definition of a "highway authority" is still necessary for the purposes of Clause 19 itself. Admittedly it is a definition for Scotland only, and it has not been considered necessary by the English draftsman to insert a parallel one for England and Wales. I think that this can be accounted for by the differences between the ways in which the meaning of "highway authority" is given in the Highways Act 1959, applicable only to England and Wales, and in the Roads (Scotland) Act 1970, which applies to Scotland. I have therefore made these inquiries and, as a result, should like to assure the noble Lord that the definition of a "highway authority" in Clause 19 does serve a purpose. I beg to move.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, for explaining why there should be these two definitions in the previous clause. I admit that I had given up hope of hearing more about it. It is a long time since I asked the question. I thought that all the typewriters had disappeared from St. Andrew's House or that the Minister had lost his pen. I accept what he says as a reason why this should be done. I still do not feel that it is necessary, but if the draftsmen feel that it is so, then I am not disposed to argue about it.
Clause 27 [Execution of works etc. in connection with public works]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 13 formally.
Amendment moved—
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Page 27, line 20, at end insert ("or in Scotland a road.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 28 [Power to pay expenses of persons moving temporarily during construction works etc.]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 14 formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 4, at end insert—
("(5) In the application of this section to Scotland 'highway authority' has the same meaning as in the Roads (Scotland) Act 1970, and in subsection (1) for any reference to a highway there shall be substituted a reference to a road.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 29 [Right to home loss payment where person displaced from dwelling]:
6.32 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 28, line 27, leave out ("five") and insert ("four").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am acutely aware that this matter has been debated twice already in this House and twice in another place. I am also conscious of the fact that it is not to the liking of your Lordships generally that an Amendment at Third Reading should be moved in similar terms to one moved at either the Report or Committee stages. But I have been encouraged to table this Amendment, which is much more modest than has been considered previously, since it has been obvious at almost every stage of the passage of the Bill through this House and through another place that there is considerable disquiet and concern that the Government appear not to have fully appreciated the position of those people who as a result of public policy find that they have lost their homes.
Clause 29 provides for compensation to persons displaced as a result of compulsory acquisition. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, put it at Report stage, it is compensation to cover the grief and distress of being uprooted against one's will from a place that has become one's home. If I may say so, that has been the concern and disquiet throughout. I appreciate that the Government have

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recognised the rightfulness of the claim for such solatium as is covered by the clause. I equally appreciate their desire to legislate to meet it. I have no wish to repeat all the arguments that were advanced on the Committee and Report stages, and certainly not to repeat all the points that were raised in debate in another place, but I think that there ought to be made clear the very deep concern which has been expressed at every stage of the Bill, at Second Reading, Committee stage and Report stage. And I think that concern will be evidenced again this evening.
The Government may say they have been flexible. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said just that at the Report stage. He confirmed what I had already acknowledged when we were considering the matter: that there had been a reduction from the original figure of seven years to one of five years before the Bill reached this House. What was the reason for putting "seven years" in the original text of the Bill I do not know. Neither do I think that a case has been stated to support the choice of the term of seven years. What I do know is that there were, from the very beginning, strong feelings that there should be a "nil" qualifying period. In this House an attempt was made to persuade the Government to accept a "nil" period; an effort was made to amend the period to two years and again to three years. I think that it is crystal clear, reading all the discussions that have taken place, that five years is too long a period to satisfy those of your Lordships and those Members of another place who have followed the debates and listened to the arguments. On Report here an Amendment to reduce the period to one of three years was lost by only two votes.
The Amendment that I now move is a very much more modest one: four years instead of the original seven years, four years instead of the five years that is now mentioned in the Bill. I would hope that the Government will seize the opportunity to show that they have some regard for the concern which undoubtedly has been shown in this House and which was evidenced by the closeness of the vote at Report stage. We are concerned here with a solatium for the loss of a home. How that can be quantified I
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do not pretend to understand. How anyone can say that it takes a minimum of five years before attachment to a home merits compensation, I find impossible to comprehend. People generally do not buy a house because of the prospect of being turned out; they do not buy a house because they are going to enjoy a period of insecurity. They buy a house because they need a home.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said at Report stage that attachment to a home grows as the period lengthens and that it is certainly stronger after five years than it is after three years. I found that at the time (and on reflection I find it still) a generalisation that would be difficult to prove. Some people at the moment of occupation would feel more strongly attached to their home than some people who had lived in a house for a decade; for some it will be their first home after years of waiting and attachment will be deep and profound. I cannot accept that there will be a large number of people who will buy property and move into it knowing that it is going to be taken from them and being aware of the levels of compensation available to them.
There are no fortunes to be made in this—only grief and distress that those involved have no security of ownership. We are not talking about large sums of money. The figures for compensation range from £150 to £1,500. My Amendment does not involve a total figure much in excess of £2 million at the outside. I understood the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, at Report stage to suggest a figure of something like £5 million a year. At Report stage he talked about a total cost of compensation to meet this grief and distress of about £25 million. I do not know whether that £25 million was a firm figure. I very much suspect that the cost of the acceptance of this Amendment would be somewhere between £2million and £2½ million a year at the very outset. To qualify for consideration a claimant for compensation will need to have been in occupation of the dwelling, or a substantial part of it, as his only or main residence; in other words, he must have been in occupation by virtue of an interest or a right. I hope that the Government will respond to the very moderate nature of the Amendment. While not meeting the position as fully

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as one might wish, if the Government did accept the Amendment it would help many who are surely deserving of consideration. I suggest that it would indicate that the Government are sensitive to the very strong feeling which I believe still exists with regard to this matter.
6.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: My Lords, I should like to support the Amendment very strongly and very briefly—very strongly because that is how I feel about it, and very briefly because I feel that the case has already been argued fully and forcefully in Committee and at Report stage. I cannot believe that there is anyone who does not welcome this new principle of home loss payments. All we are trying to do by this Amendment is to ensure that the principle is extended to include another group of people who, we believe, will be affected no less than those already covered by the provisions in the Bill. It is no doubt a matter of opinion as to how long a person has to occupy a house before he or she experiences a sense of loss or distress when that house is forcibly taken away. But it is the fact, my Lords, that in the debates on the Amendments moved in Committee and on Report every speaker, with the exception of my noble friend the Minister, expressed the view that five years was too long a period before one could qualify for this payment. I must confess, my Lords, that throughout the passage of this important Bill I have been rather disappointed at the apparent unwillingness of the Government to yield at all to many of the reasonable Amendments which have been put down, and the reasoned arguments which have been put forward. In my view this one is quite the most reasonable and I urge my noble friend the Minister to concede that it is so, and to show a degree of flexibility at this stage. If he finds that impossible, and if the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, decides to press this Amendment, I urge your Lordships to give it your full support.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I too, will be brief, but I think there is one point worthy of notice. Because of the movement of work people from one part of Britain to another the period of occupancy should be lower because the fluidity of labour is an important matter
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in a modern technological world. Long periods of dwelling in the same area, especially in modern development, are not expected as they were in years gone by. Without developing the argument, because I think it is self-evident, I believe my noble friend is right to attempt to reduce the period of years of occupancy, and I hope that the Amendment will be regarded as worthy of support.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that we can deal briefly with this matter because it has been debated four times already and most of the main issues are well understood. I would rebut the contention of my noble friend Lord Davidson that the Government have not been flexible on this point, or in respect of the Bill in general. I have today already accepted one Amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. I have accepted earlier Amendments, and it may be that I shall accept one more But on this topic the Government have already responded to the views expressed in another place and have reduced the period to five years. I would, however, summarise the four points on which I must advise the House to support the Government.
First, my Lords, as everyone knows, we are here introducing a new payment not designed to represent the value of what is being taken, but to console those forced to leave homes for which over the years they have formed a strong attachment. The people we really need to have in mind are not those who have been living in their houses for two, three, four or five years, but those who have lived in their houses for most of their lives. It is these people for whom this payment is chiefly provided. But we have to provide a cut-off point. I think it fundamental to the concept that there has to be a period of occupation long enough to form an attachment, and not a "nil" period for which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has sometimes argued.
Five years has been selected for three reasons. The first, which is the least important, is to establish a cut-off point; to ensure that those most likely to suffer distress will benefit, while at the same time keeping within bounds the cost of a provision which, of all those in the Bill, is the one making the heaviest call on

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the taxpayer. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, was perfectly right. This particular provision requires about £20 million a year from the taxpayers at large, and the effect of the acceptance of his Amendment would be to increase that sum by £2 million or £3 million. That is one reason for the cut-off, but it is not the main one.
The two more important reasons are these. First, a public work takes a long time to plan and to implement and there will be plenty of occupiers of five years' standing who would know at the very outset of their occupation that they were likely to be dispossessed; and to reduce the qualifying period even to four years would increase the number of such people and the number of unwarranted payments made at the expense of the taxpayers and ratepayers. No one can be precise about the number who would be in that position, but plainly there could be many, and I will give the House two reasons for being able to say that quite categorically.
Take, for instance, housing schemes, slum clearance schemes, the ones most likely to generate claims to which this section applies, dealing with unfit houses. These programmes nearly always cover a period of five years. The first official step is that the medical officer of health inspects the area and makes recommendations about the extent of the clearance area to be proposed. This may well be common knowledge locally, and once the clearance area is declared a prospective purchaser would be alerted. After the declaration of the clearance area a further period of one or two years or more may elapse before the compulsory purchase order is confirmed, and another couple of years before households are moved out of the area. In some cases demolition may be deferred for a still longer period.
Another public work giving rise to claims for home loss is, of course, the construction of new roads. The relevant period is that period which elapses after the publication of the line order and before construction actually begins. The periods that have elapsed in respect of one or two well-known roads are these: the A.66 Kendal link, 6 years; the Reigate-Godstone section of the M.25, 5 years; the Lightwater-Sunbury section of
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the M.3, 5 years; the Lofthouse-Ferry-bridge section of the M.62, 6 years 4 months; the Fiveways corner intersection of the M.1 with the North Circular, 6 years, 3 months; the M.40 Gerrards Cross by-pass, now under construction, 7 years, 10 months. There was some talk about possible speculation in this field. I did not make very much of that, and I do not make much of it now. But I think that from what I have said noble Lords will see that in both these areas there is more often than not the likelihood that the number of people moving into the properties will know when they move in that they are going to be dispossessed within those periods.
The final reason I give for the cut-off of five years having been selected is the most important, not because it represents any sort of meanness by the Government, but from a desire to concentrate the available help on the people who most deserve it. If the qualifying period were reduced the number of people qualifying each year would be permanently increased. This would mean not only higher annual expenditure, which as I have said is a factor, but not the most important one, but also less room for manoeuvre if and when any Government give consideration to raising the minimum payment of £150 under Clause 30(1), which can be done by the order of the Secretary of State. It is worth realising that most of those who will benefit from this minimum payment of £150, or some larger sum if a larger sum is introduced, live in slum clearance areas where five out of every six houses required for public work are situated. If the period were reduced further these people could suffer in this way, whereas those who bought a house four years before it was due to be acquired for a scheme, and did so in the full knowledge of the prospects, would be given an undeserved payment which could be as high as £1,500.
As I said at the beginning, we have to remember that we are not talking here about compensation for the value of what is taken or of losses caused by compulsory displacement. Those are covered of course by the existing compensation code, as amended and as enlarged by the other provisions in this Bill. What we are talking about is a special, new, additional

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payment over and above these for people who are subjected to great distress when they are forced to move away from homes where they may have brought up their families or lived for the best part of their lives—much longer periods than those we are talking about. As I say, the Government have already reduced the qualifying period in response to arguments in favour of those who have occupied their homes for a lesser period, but we remain persuaded that it is not right to accept any further dilution of our concern for occupiers of very long standing, or to open the provision further to the possibility of making payments at the taxpayers' expense to those who knew from the outset that they were not taking up their permanent home.
I hope that with that even fuller explanation than I have given before the noble Lord will not press his Amendment, as he will see that we are trying to be fair as well as generous; but if
he does, I must ask the House to resist it.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for his reply, but I find what he has said quite unconvincing. I think that further talk now will not carry the matter any further. Those of your Lordships who were present in the Chamber will have heard the debate. I should have liked to deal point by point with what the noble Lord has said, because there is an answer to every point he has made. The Government have not been flexible in their expression of opinion in this House on this most important matter, and I think your Lordships should be given an opportunity to vote on it. I think a Division is fully justified before this Bill proceeds further.
6.54 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 15) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 56: Not-Contents, 62.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Gainford, L.

Royle, L.

Archibald, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Sainsbury, L.

Arran, E.

George-Brown, L.

Serota, B.

Auckland, L.

Hale, L.

Shackleton, L.

Bacon, B.

Henderson, L.

Slater, L.

Bernstein, L.

Hoy, L.

Snow, L.

Beswick, L.

Hughes, L.

Soper, L.

Blyton, L.

Jacques, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Brockway, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Stocks, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stow Hill, L.

Carnock, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strange, L.

Champion, L.

Maelor, L.

Teviot, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Milner of Leeds, L. [Teller.]

Wells-Pestell, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Monson, L.

White, B.

Davidson, V.

Newall, L.

Williamson, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Wise, L.

Dundonald, E.

Phillips, B.

Wynford, L.

Faringdon, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Fiske, L.

Rhodes, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

de Clifford, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Allerton, L.

Denman, L. [Teller.]

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Balerno, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Milverton, L.

Belstead, L.

Eccles, V.

Monck, V.

Berkeley, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Boothby, L.

Ferrers, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gowrie, E.

Onslow, E.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Haig, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Carrington, L.

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

Penrhyn, L.

Coleridge, L.

Polwarth, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Conesford, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

St. Aldwyn, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Jessel, L.

Sandford, L.

Courtown, E.

Kemsley, V.

Somers, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lansdowne, M.

Strathclyde, L.

Crathorne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Lothian, M.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Daventry, V.

Mar, E.

Tenby, V.

Terrington, L.

Vivian, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Young, B.

Vernon, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

7.3 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 29, line 44, at end insert—
("( ) Where an interest in a dwelling is vested in trustees (other than a sole tenant for life within the meaning of the Settled Land Act 1925) and a person beneficially entitled (whether directly or derivatively) under the trusts is entitled or permitted by reason of his interest to occupy the dwelling, he shall be treated for the purposes of this section as occupying it by virtue of an interest in the dwelling.
In the application of this subsection to Scotland the words "(other than a sole tenant for life within the meaning of the Settled Land Act 1925 ") shall be omitted.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 16. This is a technical drafting Amendment prompted by the Law Society. As Clause 29 stands, it could be open to doubt whether the interest of the entitled person is in the dwelling or in the process of a sale. For the avoidance of doubt, the Amendment provides that the interest is in the dwelling. Clause 29(4)(a) includes interest in the dwelling, subject to the trust for sale. There is no such doubt in the case of a sole tenant for life within the meaning of the Settled Land Act 1925, which applies only to England and Wales. Such a tenant does not have an interest in the dwelling. As that Act does not apply to Scotland the second paragraph of the Amendment is formally required.
Clause 32 [Supplementary provisions about home loss payments]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 32, leave out lines 24 to 27.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 17 and to speak to No. 18, because the first paves the way for the second. One of the qualifying conditions that had to remain in order to confer on a person the right to claim a home loss payment is that that person can perhaps specify an interest or right of dwelling in the home from which he is displaced. This condition
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is necessary to ensure that only one home loss payment is made in respect of each home. In some cases, however, two or more persons could have a qualifying interest in the same home which they jointly occupy—for example, a husband and wife who jointly own their own home or are joint tenants of it. The provision is not exact enough as it stands to cover this current situation, and the redraft takes the form of removing the last four lines of subsection (4) and re-introducing them in an improved version in a separate subsection. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 18.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 33, at end insert—
("( ) Where there are two or more persons entitled to make a claim to a home loss payment in respect of the same dwelling (whether by virtue of joint occupation or of subsection (4) above) the payment to be made on each claim shall be equal to the whole amount of the home loss payment divided by the number of such persons.").—(Lord Sandford.)
7.6 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 33, line 5, leave out ("a") and insert ("(i)a").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 19 and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to speak to the subsequent Amendment which is consequent upon it. These Amendments deal with the situation where someone who would have been entitled to a home loss payment dies before he can claim it. As Clause 32 stands at present, other people who have lived in the dwelling for five years up to the date of displacement can claim the payment to which the deceased person was entitled, but only if they were entitled to benefit under the will or under the law of intestate succession. It is possible, however, for the deceased person to have made a will leaving his entire estate to a distant relative or, for that matter, to a dogs' home. If this happened, the widow would be unable to claim a home loss payment. Nevertheless, as your Lordships know, they

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have certain rights under Scots Law, into which I need not go, which ensure that even although they are not named in the will the widow or widower and the children of the deceased receive a portion of the estate. In these circumstances, I think your Lordships will agree that it is right that the widow or widower and children should be able to claim a home loss payment in the same way as if they had benefited under the will. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 20.
Amendment moved—
Page 33, line 8, at end insert ("and at the end there shall be added the following words 'or(ii) a right to jus relicti, jus relictae or legitim out of the deceased's estate'.")—(Lord polwarth.)
Clause 33 [Home Loss payments for certain caravan dwellers]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 33, line 34, after ("effect") insert—
("(a) as if in subsection (3) for the words "in occupation of a dwelling or a substantial part of it", "resided in the dwelling, or a substantial part of it" and "in occupation thereof" there were substituted respectively the words "in occupation of a caravan site", "resided in a caravan on that site" and "in occupation of that site";
(b) as if in subsection (4) for the words "resided in the dwelling, or a substantial part of it" there were substituted the words "resided in a caravan on the caravan site"; and
(c)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 21, which is a drafting Amendment for the sake of elucidation, to apply more clearly the references in Clause 32, subsections (3) and (4), to displacement from a dwelling to the situation where a person residing in a caravan or on a caravan site is displaced from that site.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 22:
Amendment moved—
Page 33, line 39, leave out ("subsection (3)") and insert ("subsections (3) and (4)").—
Clause 34 [Right to farm loss payment where person displaced from agricultural unit]:
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 35, line 16, leave out ("or").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 23, and I wish also to speak to Amendment No. 24, because No. 23 is merely a paving Amendment. When the series of Scottish Amendments were down at Report stage and I asked for them to be deferred till now, I undertook to investigate what Scottish opinion was regarding these Amendments. Among others, I consulted the Crofters Commission and the National Farmers' Union of Scotland—two bodies which seemed to me to cover between them the majority of agricultural interests affected by this Bill. My contacts with the Crofters Commission were in writing, and then I followed the line of letting the National Farmers' Union of Scotland know what the Crofters Commission had said. For their interest, they adopted the views expressed by the Crofters Commission.
As I said on the Amendments to Clause 2, in the light of these discussions I am prepared to accept that the Amendments which the Government have now retabled at this stage are satisfactory and I have therefore no reason to object to any of them. If I may quote in part from what the Crofters Commission wrote to me, they said this:
"The Commission, in exercise of their statutory function to advise the Secretary of State on crofting matters, have had discussions with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland on a number of points which now appear to be satisfactorily covered by the amendments to the Bill proposed to be moved on Third Reading next week".
They then went on to refer to the various points which have been taken care of by these Amendments. They continued:
"The one fresh point which has emerged since the Commission considered the provision of the Bill in relation to crofters concerns farm loss payment. The position here will be that (1) The farm tenant holding on a lease of which not less than three years remain unexpired will qualify for this payment. (2) The farm tenant on tacit re-location or on a lease with less than three years to run will not qualify; (3) the crofter will not qualify. In all three cases under Clause 47"

341
which I think is now Clause 48
"and the proposed new clause following it the tenant's compensation will be assessed having regard to his security of tenure—which is substantially security for life in the case of farm tenants and security in perpetuity in the case of crofters. This recognition of the true duration of the tenancy right brings into question the validity of making a three years leasehold the watershed dividing those who can qualify for farm loss payment from those who cannot and suggests that the farm tenant and the crofter should qualify in every case".
As I understand the position, it is this: we might have two adjoining farms affected by proposals for road works or reservoir works. In one case the man is sitting on a lease which has three years or more still to run. He may have been in the farm for a year, five years, ten years or fifteen years. What matters is that there are three years or more still to run. His neighbour on the adjoining farm has been there for many years. His lease has run out, but by virtue of the law he is there, if he so wishes, for the rest of his life and can pass the tenancy on to his son. So he has the possibility of a tenancy for much longer in many cases than the three years that remain in a lease.
Similarly, the crofter is there in perpetuity. His right is very much better than that just coming from a three years balance of lease. In these circumstances, I cannot see why the three years is taken as the position which will determine that farm loss payments should be made. In putting forward an Amendment of this kind I was conscious of the fact that I was venturing into a field which might have repercussions in other parts of the Bill. I should be very much surprised if the Amendment which I have put forward is technically acceptable because it probably has consequences elsewhere. If the Government are disposed to agree with me that injustice would be done by sticking to these three years, then I would invite them to accept this Amendment on the basis that the opportunity would be afforded to another place for the Government then to table whatever other Amendments were necessary to put the matter in order.
If the opportunity had been available to do this at either the Committee stage or Report stage, there would have been a substantial opportunity available to me to propose all the necessary further
342
Amendments. But, coming up at this last stage—not of my seeking but of others doing—I am deprived of what would have been the ordinary Parliamentary opportunity. Therefore unless the Government can advance some perfectly valid reason why the three years' provision should remain, then, defective or satisfactory, they should accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
7.16 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the technical method that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has suggested would, so far as I know, be a perfectly valid way of dealing with this matter were I to be basing my argument on pure technicalities. I am not going to do so; I am going to develop this as a matter of principle. Apart from having discovered what "tacit relocation" means—which, for the benefit of those who do not know, means not being relocated but staying in the same place—I do not want to address the House on the technicalities of this matter at all. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, may recall—I do not know whether he was present at the time or not—that we have had discussions in the course of this Bill on similar points regarding England and Wales. He will appreciate that the scheme of the Bill on farm loss tenants has been to treat the so-called owner, who is the owner or tenant with three or more years to run, and whom the noble Lord correctly mentioned, in a different way from the tenant who has less than three years to run on a lease, or a tenancy from year to year.
One of the reasons why this has been done—and at the moment I am talking about South of the Border; I will come to Scotland in a moment—is that traditionally the protection and the law relating to the two different sorts of tenure on an agricultural holding have developed in entirely different directions. For instance, it was partly in recognition of the Government's unwillingness to put in provisions for farm loss payments for the tenant whose lease has less than three years to run, that we now have what is Clause 48, which provides for the reversal of the fairly recently propounded assumptions for the purposes of assessing compensation. That was the clause to which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, rightly referred.

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As I explained at earlier stages of the Bill, under Clause 48 (and the same thing is now being provided by my noble friend Lord Polwarth's Amendment No. 29, which adapts Clause 48 for Scotland, and the special provisions in the new clause in Amendment No. 30 which deals with the particular problems of the legislation for crofters) we shall have the situation whereby we disregard altogether the scheme for the purposes of assessing compensation. The noble Lord will probably remember the way this was explained previously. We have to take account of the fact that the person is losing his land in whole or in part. One looks at the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act or of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act and one finds when planning permission for a scheme has been granted—in this case for public work—normally one may assume that the tenant of the farm can be got rid of in order that that development should take place. In other words, the landlord can get rid of him on the strength of the planning permission that has been granted for the development, and until we introduced Clause 48 the law, certainly South of the Border, has been that you assessed compensation on the assumption that the owner of the land was going to be able to get rid of the tenant on the strength of the scheme of public works, and in those circumstances the tenant is likely to have comparatively modest compensation paid to him because one assumes that he is going to go reasonably soon anyway.
Now that is reversed in Clause 48 and the subsequent Scottish provisions. We now assume that although the owner can get planning permission for something else you can take that into account. You do not take account of the scheme itself, and therefore you credit the tenant with security of tenure which he would have and you disregard the scheme altogether. This greatly increases the prospects of him getting compensation on a larger scale but it is of course tied, and has to be tied, statutorily to the statutory machinery for dealing with the termination of agricultural tenancies. That is why one has references in Clause 48 to these two sections of the Agricultural Holdings Act. We are now putting in the equivalent sections of the Agri-
344
cultural Holdings (Scotland) Act and the situation is not the same in law as it is for owners.
That is the basic scheme of the Bill. The payment which will come as compensation under Clause 48, with the long-stop of the four years rent under Section 12 of the Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968, which applies to Scotland except in the case of crofters, as I understand it, is intended to be, as it were, a make-weight for the tenant not having the farm loss payment. The owner who loses his farm does not get the four times rent or anything like that; he is dealt with on a perfectly ordinary basis of having the value of his interest taken into account and assessed in the ordinary way of compulsory purchase. But we have to create an artificial situation for the tenant of three years or less, taking account of the existing law.
LORD HOY: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for the explanation he is making, but did not the 1968 Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act already make a differentiation? Is it not a fact that in that Bill the farm tenancies in Scotland were differentiated as between those of England and Wales, and whatever the law was up until that time the very fact that someone was a tenant farmer, he or she was entitled to have as his or her successor a member of the family who was associated with agriculture, and to this extent the Scottish position was different from the rest of the country.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think that is so. I did not remember that it was in the 1968 Act but I knew it was the law. I was just going to come on to this point. I was trying to set the background about the difference in the legislation for tenants as opposed to owners, which inevitably affects the way that one frames the compensation provisions in this Bill.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I did not want to get up quite so quickly again. All I am saying is that I cannot remember whether it was the 1968 Act or the next one, but on that occasion a differentiation was made between tenants in Scotland and tenants in England and Wales. So he had certainly much greater security of tenure than in other parts of the country.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I accept this. As I said I am just coming on to this very point. What the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is doing against the background of the Bill as reinforced by these two Amendments, Nos. 29 and 30, to which we shall come fairly soon, is suggesting that we should cut across the previous differentiation both in this Bill and in other legislation which divides off in law and in the Statute the position of the tenant from the position of the owner. I understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but in a way it is a somewhat bizarre one because I think he is saying that agricultural tenants in Scotland (and this is reinforced by Lord Hoy's point) and the crofters have now been legislated into a position whereby they are in fact virtually in the same position as an owner. I think that is really what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, was saying. That may be so in practice.
I understand the point the noble Lord is making. The laws may have been so altered that it gives them, and indeed their successors, an almost indeterminate period of tenure, but I am afraid that I cannot advise the House that the artificial creation of this position by Statute is the only way in which one can frame the compensation code. I think one has to realise that whatever you do by a method in a Statute to increase the security of tenure of the tenant, you still do not get away from the fundamental division, which I believe applies in Scots law as well as it does in English law, between the tenant, or somebody who is still said to be the tenant, and the owner of the land itself. Now that distinction remains in Scots law as it does in English. To suggest that it has been so whittled away that one has altogether to disregard the way in which the law has been built up when framing this sort of measure would, I suggest, be a mistake.
Now what would be the effect of leaving the Bill without the farm loss payment when one looks at the Scottish position? Unlike the tenant in England, as the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, has already said, the Scottish agricultural tenant has already acquired by Statute, not by common law, a greatly increased security of tenure, and the crofter an almost infinite one. The Bill deals fairly generously with crofters already. If the house goes they get the home loss payment; they get the mort-
346
gage provisions under Clause 41; they will get, if the buildings are left, injurious affection for the buildings under Part I of the Bill and they will get the ordinary compensation to which they are already entitled in the law relating to crofting. So they are fairly well done by in terms of Statute. But in addition to this—
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount on one point only? When he said the crofter would get the home loss payment, where the farmer, the owner, lives on the farm and owns his house, whether a tenant of three years or more or an owner, does he qualify for home loss payment as well as farm loss payment? Because if so he is in no different position than the crofter.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: As I understand it I think the owner does, but the tenant does not, but I must check on that.
LORD HUGHES: What I am saying is that bringing in the reference to the crofter getting his home loss payment is an artificial point because he is in fact the owner of the house on the croft; and the farmer who owns his house will get a home loss payment as well as the farm loss payment which, after all, is a year's profits.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: But he gets the home loss payment because of the situation the noble Lord has mentioned. He probably—I think he almost always did—built the house or provided the house in the first place. I am simply saying that under this Bill if you look at the rest of the provisions which give him compensation he is already fairly generously dealt with.
LORD HUGHES: The noble Viscount put it as though the crofter was being especially generously treated in getting a home loss payment. He is not; he is just being put in the same position, if I am right, as anybody else who owns his home. He is not being favourably treated. I agree he may be generously treated, but he is being equally generously treated with other people.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I was wrong. In fact the owner and tenant both get their home loss payment, so I think the point goes. But I was inviting the noble Lord at that moment to look at the peripheral parts

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before we come to the centre. The centre of it is this: Under Clause 48 as existing, and as we propose to amend it, and the new clause for crofters, the compensation that the tenant or the crofter will get takes account—the more so because of his increased security of tenure in Scotland—of that very security of tenure in assessing the compensation that he gets. To that extent, to the extent that he has greater security than the tenant in England, because of the existing Statute law which we merely adapt, he has the advantage over the tenant in England and Wales, and except in the case of the crofter he will still have the fall-back of the provisions of Section 12 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1968 to underpin any shortfall there may be. We think that the result of the valuation of a croft on the basis of this sort of security of tenure is likely, as I said when discussing this clause in regard to England, to be beneficial, because the longer the security that you assume, presumably in valuation the greater the number of years' purchase you take for the capital value of the holding.
But to go beyond the adaptation and the adoption of the existing statutory provisions to protect the tenant, whether in England and Wales or Scotland, seems to us to strike at the basic subdivision of the whole of the principle of this measure: that we treat an owner and a tenant in a different way. It may be artificial, but this is the way the law has been built up. It would have the repercussion, of course, of making the situation quite different in principle in England and Wales from what it would be in Scotland, and we do not think that either the small tenant or the tenant of short-term in Scotland, or the crofter, is going to be badly affected, in view of the concessions that were made and are now being repeated in Scotland as a result of the discussion in another place which pointed out that there could be this differentiation which favoured the owner-occupier and which we have tried to meet by virtue of Clause 48. However much the law may have drifted into making the tenant into something very nearly an owner, I cannot advise the House to depart from this basic dichotomy of tenure which still exists North of the Border as it does South.
7.33 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, before the noble Viscount finally resumes his seat, may I ask him this question? The Bill as it stands confers rights on a tenant; it gives a tenant a right not only to the compensation under Clause 48 but to the farm loss payment under this clause which we are discussing—not only to an owner; it gives it to a tenant in certain circumstances. The tenant who has a lease of three years or more to run qualifies for both these items of compensation. The tenant who has three years to run in due course could become a tenant on tacit relocation in Scotland, so that what determines whether he is going to get one payment or two payments is not the merits of the case but the accident of the time during his lease when this event takes place. If he had been there for three years longer, and therefore one would assume with an even greater right to compensation than if he had been there for the shorter period, by being there three years longer and not having a balance of his lease to run, he loses. It seems contrary to all natural justice that this should work this way.
The noble Viscount said that, by doing what was done in Clause 48 and the new clause applying these conditions to Scotland, very much more generous compensation was being paid because the security of tenure aspect was being taken into account. That I accept. But that applies in exactly the same way to the man who has three years or more of a lease to run. Shall I put it this way? If we are going to compare like with like we should confine the comments to tenants. Can the noble Viscount assure me that if we have two farmers, one with three years or more to run and another one held on tacit relocation, in the second case the compensation under Clause 48 will be greater than the compensation payable to the man with three years to run, and that the farm loss payment which the second one gets more or less puts him in the same position as the man on tacit relocation? If that is the position, then I accept that the Government are right. But if the payments being made to both of these people under Clause 48 and the new clause are to be similar, then the man with the shorter right, the man with three years to run, is the one

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who is going to get the larger payment, and I cannot see the justice of that. Can the noble Viscount give me that assurance: that the man on tacit relocation will have a higher compensation under Clause 48 and the succeeding clause.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it is extremely difficult to take this agricultural side entirely out of the context of the rest of the compensation code. May I take the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, back a moment and away from the agricultural field, because this principle applies across the board with tenancies of all sorts. I personally know the law in England and Wales very much better than I know what happens in Scotland, but I think the basic land clauses codes are very similar in both countries. Precisely the same point applies to the person with a business tenancy of, say, a shop. It does not make any difference whether you look at a business or agriculture for this purpose.
LORD HUGHES: No, my Lords. Would the noble Viscount give way for one moment? It is not the same because I do not know of any business tenancy which can be continued on tacit relocation.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord may be right in Scotland.
LORD HUGHES: I am, my Lords.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Well, my Lords, my noble friend says the situation in Scotland is different in this matter, but the fact remains, I would suggest, that if the premises of a tenant of a business firm, a shop, are compulsorily acquired, and he has a lease which is, say, of three years or five years, it will be the value of that lease that he gets. If he has only a very short lease of a year or less to go, then he will be compensated under a different code in Scotland as in England, and he will in the case of Scotland not be given the benefit of any security of tenure. In fact, he did not get very much benefit of security of tenure previously, although he does under this Bill in England. You cannot altogether, therefore, dissociate what is being done in agriculture and take, as it were, an arbitrary line of three years from what applies to the rest of the compensation code.
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The noble Lord wants an assurance. I cannot say what the Scottish Land Valuation Court is going to do about this matter, but I think the noble Lord will himself have been involved in sufficient matters of valuation in the course of his long civic career to be able to know roughly that this is likely to be the case. If you value a tenancy which is assumed to be a very long or indeed a perpetual one you are likely to get a greater value than if you value a tenancy which has only three years to run. Therefore, I would expect the results of these cases to be in favour of the tenant who has the shorter tenancy in law but the one which is protected longer by Statute.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am sorry, but the noble Viscount has admitted that he is not as familiar with Scottish law as with English law. What I suggest is that no one valuing a tenancy with a three years' lease to run is going to value that on the basis that there is only three years, because anyone dealing with this subject knows perfectly well that when the three years have expired the tenant can continue to sit there. So he is there for life just as much as the man whose lease has expired. So it is not the case that one man is going to be valued on three years and another man is going to be valued on his life expectation; they are both going to be valued on their life expectation.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, that may be so, but the tenant on a three years' lease or more does not, as I understand it, profit from the switch of assumptions in Clause 48 of the Bill as applied to the tenant in Scotland. The noble Lord shakes his head but what assumption is to be made about his continuation of tenancy? I do not believe that this has ever been decided by the Land Valuation Court in Scotland. It may have been in England. The result in England was that when you looked at this situation you took into account the scheme which would in fact enable the landlord to terminate that tenancy. Why should the valuation procedure in Scotland fail to take account of the fact that if, theoretically, the man was going to stay for another three years there was going to come a scheme which would enable the landlord to terminate

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that tenancy? I cannot see any reason why the courts in Scotland should come to a different conclusion on this point from that of the courts in England. This is precisely what we hope to reverse in Clause 48.
I cannot see any reason there why what I have said about the assumptions which will underlie the two different forms of valuation are not sound. But there is one additional point, that where one considers the tenant with the three year tenancy and the owner, they do not automatically get the farm loss payment. They get it only if they go back into farming within the specified time and start up on a farm somewhere else. So it is a conditional payment. I will not go into all the details of it but they do not automatically get the farm loss payment. What I am saying is that the short term tenant or the crofter will automatically get the benefit of the valuation under Clause 48-and Clause 49 in Scotland—and therefore he is bound to get his payment, whether or not he starts up anywhere else.
I have made a long speech and I have tried to answer the noble Lord's questions. If I have not convinced him I am sorry, but I must go back to the point that although I cannot forecast what the courts will do—it would be foolish of me to try to forecast the values that the valuation courts in Scotland would put on this matter—I have attempted to set out what I believe is likely to be the situation. I have tried to deal with the position between the two forms of tenure which we still want in principle to stick to and adapt in order to provide different forms of compensation, building upon each and upon experience in the past. I am sorry if the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, does not like it, but nevertheless that must be the principle upon which the Government must stand.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it looks as though it is to be a duel between us if no-one else wishes to enter the battle. I will only say this: I am extremely dissatisfied with what the noble Viscount has said. I am quite certain that if his knowledge of the law of Scotland, particularly of agricultural law, had been as sound as no doubt his knowledge of the English law is, he would not have
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said some of the things that he has said. The dividing line which is being imposed in Scotland is wholly artificial. The noble Viscount said that the tenant with three years to run does not automatically get the farm loss payment. Of course that is so; but my Amendment would not give it automatically to anybody either, because I have not interfered with what is in the Bill itself, namely, that the farm loss payment is only made to someone who starts up in a farming business somewhere else within three years and if he never starts up, or if he waits four or five years to start up, he is not entitled to the farm loss payment. I am not quarrelling with that. What I am saying is that there are two classes of tenant: the one whose lease has expired and who can remain there for the rest of his life and transfer the lease to his son, who in turn can remain there for his life. He is not to qualify for a farm loss payment. But if it had happened while his lease still had some time to run he would get both payments. The noble Viscount has not been able to contradict what I have stated, that it is virtually certain that in assessing the compensation under Clause 48 (or in Scotland under Clause 49) the amount which would be paid to the man who was dispossessed of his farm while his tenancy had three years or more to run would be as great as the man who is on tacit relocation because the court is bound to take into consideration that that man's lease is not going to be terminated at the end of three years.
The division therefore is a wholly false one. It is perhaps valid in relation to business premises, perhaps valid in relation to English agricultural and land laws but it has no validity in Scotland whatsoever. I doubt whether in the past I have often found myself in complete agreement with the National Farmers' Union of Scotland; I do not know whether I have ever been in complete agreement with the Crofters Commission. I am quite certain that I have never been in complete agreement with both of them at the same time. Yet that is the position in which I find myself now. I cannot accept what the Government have said. Having regard to the composition of the House it would be a waste of time to divide the House. I think this is a case where I have the arguments but the Government have the troops.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, sits down may I just take the opportunity of saying that I am very much persuaded by his arguments. I think the tacit relocation for Scottish agriculture is a very much cherished system of land tenure, and to knock it in the face is certainly an unwise thing to do. I have only one other remark to make. I think this will be an absolute bonanza for the Scottish lawyers, and I have no confidence that if the matter comes to judgment the Scottish judges or whoever evaluates it will in any way be likely to accord with the English judges.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it was not my intention to prolong this debate, but I think it would be quite wrong of us to allow it to finish—
LORD DENHAM: Order, my Lords! —by leave.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I am certain that even the noble Lord, Lord Denham, would grant me leave to say a word or two in order to pour a little oil on troubled waters. I doubt whether the noble Lord understands what this is all about, but I am sure he wants to keep us all in order. If I may have his leave and the leave of your Lordships to speak, I am certain that we should not want to finish on an unsatisfactory note. The noble Lord, Lord Balerno, has rightly pinpointed what I attempted in a short interjection some twenty minutes ago. I remember very well that the difference between the Scottish position and the English and Welsh position was made in a Bill which I was taking through the House of Commons, and which indeed caused considerable trouble from the Scottish National Farmers' Union. I think what my noble friend has done to-night is to prove that if we allow this Bill to go through, at least to the best of his belief and mine, we shall be creating an anomaly between two sections of farming which we feel to be unjustifiable.
The noble Viscount has been very courteous and has argued his case well, but I thought at the very least, when this difference of opinion arose, that he would have said that he was prepared to have one more look at the point; and after we had the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, I found it difficult to understand why the noble Lord, Lord
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Polwarth, did not say, "Well, if there is this difference we will have another look at it". I cannot see what harm this would do, because it would be very foolish indeed to legislate an anomaly.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said that we do not know what the judges will decide in cases of this kind. The judges, after all, can only decide on the law that we are creating. It is not for them to create law but to interpret it, and if there is an anomaly that makes it all the more difficult. I would not go quite so far as the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, in saying that by agreeing to this we are creating a bonanza for Scottish lawyers; but when there is this difficulty and if there is an anomaly all I am saying is—and I am certain that my noble friend Lord Hughes would agree—that if the noble Viscount would say, "Having thought it over once again, and having had a word with my noble friend Lord Polwarth, I should like to look at it just once more", then of course we should be perfectly willing to do it. Despite the fact that my noble friend Lord Hughes feels that he has numbers against him, I am sure that he has justice on his side and it may well be that if we cannot get a satisfactory reply we should decide this matter for ourselves and for the judges in the Division Lobbies of your Lordships' House.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the protection which Scottish agricultural tenants now have, which of course was brought in by the Acts of the Government of the noble Lord opposite, is really complete appropriation of the landowner's land? As we have heard in this debate, and as I know only too well, if one has a farm tenant, he and his descendants have that farm for hundreds and hundreds of years. The landowner has, to all intents and purposes, had his land appropriated. I do not see why the tenant should have any more compensation than a tenant in England or Wales where he is under a lease for a certain number of years. When the landowner had his land expropriated under the law brought in by the Government of noble Lords opposite, he got no compensation for losing his land. I and my descendants have lost a lot of land for ever owing to that law which the noble Lord's Government brought in.

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I do not see why a tenant should get any more compensation at ail, because the landowner received no compensation for losing his land. Why should the tenant get compensation for something for which he has not paid.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, asked a question before I finally resumed my seat which makes it technically proper for me to get up again although I did not gather that the noble Viscount, Lord Masserene and Ferrard, was interrupting my speech. In fact he was resuming the debate on the 1968 Act, and on that basis I would have expected him to be moving an Amendment that nobody should get any farm loss payment and nobody should get the benefit of Clause 47, and that when the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, moves the new clause after Clause 48 the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, should be opposing it on these views.
However, having regard to what my noble friends feel, they have persuaded me that I should be wrong not to carry this matter to a Division, because if the Government are right they have a further opportunity in another place of pressing their point of view. But by having deprived me of the opportunity of raising it before this stage, if the Amendment is rejected that ends the matter, because the other place can only consider Amendments to Amendments. If the Government wanted to be fair, if they were absolutely certain that their case was right, they would accept the Amendment and ask the other place to take it out for reasons advanced there, where at least they would have the advantage of having the Lord Advocate trying to persuade them on the law of Scotland. In these circumstances, my noble friends think that it would be a dereliction of duty on my part not to press the Amendment. In saving that, I am not casting any reflections on the noble Viscount.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I appreciate that I am a very poor substitute for the Lord Advocate and it may well be that I have this wrong. The noble Lord is perfectly right that we cannot reconsider this matter at all unless this Amendment is accepted. Perhaps I may, by leave, answer this point. I am as much out of order as the noble
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Lord, Lord Hoy, if I do not obtain the leave of the House.
LORD HOY: Much more!
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Except that my noble friend Lord Denham did not pull me up. I have been talking to my noble friend Lord Polwarth and to my noble friend Lord Sandford about this matter. It probably would be as well if we were to check the matter up. I may say that if my noble friend Lord Balerno thinks that there is something in this point also, of course I wish to pay regard to his views as well as to those of noble Lords opposite. Upon reflection, and having discussed the question with my noble friends, I think that we should consider again some of the points that noble Lords opposite have made. I do not think that even my right honourable friend the Lord Advocate will be able to forecast what the Land Valuation Court in Scotland will say. I do not think that anybody will be able to give assurances on what the precise effect of this will be, because it turns on valuation and assumptions and it is difficult in a vacuum to know the result. But, on the assumption that we cannot necessarily maintain this particular provision in the Bill, and that the Government may have to advise another place that it is wrong to have it in, we are prepared to have another look at this matter. I do not know whether or not the Amendment is acceptable technically. I do not think that it very much matters. Similarly, if it has to be put right and to be maintained, then an Amendment can be dealt with in precisely the same form in another place. I understand the difficulties under which the noble Lord has laboured because of the time scale of the Scottish adaptations. But I may say that the English N.F.U. got on to this point a long time ago. I understand the noble Lord's own difficulties here and in the circumstances we are prepared to accept these two Amendments, but without any promise that they will finally stay in the legislation when it is passed.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Viscount was very generous at the last stage in agreeing to defer all the Scottish Amendments to this stage. He has become even more generous to-day and

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leaves me very much in his debt, irrespective of what the other place may do to the Amendment. I am most grateful.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 24.
Amendment moved—
Pate 35, line 17, leave out from second ("lease") to end of line 19 and insert ("with an unexpired period or continuing on tacit relocation, or of a crofter;").—(Lord Hughes.)
Clause 40 [Duty to rehouse certain caravan dwellers]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 25:
Pace 44, line 9, after ("effect") insert—
("(a) as if for the words preceding paragraph (a) there were substituted the words "Where a person residing in a caravan on a caravan site is displaced from that site in consequence of"; and (b)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we are back to caravans and England. This is a drafting Amendment for the sake of elucidation to apply the reference in Clause 39(1) to displacement from residential accommodation to the situation where the person residing in a caravan on a caravan site is displaced from that site. Amendment No. 26 is consequential upon Amendment No. 25. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, beg to move Amendment No. 26.
Amendment moved—
Page 44, line 23, leave out ("residential accommodation or").—(Lord Sandford.)
Clause 41 [Power of relevant authority to make advances repayable on maturity to displaced residential owner-occupiers]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 46, line 21, at end insert ("and at the end there shall be added the following words" or by virtue of a tenancy or other interest to which the Crofters (Scotland) Acts 1955 and 1961 or the Small Landholders (Scotland) Acts 1886 to 1931 apply;
(ii) in paragraph (b) for the word "tenancy" there shall be substituted the words "lease or by virtue of such a tenancy or interest";")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment extends the provisions of Clause 41 to crofters, landholders, statutory small tenants and crofters in Scotland. As I explained in relation to an earlier Amendment, the position of these classes of tenants in respect of their dwellings is closely analagous to that of an owner-occupier and this Amendment has the effect of bringing them within this definition. I beg to move.
Clause 47 [Compensation in respect of short business tenancies]:
7.58 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 51, line 17, leave and insert—
("(1) Where in pursuance of any enactment providing for the acquisition or taking of possession of land compulsorily an acquiring authority—

(a) acquire the interest of the landlord in any land subject to a tenancy to which Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (security of tenure for business tenants) applies; or

(b) acquire the interest of the tenant in, or take possession of, any such land,

the right of the tenant to apply under the said Part II for the grant of a new tenancy shall be taken into account in assessing the compensation payable by the acquiring authority (whether to the landlord or the tenant) in connection with the acquisition of the interest or the taking of possession of the land; and in assessing that compensation it shall be assumed that neither the acquiring authority nor any other authority possessing compulsory purchase powers have acquired or propose to acquire any interest in the land.
(2) Subsection (1) of section 39 of the said Act of 1954 (right of tenant to apply under the said Part II for a new tenancy to be disregarded in assessing compensation for compulsory taking of possession of land subject to short tenancy) shall cease to have effect.")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Clause 47 is designed to deal with the principles on which compensation should be assessed in the event of compulsory taking. Under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 the occupant of business premises is entitled in certain circumstances specified in Part II to apply for and to be awarded a further tenancy of his premises. Section 39 of the 1954 Act, to which I have referred, provides that that right to have a fresh tenancy in certain circumstances is to be disregarded in assessing the quantum of

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compensation available in the event of a compulsory taking. Clause 47, subsection (1), as it at present stands, would repeal that provision of Section 39 of the 1954 Act. The object of that is in order to provide that the right of the tenant to a new lease should be taken into account in assessing compensation payable both to the landlord and to the tenant. The difficulty with regard to Clause 47 as it at present stands (as those who on this side of your Lordships' House have considered it think, rightly or wrongly) is that it does not achieve its purpose. You may constantly get cases in which, for example, the acquiring authority as part of its plan acquires possession of the land, with the result that under certain decided cases, which I will not cite to your Lordships, the right to a further tenancy could not be taken into account. If that is a correct view, then Clause 47(1) as drafted at present fails of its purpose.
The object of the Amendment which I move is to try to ensure that what I conceive the Government's purpose to be in drafting Clause 47 is in fact achieved. The Amendment would seek to insert in front of the existing subsection (1) of Clause 47 the new subsection set out in the Marshalled List which would require in terms, affirmatively, that the right to have a new lease is to be taken into account in assessing the compensation payable both to the landlord and the tenant in the event of a compulsory taking. Ordinarily that would produce the result that the measure of compensation payable, at any rate to the tenant, would be enlarged. Therefore, the Amendment is designed to give back to Clause 47 an effect which we on this side of the House, rightly or wrongly, think it would not achieve because of the way in which subsection (1) is drafted.
The effect of the Amendment would be fairly considerable when the acquiring authority or the local authority is doing what I think is commonly known as "topping up"; that is to say, making a payment in order to achieve justice, even if the specific term laying down the right to compensation is not precisely fulfilled. That right is at present preserved in subsection (5) of Clause 37 of the Bill, and
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the effect of the Amendment which I commend to your Lordships would be that it would really enlarge the power of the paying authority to see that justice was done by a topping up process under the new form which it takes in subsection (5) of Clause 37. That basically is the reason for the Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am glad to give yet another demonstration of the reasonableness and flexibility of the Government, to express our gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for the explanation of his Amendment and what it seeks to achieve, and to confirm that it is indeed necessary to resolve this anomaly and therefore it is acceptable to us.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I only rise again to thank the noble Lord very sincerely for what he has just said. I am most grateful to him.
Clause 48 [Compensation in respect of agricultural holdings]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 52, line 38, at end insert—
("(7) In the application of this section to Scotland—

(a) in subsections (2) and (3), for the references to section 24(2)(b) and 25(1)(e) of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 there shall be substituted respectively references to sections 25(2)(c) and 26(1)(e) of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949;

(b) after subsection (2)(a) there shall he inserted the following—

"(aa) there shall be disregarded any entitlement of the landlord to resume land comprised in the holding by virtue of a stipulation in the lease, and any notice already given in pursuance of such a stipulation which would not be or would not have been effective if the stipulation were construed as not including authority to resume the land for the purpose of its being required by the acquiring authority; and"

(c) at the end of subsection (2)(b) there shall be inserted the following—

"and

(c) if land comprised in the holding Las been resumed by reason of such an entitlement or notice which is to be so disregarded that land shall be assumed not to have been so resumed.";

(d) in subsection (3), after the word "disregarded" there shall be inserted the

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word "(a)", and at the end there shall be added the words—

"and

(b) any entitlement of the landlord to resume land comprised in the holding by virtue of a stipulation in the lease, and any notice already given in pursuance of such a stipulation which would not be or would not have been effective if the stipulation were construed in accordance with subsection (2)(aa) above.";

(e) after subsection (6) there shall be inserted the following subsection—

"(6A) This section shall not apply to an agricultural holding which is a croft or the holding of a landholder or a statutory small tenant.".")

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 29. This brings us to the clause we have already discussed somewhat in advance, Clause 48. The purpose of this Amendment is to add a further subsection to apply the provisions of the clause to agricultural tenants in Scotland who hold on leasehold tenure. The effect is, therefore, to give these tenants the entitlement given in the clause to have their security of tenure taken into account. This is done by paragraph (a). Paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) are necessary because we must make provision in Scotland to deal with the case where a tenant is dispossessed not by notice to quit but by resumption under a provision in the lease. In Scotland such a resumption is not, as in England, regarded as a notice to quit. The Amendment also makes it clear that this clause does not apply to the other classes of Scottish tenants, crofters, et cetera, with whom we shall be dealing in a new clause which I shall be proposing shortly. I beg to move.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, having departed, it is not necessary for me to come to the Minister's aid.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 30:
After Clause 48 insert the following new clause:
Compensation in respect of crofts, etc.
".—(1) This section has effect where in pursuance of any enactment providing for the acquisition or taking of possession of land compulsorily an acquiring authority—

(a) acquire the interest of the landlord in an agricultural holding which is a croft; or

(b) take possession of a croft.

(2) In assessing the compensation payable by the acquiring authority to the landlord of a croft in connection with any such acquisition of an interest as is mentioned in subsection (1)(a) above—

(a) there shall be disregarded any right of the landlord to apply to the Scottish Land Court under section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 for authority to resume the croft and any such authority already granted which would not be or would not have been effective if in that section the reference to resuming the croft did not include a reference to its being resumed for the purpose of its being required by the acquiring authority; and

(b) if the crofter has surrendered his croft under the said section 12 by reason of an authority which is to be so disregarded it shall be assumed that he has not done so.

(3) In assessing the compensation payable by the acquiring authority to the crofter in connection with any such taking of possession of a croft as is mentioned in subsection (1)(b) above, there shall he disregarded any right of the landlord to apply to the Scottish Land Court under the said section 12 for authority to resume the croft or any such authority already granted which would not be or would not have been effective if the said section 12 were construed in accordance with subsection (2)(a) above.
(4) If the compensation payable to the crofter as determined in accordance with subsection (3) above is less than it would have been if that subsection had not been enacted, it shall he increased by the amount of the deficiency.
(5) This section shall apply to part of a croft as it applies to an entire croft.
(6) This section shall apply to the holding or part of the holding of a landholder as it applies to a croft or part of a croft except that for any reference to a croft, crofter or section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 there shall be substituted respectively a reference to a holding, landholder or section 2 of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886.
(1) This section shall apply to the holding or part of the holding of a statutory small tenant as it applies to a croft or part of a croft except that—

(a) for any reference to a croft, crofter or section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 there shall be substituted respectively a reference to a holding, statutory small tenant or section 32(15) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911;

(b) in subsection (2)(b), for the words "crofter has surrendered his croft under the said section 12" there shall be substitnted the words "landlord has resumed the holding under the said section 32(15)"';

(c) after subsection (3) there shall be inserted the following subsection—

"(3A) The compensation payable to the statutory small tenant shall be reduced by an amount equal to any payment which the acquiring authority are liable to make to him, in respect of the taking of possession in question, under section 12 of the

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Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 (additional payments by acquiring authority in circumstances described in subsection (1)(b) above).";

(d) in subsection (4), for the words subsection (3)" there shall be substituted the words "subsections (3) and (3A)"."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 30. I realise that at first appearance this new clause seems somewhat formidable, but I can assure your Lordships that it does no more than apply the provisions of Clause 48 to crofters, landholders and statutory small tenants who are not subject to provisions relating to notice to quit. The need for separate and somewhat lengthy provision is dictated by the different form of legislation governing these different forms of tenure. The main difference in the legislation is that where the landlord wishes to get possession of any land in the case of such tenancies he requires to proceed by way of an application to the Scottish Land Court for resumption rather than by notice to quit. I beg to move.
Clause 49 [Compensation where occupier is rehoused]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 53, line 17, at end insert—
("( ) Subsection (2) above shall apply in relation to a case where a notice to treat is deemed to have been served by virtue of Schedule 3 to the Town and Country Planing Act 1968 or Schedule 24 to the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972 (general vesting declarations) as it applies in relation to a case where a notice to treat is actually served.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No 31. It is a technical Amendment. Clause 49(2) provides briefly that where a private tenant is re-housed at the expense of an acquiring authority after notice to treat has been served on the landlord the compensation payable for the landlord's interest in the property is not enhanced by the vacant possession he thus obtains. In the case of a general vesting declaration, however, a notice to treat is only deemed to have been served. By this Amendment the clause will apply the limitation on the value of the landlord's interest in a case where the tenant is re-housed whether a notice to treat is actually served
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or only deemed to have been served. I beg to move.
Clause 53 [Effect of counter-notice tinder section 52]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 61, line 5, at end insert—
("(d) in subsection (7), for the word "court" and for the words from "subsections (2)" to the end there shall be substituted respectively the words "the Bank within the meaning of section 3 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845" and the words "the following provisions of the said Act of 1845 shall apply to that suns with the necessary modifications—

(i)section 75 so far as it relates to the opening of an account,

(ii)section 76 so far as it relates to the giving of a receipt,

(iii)section 77,

(iv)section 79."").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 32, which is of a fairly technical kind. Its purpose is simply to insert the appropriate references in subsection (7) of Clause 53. This clause covers the case where the tenant surrenders his interest in the land but the landlord does not do so, and provision is made for the situation where a landlord does not accept the sum payable by the acquiring authority for the surrender of the tenant's interest. The procedure for dealing with monies in such cases in England and Wales is governed by the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, which was a consolidation measure. There is no precise Scottish equivalent, and it is necessary, therefore, to apply the relevant provisions of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845, and this Amendment makes the necessary substitutions. I beg to move.
Clause 55 [Effect of counter-notice under section 54]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 63, line 22, at end insert—
"(3A) Where a tenancy is terminated by virtue of sub-section (3)(c) above, section 58 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 (landlord's right to compensation for deterioration of holding) shall have effect as if the proviso required the landlord's notice of intention to

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claim compensation to be served on the acquiring authority and to be so served within three months after the termination of the tenancy.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move another technical Amendment. Clause 55(3) is concerned with the acquiring authority's, the tenant's and the landlord's rights and liabilities in the situation where an agricultural tenant has given up possession of his holding to an acquiring authority and the authority has not been authorised to acquire the landlord's interest in part of the holding; that is, that part to which the authority's notice of entry did not relate. Subsection (3)(d) provides inter alia that any liabilities of the tenant to the landlord which arise on or out of the termination of the tenancy are transferred to the acquiring authority. One such liability could be in respect of compensation payable to the landlord under Section 58 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 for general deterioration of the holding. Under this section the landlord has to give notice in writing to the tenant of his intention to claim such compensation not later than one month before termination of the tenancy. In the situation with which Clause 55 is concerned it is the tenant rather than the landlord or the acquiring authority who determines the date on which the tenancy is terminated, since this occurs when the tenant gives up possession to the acquiring authority. The Amendment therefore provides that in these circumstances the landlord has three months after termination of the tenancy to give notice in writing to the acquiring authority of his intention to claim compensation under Section 58 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 for general deterioration of the holding. I beg to move.
8.10 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 63, line 27, leave out from ("(3)") to end of line 31 and insert—
("(d) for the words from "contract" to "1948" there shall be substituted the words "lease, the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949, the Crofters (Scotland) Acts 1955 and 1961, the Small Landholders (Scotland) Acts 1886 to 1931":
(c) in subsection (3A), for the reference to section 58 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 there shall be substituted a reference to section 59(1) of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949 and for the word
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"proviso" there shall be substituted the words "said section 59(1)".")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is in two parts. The first amends the Scottish application which appears at present at subsection (4) of Clause 55. It has been expanded to include crofters, landholders and statutory small tenants so that they may all get the benefits of this clause. It also makes a small drafting improvement. The second part of the Amendment is the Scottish application of the one just moved by my noble friend Lord Sandford to page 63, line 22. The purpose is simply to apply this new subsection to Scotland by inserting the reference to the appropriate provisions of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act for the references to the English Act. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 58 [Notice to quit agricultural holding: right to opt for notice of entry compensation]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 67, line 4, at end insert—
("(6A) The reference in subsection (1)(a) above to a notice to treat served by an acquiring authority includes a reference to a notice to treat deemed to have been so served under any of the provisions mentioned in section 52(5) above.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is another technical Amendment. Clause 58 provides for a person in occupation of an agricultural holding, having no greater interest therein as a tenant for a year or from year to year, to opt for notice of entry compensation if he is served with a notice to quit the holding after an acquiring authority have served a notice to treat on the landlord. In some types of acquisition, however, a notice to treat is not actually served, but is simply deemed to have been served. This occurs where a general vesting declaration is made, or where acquisition follows a purchase notice. In order to preserve the rights of a tenant under Clause 58 in these circumstances, the Amendment provides that the reference to the authority's notice to treat includes a reference to a notice to treat deemed to have been served. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 67, line 4, at end insert—
("(7) In the application of this section to Scotland—
(a) for subsection (1)(b) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—
"(b) either—

(i)subsection (1) of section 25 of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949 does not apply to the notice by virtue of subsection (2)(c) of hat section (land required for non-agricultural use for which planning permission has been granted, etc.);

(ii)the Scottish Land Court have consented to the operation of the notice and stated in the reasons for their decision that they are satisfied as to the matter mentioned in section 26(1)(e) of that Act (land required for non-agricultural use not falling within section 25(2)(c));";

(b) in subsection (2)(a), for the references to sections 20 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 and 11(1) of that Act there shall be substituted respectively references to section 114 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947;
(c) in subsecion (2)(b), for the references to the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 and section 15(2) of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 there shall be substituted respectively references to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949 and section 15(3) of the said Act of 1968;
(d) in subsection (6), for the reference to section 32 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 there shall be substituted a reference to section 33 of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949;
(e) after subsection (6A) there shall be inserted the following subsections—
("(6B) This section and section 59 below shall have effect in relation to a notice given in pursuance of a stipulation in a lease entitling the landlord to resume land for building, planting, feuing or other purposes (not being agricultural purposes) as it has effect in relation to a notice to quit as if, in this section, subsections (1)(b) and (6) were omitted; and references in this section to the termination of the tenancy shall be construed accordingly.
(6C)This section shall not apply where the person in occupation of an agricultural holding is a crofter, landholder or statutory small tenant."."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 36 which applies to leaseholders in Scotland the provisions of Clause 58. This clause deals with the right of a tenant who is given notice to quit an agricultural holding to opt to have the compensation fixed as if he had been given notice of entry by the acquiring authority. The
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Amendment does this by adding a subsection to the clause which substitutes references to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949 for references to the English Agricultural Holdings Act 1948, and by substituting other appropriate statutory Scottish references. It also makes the provision normally required in Scotland to deal with a notice given under a power of resumption instead of a notice to quit. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 37:
After Clause 58 insert the following new clause:
Requirement to surrender croft, etc: right to opt for notice of entry compensation.
".—(1) This section has effect where—

(a)the person in occupation of an agricultural holding is a crofter and is required by an order of the Scottish Land Court under section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 to surrender his croft; and

(b) the crofter is so required—

(i)after an acquiring authority have served notice to treat on the landlord of the croft or, being an authority possessing compulsory purchase powers, have agreed to acquire his interest in the croft, and

(ii)where the Court have been satisfied under the said section 12 that the landlord desires to resume the croft for a reasonable purpose which is a purpose other than an agricultural purpose.

(2) If the crofter required by such an order to surrender his croft elects that this subsection shall apply to the order and gives up possession of the craft acquiring authority on or before the date on which the croft is required to be surrendered in accordance with the order—

(a)section 114 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 (compensation for tenants from year to year, etc.) shall have effect as if the crofter had not been so required to surrender his croft and the acquiring authority had taken possession of the croft in pursuance of a notice of entry under paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 on the day before that on which the croft is required to be surrendered in accordance with the order; and

(b)any provision of an order under section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 relating to the compensation to a crofter shall not have effect in relation to the surrender of the croft by reason of the order.

(3) No election under subsection (2) above shall be made or, if already made, continue to have effect in relation to any land to

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which such an order relates if, before the date on which the croft is required to be surrendered in accordance with the order, an acquiring authority take possession of that land in pursuance of an enactment providing for the taking of possession of land compulsorily.
(4) Any election under subsection (2) above shall be made by notice in writing served on the acquiring authority not later than the date on which possession of the croft is given up.
(5) This section shall have effect in relation to an order to surrender part of a croft as it has effect in relation to an order to surrender an entire croft and references to a croft shall be construed accordingly.
(6) The reference in subsection (1)(b)(i) above to a notice to treat served by an acquiring authority includes a reference to a notice to treat deemed to have been so served under any of the provisions mentioned in section 52(5) above.
(7) This section shall apply to a landholder as it applies to a crofter except that for any reference to a croft, crofter or section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 there shall be substituted respectively a reference to a holding, landholder or section 2 of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886.
(8) This section shall apply to a statutory small tenant subject to the modifications set out in Part I of Schedule (application of section (requirement to surrender croft, etc.: right to opt for notice of entry compensation) to statutory small tenants) to this Act; and in accordance with this subsection this section shall have effect in relation to a statutory small tenant as set out in Part II of that Schedule."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the last Amendment which your Lordships considered provided for the application to leasehold tenants in Scotland of the provisions of Clause 58. This new clause which, I am afraid, is necessarily somewhat lengthy because of the difference in the basic legislation, adapts these provisions to crofters, landholders and statutory small tenants, differences concerning the legislation for whom I explained earlier on. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 59 [Notice to quit part of agricultural holding: right to claim notice of entry compensation for remainder of holding]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 38:
Page 67, line 45, at end insert—
("(6) In the application of this section to Scotland—

(a) in subsection (1) for the reference to the Agricultural Land Tribunal there shall he substituted a reference to the Scottish Land Court;

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(b) in subsection (2) for any reference to the Lands Tribunal there shall he substituted a reference to the Lands Tribunal for Scotland;

(c) in subsection (3) for the references to sections 11(1) and 20 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 there shall be substituted respectively references to paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 and section 114 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845.")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 38 inserts an additional subsection to Clause 59 to apply its provisions to leasehold tenants in Scotland. As your Lordships know, this clause gives a tenant who has been given notice to quit part of a holding and has opted to have it treated as a notice of entry the right, in certain circumstances, to require the acquiring authority to take the entire holding. The Amendment has to substitute such references as the Scottish Land Court for the Agricultural Land Tribunal, and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland for the Lands Tribunal. The Amendment also substitutes references to the appropriate Scottish Statutes. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 39:
After Clause 59 insert the following new clause:
Requirement to surrender part of croft, etc.: right to claim novice of entry compensation for remainder.
(".—(1) Where an order of the Scottish Land Court in respect of which a person is entitled to make an election under section (requirement to surrender croft, etc.: right to opt for notice of entry compensation) relates to part only of a croft or holding and that person makes such an election with the period of two months beginning with the date of the making of the order, he may also within that period serve a notice on the acquiring authority claiming that the remainder of the croft or holding is not reasonably capable of being farmed either by itself, or in conjunction with other relevant land as a separate agricultural unit.
(2) If the acquiring authority do not within the period of two months beginning with the date of service of a notice under subsection (1) above agree in writing to accept the notice as valid the claimant or the authority may, within two months after the end of that period, refer it to the Lands Tribunal for Scotland, and on any such reference the Tribunal shall determine whether the claim in the notice is justified and declare the notice valid or invalid in accordance with its determination of that question.
(3) Where a notice under subsection (1) above is accepted as, or declared to be valid under subsection (2) above then, if before the end of twelve months after it has been so accepted or declared the claimant has given up to the acquiring authority possession of the part of the croft or holding to which the notice relates, section 114 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 shall have effect as if the acquiring authority had taken possession of that part in pursuance of a notice of entry under paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 on the day before the expiration of the year of the tenancy which is current when the notice is so accepted or declared.
(4) Subsections (2) to (4) of section 54 and subsection (3) of section 55 above shall apply in relation to subsections (1) to (3) above and to a notice under subsection (1) above as they apply in relation to those sections and a counter-notice under subsection (1) of section 54, and shall so apply with the necessary modifications and as if in section 54(3)(b) for the words "service of the notice of entry" and in section 55(3) for the words "the notice of entry" there were substituted the words "the order of the Scottish Land Court".
(5) Where an election under section (requirement to surrender croft, etc.: right to opt for notice of entry compensation) above ceases to have effect in relation to any land by virtue of subsection (3) of that section any notice served by virtue of this section shall cease to have effect in relation thereto.
(6) Subsection (3) above shall apply in the case of the holding of a statutory small tenant as if after the word "1845" there were inserted the words "and section 12 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968".".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is really the other half of the Scottish application of the main provision. The Amendment which we have just disposed of applied the provisions of Clause 59 to leasehold tenants in Scotland. This new clause does the same thing for crofters, landholders and statutory small tenants. It gives such tenants the right to serve a counter-notice to a notice of entry affecting part only of a croft or holding. I do not think I need trouble your Lordships further on this point. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 40:
After Clause 63 insert the following new clause:
Provisions relating to acquisition of new rights in Scotland
(".—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Lands Clauses Consolidation
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(Scotland) Act 1845 and the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 shall apply subject to any necessary modifications to the compulsory acquisition under any enactment of a right in or over land by the creation of a new right as they apply to the compulsory acquisition of land under the enactment in question.
(2) Section 61 of the said Act of 1845 (estimation of purchase money and compensation) shall apply to the compulsory acquisition of such a right as if for the words from "value" to "undertaking" there were substituted the words "extent (if any) to which the value of the land in or over which the right is to be acquired is depreciated by the acquisition of the right".
(3) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the said Act of 1947 (protection for vendor against severance of house, garden, etc.) shall apply to the compulsory acquisition of such a right as if at the end there were added the following sub-paragraph—

"(2) In considering the extent of any material detriment to a house, building or manufactory or any extent to which the amenity or convenience of a house is affected, the Lands Tribunal for Scotland shall have regard not only to the right which is to be acquired in or over the land, but also to any adjoining or adjacent land belonging to the same owner and subject to compulsory purchase."

(4) Nothing in this section shall affect the operation of any enactment which makes specific provision to the like effect as the provisions of this section.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 40 which, rather surprisingly, although it introduces a new clause, does not in fact introduce anything new. Rather, it transplants existing provisions of the Bill to a more suitable place in it and widens their application. The existing provisions are in Schedule 1, paragraph 71, and in that location they of course apply only where land is acquired as a result of a blight notice. The intention was that they should apply generally to the compulsory acquisition of rights over land, and to achieve this it is necessary to have a new clause in the appropriate part of the Bill. Briefly, the provisions which we are transplanting provide a basis for the valuation of rights over land where these have to be acquired compulsorily; for example, to lay drainage pipes in connection with a road scheme. The basis is simply the effect on the value of the land caused by the acquisition of the right over it. My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 72 [Land affected by new street orders]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 76, line 29, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
("(a) either—

(i) is within the outer lines prescribed by an order under section 159 of the Highways Act 1959 (orders prescribing minimum width of new streets); or

(ii) has a frontage to a highway declared to be a new street by an order under section 30 of the Public Health Act 1925 and lies within the minimum width of the street prescribed by any byelaws or local Act applicable by virtue of the order; and").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 41, the last Amendment from England. It does not alter the substance of the clause. At present, the clause is not correct in relation to orders made under Section 30 of the Public Health Act 1925, because such orders do not, in fact, prescribe outer lines for a new street as do orders made under Section 159 of the Highways Act 1959. The Amendment puts this right by making a separate reference to land which has a frontage to a highway declared to be a new street by an order under Section 30. The Amendment substitutes a new paragraph (a) in subsection (1) of Clause 72. Sub-paragraph (i) of the new paragraph (a) repeats the former provision in relation to an order made under Section 159 of the 1959 Act. Subparagraph (ii) makes separate provision for land which has a frontage to a highway declared to be a new street by an order under Section 30 of the 1925 Act and lies within the minimum width of the street prescribed by by-laws or a local Act. The effect of this is that Section 192(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 will have effect as if it included the land specified in sub-paragraph (i) and (ii) of paragraph (a) of Clause 72(1). My Lords, I beg to move.
Clause 83 [General interpretation]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 42, 43, 44, 45, 46. These Amendments are purely concerned with definitions of a number of expressions arising because of the different Scottish conditions. Apart from
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that they remove from lines 34 and 35 words which are no longer necessary following Amendment No. 14. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 84, line 6, at end insert:
""cottar" has the same meaning as in section 28(4) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955;
'"croft", "crofter" and "landlord", in relation to a croft, have the same meanings respectively as in the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955;")
Page 84, line 9, at end insert ("or, in relation to Scotland, means a person in need under section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 as read with section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Scotland) Act 1972.")
Page 84, line 20, at end insert:
(""holding", in relation to a landholder and a statutory small tenant, has the same meaning as in section 2(1) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911 and "landlord", in relation to such a holding, has the same meaning as in the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949;
"landholder" has the same meaning as in section 2(2) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911;")
Page 84, line 23, at end insert:
""road" has the meaning assigned to it in the Roads (Scotland) Act 1970;
"statutory small tenant" has the same meaning as in section 32(1) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911.")
Page 84, line 34, leave out from ("25") to ("above") in line 35.—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 47:
After Clause 85 insert the following new Schedule—

SCHEDULE
  APPLICATION OF SECTION (REQUIREMENT TO SURRENDER CROFT, ETC.: RIGHT TO OPT FOR NOTICE OF ENTRY COMPENSATION) TO STATUTORY SMALL TENANTS.

    PART I
    Modification of section (requirement to surrender croft, etc: right to opt for notice of entry compensation).
    Section (requirement to surrender croft, etc.: right to opt for notice of entry compensation) shall apply to a statutory small tenant subject to the following modifications—

    (a) for any reference to a croft, crofter or section 12 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 there shall be substituted respectively a reference to a holding, statutory small tenant or section 32(15) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911;

    (b) in subsection (1), for the words from "crofter" in paragraph (a) to "so required" in paragraph (b) there shall be substituted

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    the words "statutory small tenant and resumption of the holding is authorised by an order of the Scottish Land Court under section 32(15) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911; and (b) the resumption is so authorised";

    (c) in subsection (2), for the words "crofter required by such an order to surrender his croft" there shall be substituted the words "statutory small tenant, resumption of whose holding is authorised by such an order";

    (d) in subsections (2) and (3), for the words "croft is required to be surrendered", wherever they occur, there shall be substituted the words "holding is authorised to be resumed";

    (e) in subsection (2)(a), after the words "year, etc.)" there shall be inserted the words "and section 12 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968" and for the words "the crofter had not been so required to surrender his croft" there shall be substituted the words "resumption of the holding had not been so authorised";

    (f) for subsection (2)(b) there shall be substituted the followine paragraph—

    "(b) any provision of the said section 32(15) relating to compensation to a statutory small tenant shall not have effect in relation to the resumption of the holding by reason of the order."

    (g) in subsection (5), for the words "to surrender", wherever they occur, there shall be substituted the words "authorising resumption of".

  PART II
  Section (requirement to surrender croft etc.: right to opt for notice of entry compensation),as modified, in its application to statutory small tenants.
  Resumption of holding of statutory small tenant; right to opt for notice of entry compensation.
  (1) This section has effect where—

  (a) the person in occupation of an agricultural holding is a statutory small tenant and resumption of the holding is authorised by an order of the Scottish Land Court under section 32(15) of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911: and

  (b) the resumption is so authorized—

  (i) after an acquiring authority have served notice to treat on the landlord of the holding or, being an authority possessing compulsory purchase powers, have agreed to acquire his interest in the holding; and

  (ii) where the Court have been satisfied under the said section 32(15) that the landlord desires to resume the holding for a reasonable purpose which is a purpose other than an agricultural purpose.

  (2) If the statutory small tenant, resumption of whose holding is authorised by such an order, elects that this subsection shall apply to the order and gives up possession of the holding to the acquiring authority on or before
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  the date on which the holding is authorised to be resumed in accordance with the order—

  (a) section 114 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 (compensation for tenants from year to year, etc.) and section 12 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968 shall have effect as if resumption of the holding had not been so authorised and the acquiring authority had taken possession of the holding in pursuance of a notice of entry under paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 on the day before that on which the holding is authorised to be resumed in accordance with the order; and

  (b) any provision of the said section 32(15) relating to compensation to a statutory small tenant shall not have effect in relation to the resumption of the holding by reason of the order.

  (3) No election under subsection (2) above shall be made or, if already made, continue to have effect in relation to any land to which such an order relates if, before the date on which the holding is authorised to be resumed in accordance with the order, an acquiring authority take possession of that land in pursuance of an enactment providing for the taking of possession of land compulsorily.
  (4) Any election under subsection (2) above shall be made by notice in writing served on the acquiring authority not later than the date on which possession of the holding is given up.
  (5) This section shall have effect in relation to an order authorising resumption of part of a holding as it has effect in relation to an order authorising resumption of an entire holding and references to a holding shall be construed accordingly.
  (6) The reference in subsection (1)(b)(i) above to a notice to treat served by an acquiring authority includes a reference to a notice to treat deemed to have been so served under any of the provisions mentioned in section 52(5) above.")
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 47, which introduces a new Schedule which, in spite of its rather formidable appearance, does no more than substitute in the new clause inserted after Clause 58 references to statutory small tenants in Scotland for all references to crofters. I have already explained to your Lordships the position of these tenants, with their special statutory provisions. Part I of the Schedule makes the necessary applications to the tenants, and we thought it would be helpful to set out in Part II how the new clause would read as applied to them. So that is there for clarity; the clauso itself forms the second Part. I beg to move.
  Schedule 1 [Application of Part V to Scotland]:
  LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 48:
  Page 90, line 9, after ("which") insert ("(a)").
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 48 I will at the same time speak to Amendment No. 49, with your Lordships' agreement. These Amendments extend the scope of the blight provisions in Scotland to include land surrounded by or adjoining a housing treatment area. While this will usually be an area in which buildings are to be demolished, it is possible that blight could in some circumstances arise as a result of an area being designated for improvement, and the Amendments cater for this possibility. I beg to move.
  LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 49.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 90, line 12, at end insert—
  ("or
  (b) is land surrounded by or adjoining an area declared as aforesaid to be a housing treatment area, whether or not the resolution provides that any of the buildings in that area are to be demolished.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
  LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 50:
  Page 91, leave out lines 31 to 51.
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 50, and in so doing arrive at the finishing post some three lengths behind my noble friend. This Amendment is the other half of the transplanting operation which resulted in the new clause after Clause 63. I think that speaks for itself, and I accordingly beg to move.
  LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this might be an appropriate moment for me to say that I regret that, at a time when the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, was happily engaged in Scotland and under the belief that all these matters were being dealt with by Lord Sandford, he should have had to come down here today. However, he must accept that I have not given him a difficult passage.
  THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales that they, having been informed of the purport of the Land Compensation Bill, have consented to place their interests so far as they are affected by the Bill at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
  8.25 p.m.
  LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass, but before this complex and intricate Bill leaves the House I should like to express the Government's appreciation for the helpful spirit in which the whole House has approached it. The legislation we have been dealing with is very complex. The whole Bill has been subject to a very large number of Amendments and to an excessive number at this late stage, for which I repeat my apologies. As I say, my noble friends and I are most grateful for the patience and the forbearance which the House has shown, and for the help it has given. I should particularly like to thank noble Lords opposite—the noble Lord, Lord Hughes; the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy; and the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill—for the co-operation they have accorded us at all stages. The Bill will undoubtedly confer many new but overdue benefits upon private individuals whose lives and property are affected adversely by public works, and I believe it does so in a manner which is both generous and equitable. For this reason, I am happy to be able to move that the Bill do now pass.
  Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Sandford.)
  LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, we on this side appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has just said, and we thank him for it. The Bill leaves this House very different from the measure it was when it was introduced here, and I should like to say that dealing with it has not been easy. We have had to take considerable spates of Amendments with very little warning. I never thought that I should have to take this Bill through its Committee stage to the extent that I had to, and I approached it with some trepidation. I wish to say how appreciative I have been of the courteous manner in which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford,

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  and his noble friends have dealt with the Amendments that we have advanced from this side of the House. I have said that the noble Lord and his noble friends have always been courteous. I think they have been too seldom willing to make concessions that we on this side would have appreciated. I am grateful for the acceptance of such Amendments as the Government have accepted from us. I feel, I suppose not surprisingly, that the Bill would have been the better had more of them been accepted.
  My Lords, I have a feeling that following me there will be one or two of your Lordships who will still be not satisfied that we have on the Record in regard to certain aspects of this Bill as much information as could be desired. Because I know that those noble Lords are going to follow me, I certainly do not wish to take up your Lordships' time any more. I repeat that those of us on this side who have played any part in the passage of this Bill have been appreciative of the courtesy that has always been shown; and for our part we have endeavoured, in our approach, to be constructive throughout.
  8.28 p.m.
  LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I should like at the outset to associate myself very sincerely with what my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy has just said about the Government Front Bench. They are very difficult to deal with. They put us in a good humour and they advance arguments in a most admirable form, and it is difficult to make certain that one is not over-persuaded by them. I always do my best.
  My Lords, I have been asked, at this, the last stage of the Bill, to raise three separate points as they affect different sectors of our community. Two of them have already been extensively argued and one of them has been dealt with, though far from as fully as the other two. Two of them deal with that Part of the Bill, Clauses 64 to 79, which deals with blight notices, and one of them deals with Clause 29, which is the clause which deals with home loss payments. To keep my argument in order, obviously I should start with that point which relates to Clause 29. Tenants of licensed premises, in the circumstances which I shall seek to describe in a moment, are put in a very
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  difficult position indeed. We are apt to call the tenant of licensed premises a landlord, but are quite wrong in so doing; he is a tenant. In most cases he has a tenancy agreement for the public house or licensed premises concerned, but a number of tenancy agreements in existence between the publican and the brewer (who is the owner of the premises) contain a provision which is, broadly speaking, in similar form. I have specimens in my hand and I should like to read out the relevant part of one specimen which comes from the normal tenancy agreement between a very well known brewery company and its tenants.
  It is provided in that agreement as follows:
  "Immediately upon the service of a notice to treat with a view to the compulsory acquisition of the interest of the landlord therein the tenant will continue to trade in and upon the same premises only with the consent of the landlords."
  The effect of the law on that is that when a notice to treat is served, the licensee, who theretofore has been an ordinary tenant in law of the licensed premises, is converted into tenant at will or a licensee—a licensee in the strict legal sense. He ceases to be a tenant and has no further interest as such. That puts him in an extremely vulnerable position in relation to the provisions of this Bill and of other Acts which affect this provision.
  In the first place, it has the result that he no longer has any right or expectation of acquiring a new licence under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1964. Secondly, inasmuch as he has become a licensee or a tenant at will and no longer a tenant with an interest, he is disqualified from obtaining a home loss payment under Clause 29 of this Bill. Thirdly, I am told—and I was given an example today—that some housing authorities of local authorities decline to accept on their housing lists persons who were licensees of licensed premises. How often that happens I do not know, but I am told that it does from time to time happen. Therefore, if this provision remains in the contracts between the owner of licensed premises and the licensee, the licensee's position becomes very weak and vulnerable. He may have to leave the licensed premises; he gets no home loss payment; he has no hope of a further tenancy and

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  he may find it difficult to get accepted on to the housing lists of a local authority.
  That matter was raised. It has been considered by Ministers and it has been put to the Government that it would be a fair thing to provide in effect that a provision of that sort should be ineffective to prevent, in so far as the licensee's right is concerned, home loss payments under Clause 29 of the Bill. Ministers have indicated that they feel there is a difficulty in acceding to that view, although I think that they have made it clear that they feel some considerable sympathy for the position of the licensee who is held upon an agreement in that form.
  I do not seek now to re-argue the whole problem. I have stated it. I am told that there are now negotiations in progress between the Brewers' Society and organisations representing licensed victuallers, with a view to the removal from the tenancy agreements of licensees of the type of provision which I have read out to your Lordships a few moments ago. If that can be done and if, by removal of those words, the licensee can remain an ordinary tenant, whether from year to year or whatever may be the period of the tenancy, his right to a home loss payment under Clause 29 is preserved and his position will be improved.
  In addressing your Lordships at this late stage of the Bill I can in the circumstances do no more than ask the Government Ministers to indicate, if they feel able to do so, that it would be their view that fair treatment of the licensees should result in the elimination from their tenancy agreements of the type of wording that I read out. It would have the effect of putting them in the same position as other tenants. At the moment they are not in the same position; they are in a very much weaker position, and it is unfair that that should be so. I do not know which noble Lord is going to reply from the Front Bench but it would be of the greatest help to those representing the interests of licensed victuallers if the Minister felt able to indicate at any rate his agreement that it would be right and proper, by the elimination through negotiation of that type of wording from the tenancy agreements, to put licensees of public houses in the same position
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  vis-à-vis this Bill,vis-à-vis, for example, the Landlord and Tenants Act 1954, as are other tenants of business premises. That is my first point.
  I then go to the point which relates to blight notices. They have been fully argued already, both in another place and in your Lordships' House. I should not usefully be occupying your Lordships' time, I think, if I did more than simply to place on record the unease and disappointment that I and many of my noble friends on this side of the House feel at the position as it is left in the Bill having regard to the various changes which have been made and the form of the Bill as it has emerged. The first of the two points that I wish to raise relates to Clause 68(6). That subsection would repeal Section 11 of the New Towns Act, 1965. It would, by so doing, remove from the owners of land and the occupiers of land within designated areas, areas designated for the purposes of a New Town Corporation, the right to serve after seven years a blight notice under Section 196 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, in relation to land or premises with which they are concerned.
  The point which I would seek to place on record and which I submit is to be regretted is this: that the change made by the Government with regard to the legislation affecting blight notices takes away the right which has already accrued to a number of persons affected by designations of areas for the purpose of New Town Corporations. Under the existing legislation, under the provisions of that section of the 1965 Act which it is sought to repeal, the owner or occupier of premises affected by a designation notice is entitled, once seven years have gone by, to serve his blight notice under Section 196 of the 1971 Act and he need not, once seven years have gone by, prove that the land with which he is concerned is affected by blight. That is a technical term in the Statutes with which your Lordships will be familiar. He need prove nothing. All he does is to serve his blight notice and he then can enjoy all the rights which the service of a blight notice confers on him. He can require the acquiring authority to purchase his land. That is the main provision. The acquiring authority cannot in those circumstances serve on him a counter notice

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  challenging the blight notice which the owner or occupier of the land has served.
  I am conscious of the fact that the Government reply will be as follows: that in Clauses 67 to 79 we have introduced a very large number of changes in the law relating to blight notices; we have brought into the scope of that law a number of people who were not within it before; we have made it possible to serve blight notices long before the seven years have expired; we have, in other words, conferred on a very large number of persons rights which did not exist before. Let all that be accepted. I welcome that. It nevertheless remains, that there are a number of people in this country who thought that they were entitled to exercise a right, seven years having elapsed, and who now will find, when this Bill is passed, that they have had that right taken away from them and that nothing has been put in its place. I would have thought that always in our legislation we very much dislike the idea of taking a right or material property from any citizen or non-citizen of this country unless we give compensation or put some corresponding advantage in its place. The Government are not doing this in the case of rights which have accrued after the expiry of seven years. I respectfully submit that that is a matter of regret. It should not be done. If that right is taken away, something should be put in its place.
  The provision in Clause 78(6) is expressed not to apply in relation to blight notices served before the Act comes into force; but one knows that many people do not follow the process of legislation as closely as all that. They do not realise that if they give in their notice before the Act comes into force it is valid, but, because they have not read the proceedings in the two Houses of Parliament, that if they wait until the Act is in force they will lose it; in particular among those people who do not know that are those who are more careless of their interests than others. I submit that that is wrong. That is the second point I should like to make, and I should be grateful if the Minister would consider it.
  The third point I should like to make is also one which has been argued. It was argued both in the other House and
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  also in your Lordships' House, and I simply repeat the basis of it in order to place on record that, in my submission, the matter is left in an unsatisfactory position. It relates to ecclesiastical property. Under the blight notice provisions ecclesiastical property which is excused from the obligation to have rates charged on it does not come within the scope of that property in relation to which blight notices can be served. I take the case of a church, and for the purpose of my argument the case of a particular one, a Methodist church at Thornaby, which was much discussed in the other place. The position with regard to that church is that it is on the edge of the A.66 development in Tees-side. The acquiring authority has acquired all the land surrounding that church and the church is left there in splendid isolation. Its congregation has either gone or, with the shift of population, is rapidly going, and the church is becoming derelict.
  Some three years ago those responsible for the church were advised by the local officers concerned that it would be unwise to expend much for the purpose of its upkeep or repair. Without a congregation, left as I say in isolation, the residential buildings having disappeared from around it, the church is becoming derelict. It is difficult to think that it would be wise to expend money on maintaining it; worse than that, it would become the prey of vandals who would go in and out of it and proceed to do the damage which, unfortunately, vandals frequently do in modern times. As I have said, the ecclesiastical authorities responsible cannot serve a blight notice under the blight provisions because the church does not qualify. If compensation is to be paid, it has to be paid under the provisions of Rule (5) of Section 5 of the Land Compensation Act, 1961.
  That rule provides that when you are assessing the value of property for which there is no ready market, because of the purpose for which it is used—and that really applies to this Methodist church—you have to take the reinstatement value; provided always that the Lands Tribunal is satisfied that there will be reinstatement in some other place. If that is not shown there is no reinstatement value paid. Years may go before the site of this church is actually required for the

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  purpose of the A.66 development. By that time the church may be a derelict wreck, and its value for the purposes of reinstatement may be nil. The net result of that history would simply be that a church which has ministered to the needs of a full congregation is empty and goes to rack and ruin. No compensation is payable to the ecclesiastical authorities responsible in respect of it. If they wish to reinstate it in some other place they will get nothing by way of reinstatement value because the reinstatement value will be nil. To rebuild a wreck is not worth while.
  My Lords, that is a situation which, in my submission, is highly unsatisfactory. It was pressed on the Government in the other place and Ministers showed some sympathy for the position. They have since written explaining their views. I think that I can probably summarise the explanation they give by saying that there are other types of buildings which may be in like case. If that is the view of the Government, I submit that it is a very unsatisfactory answer. The mere fact that you do two or three injustices is not a reason why you should be excused for doing one major injustice.
  Those are the three points that I desire to raise. I hope that the Government will be able to give some thought to them and at least exercise their good offices with local authorities to see to it, in so far as an injustice of that sort can be prevented or lessened, that it will be, and that they will use all the influence they have in that regard to further that process.
  8.47 p.m.
  LORD SOPER: My Lords, I hesitate to delay your Lordships' House at this late hour, but I shall be brief. I shall be the briefer because the substance of what I have to say has already been laid before your Lordships by my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill. But I am under commission from the Main Committee of the Church of England and from the Chapel Committee of the Methodist Church to express concern about the condition of the particular church of which the details have already been given, which indicate a process which is deplorable and a process which I would commend to your Lordships'
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  House as one that should at least receive very serious treatment.
  If I speak, I ought, I suppose, to declare an interest. As a Methodist Minister I am concerned with the Methodist Church. My interest is not commercial but ecclesiastical, though I suppose that if all the Methodist churches were closed I should be temporarily unemployed. The fact of the matter is that, as my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill correctly pointed out, if you set a church as a kind of withering palm tree in the middle of an ever-increasing desert, then sooner or later you will reduce the value of that church to the point at which ultimately, as the Secretary of our Chapel Department says quite truly, the property will fall into the hands of the local authority for market value and not reinstatement. It is perfectly true that those who have entered upon this programme of delaying acquisition of church property in Thornaby have expressed the idea that the church is of some precious value and therefore should be maintained as long as possible. This is quite erroneous. There is no concept as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will know, of prevenient grace which protects the authority of the Church in conditions where it is almost isolated from the kind of physical and social contacts which would make it an effective instrument for the purposes for which it was built.
  I draw the attention of your Lordships to this matter, even at this late hour—and I have been sitting patiently in order to do so—because this seemed the appropriate moment at which I could ventilate my deep concern and express a certain umbrage at the assumption authoritatively given that if, for instance, special treatment were accorded to a Methodist church, similar treatment would have to be accorded to a bingo club. A bingo club forsooth! To equate the value of a church with a bingo club is a monstrosity of speech as well as of substance. I entirely repudiate it and take considerable umbrage at the very thought, as have my ecclesiastical friends. I do not know whether anything can be done at this late hour, but it is a simple fact that if you separate a palm tree from the oasis waters, sooner or later it will wither and die. If you take a church and leave it isolated within an area

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  which has already been desolated that church, inevitably, will die.
  Some of your Lordships may feel that the value of a church is perhaps exaggerated in the minds of some of us who are professionally associated with it. But I happen to know the circumstances of this particular church and I would not feel justified, even at this late hour, in leaving this matter without ventilating my sense of grievance and the hope that even now the Minister may give us some little assurance that in these matters a local authority will not proceed to demolish the value of a church by isolating it so that finally it will be dead and there will be no reinstatement value that can be attached to it. That, I am sure, is not an intention of the Government: it is the effect of a policy which is one that I deeply deplore.
  LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, we are dealing with the complexities of this complex Bill right up to the last moment. I am afraid the noble Lord, Lord Soper, is perfectly right in thinking that nothing can be done about any of these matters on this Bill, and indeed the last matter that he raised falls outside the scope of the Bill. I will deal with the matters in the order in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, raised them. In respect of licensees, I confirm that the Brewers' Society and the National Federation of Licensed Victuallers are in touch with each other and pursuing what I am sure is the most fruitful course of action; namely, that which the noble Lord outlined. As I am not party to the discussions, I cannot give the noble Lord any further information about it, but I will find out how they are getting on, and as soon as I am in a position to do so I will let him know what conclusion they have arrived at.
  With regard to the business of blight and the New Towns, I do not want to go over the ground again at this stage. All I will do is to repeat the assurance that I gave, I think on the Committee stage, that the Development Corporations will of course be expected to deal sympathetically with any reasonable cases of blight which fall outside the new statutory framework. We have already issued a circular to them, and there will be pamphlets available to the public making clear to them their rights. I will, however,
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  read the noble Lord's words carefully, and if I find that there is anything further I can add to what I have already said, I will write to him.
  My Lords, as to the churches, the blight provisions and the injurious affection of land acquisition provisions and powers in the Bill are all tied to the classes of individual most likely to suffer personal hardship from the effects of prospective public development. Institutions such as churches (and I am afraid, although I can see the distinction between churches and bingo halls, they might fall into the same class for this purpose), although they undoubtedly face difficulties, cannot be said to suffer hardship of the same kind as personal individuals. Nor are they in any worse posititon than other bodies outside these categories. I must confirm that to bring churches within the blight provisions would seriously damage the whole concept on which the provisions that we have been discussing are based. As to the particular case of the Thornaby Methodist Church, my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and Development is dealing with this matter, and I will see whether the correspondence he is having both with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and the Member of Parliament can be relayed in any form either to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, or to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, so that I can keep them both informed.
  On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

RATE REBATE BILL
8.54 p.m.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill was introduced in another place on February 6, 1973, by the honourable Member for Derby, North, Mr. Phillip Whitehead. It had all-Party support. The Rate Rebate Bill is a short Bill, and therefore I do not want to spend much of your Lordiships' valuable time at this late hour: and it would not be fair to the badgers, of which I am very fond. Nevertheless, the Bill is important, as it is designed to eradicate an anomaly which now exists.
The Bill allows the disregarding for rate rebate purposes of a wide variety of

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attendance allowances for the disabled. I can assure your Lordships that only the very severely disabled qualify for the attendance allowance. Every disabled person, whoever he or she may be, has many extra expenses, and life in general is always harder. Central Government are giving the most severely disabled people the attendance allowance to provide much needed help in the home, and local government are taking some of the desperately needed money away because the law, as it stands, says that they must. Attendance allowances payable under the scheme introduced in December, 1971, are regarded as income for rate rebate purposes. Rate rebates are payable as of right to ratepayers in England, Wales and Scotland, provided the gross incomes do not exceed certain prescribed limits. If this Bill becomes an Act, it will exclude payments of attendance allowances from calculations of gross income when assessing eligibility for rate rebates under the General Rate Act 1967, and, as regards Scotland, the Rating Act 1966.
My Lords, certain Amendments were made to the Bill during its passage in another place. The Bill did not include ratepayers in Scotland, which it now does. Being a Scot, I welcome this, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, who lives in Scotland, will also agree that Scotland could not be left out. The Bill originally covered only attendance allowances payable since 1971. Clause 1 has now been amended to cover, for example, those war pensioners and industrial injury pensioners who receive constant attendance allowances. The Bill's treatment of attendance allowances for rate rebate purposes is now in line with their treatment for the purposes of rent rebate and allowances under the Housing Finance Act 1972. Benefit under the Bill would have been available from the date of Royal Assent. Under the terms of Clause 2, introduced as a new clause during the Committee stage in another place, attendance allowance will be disregarded for rate rebate purposes from the beginning of any rebate period starting on or after April 1, 1973, or May 16, 1973, in the case of Scotland.
Although the total number of persons receiving attendance allowances is known, the number of those people who are ratepayers and who may benefit under the Bill is not known. This will be one
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more way of finding out some more information about the disabled in this country, which is proving to be a difficult task for local authorities. Seventy-five per cent. of the total cost will be met from national taxation, and the balance will be provided by the general body of ratepayers. I hope your Lordships will welcome this Bill, which is only a very minor concession so far as disabled people are concerned, but nevertheless very vital and welcome to some: it tidies up a nagging legal irregularity and therefore I commend it to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Masham of Ilton.)
8.59 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the House will be very appreciative of the action of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, in sponsoring this Bill, and particularly so for the extremely understanding manner in which she has moved its Second Reading. From this side of the House, I should like to give it the warmest of welcomes. It is, as the noble Baroness has said, a measure which was introduced in the other place by my honourable friend Mr. Phillip Whitehead, the Member for Derby, North, and was supported by Members on both sides in that House. So in no sense can it be regarded as a Party measure, and one hopes that it will enjoy the same range of support in this House as it had in the other place.
We all rejoiced when the principle of constant attendance allowances was agreed upon to assist those for whom my honourable friend Mr. Alfred Morris fought for so long and so successfully. The Act which resulted from his efforts and the efforts of so many of us who were alerted to the needs of the disabled who depend on the constant attendance and attention of others, was a milestone in the progress we are making towards a truly neighbourhood society. We appreciate the improvements that have subsequently been effected to that Act; but all of us will be aware that those allowances are not too easy to obtain and we shall not feel that at any point are they over-generous. When these constant attendance allowances are given in circumstances where the income is so low that there is entitlement to rate rebate, we can surely be satisfied that

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there is a pretty constant threat of hardship: at least we know that in those homes there will never be too much.
It seems that taking into consideration these constant attendance allowances in assessing entitlement to rate rebates goes a long way, as the noble Baroness has indicated, to defeat the very purpose for which the allowances were introduced. I am told that the recipient may lose as much as £35 to £40 of the £200 attendance allowance which may be given. This is the sort of thing we seldom, if ever, take into account when we consider original legislation and scales of benefit, and so we find presently that the value of what we have sought to do has been eroded.
It may be argued that there are many other allowances which may be disregarded in computing entitlement to rate rebates. My Lords, I would not question that. From that it may be stated that if this Bill becomes an Act it could create in some people's minds an anomalous situation. If that is so, I think it ought to be said on the other side that there are many of us who feel that this Bill goes a very long way to clear up what seems to us to be in itself an anomalous situation. If there is need to look at other allowances in the same sort of way in which we look at these. I feel that the very promotion of this Bill has given us the opportunity of giving some thought to an extension of what the Bill aims to do for other people who are in dire need. In the meantime, these particular allowances, being so very special, not easy to get, not over-generous and given only where need (and "need" spelt in capital letters at that) is proved, ought to be excluded from calculations of gross incomes in assessing the entitlement to rate rebates. On this side, we shall do everything we can to expedite the passing of this measure.
9.4 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I wish on behalf of the Government to welcome this Bill whose Second Reading has just been moved by my noble friend Lady Masham. Government support has already been signified in another place in the Money Resolution in the name of my honourable friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
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I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, whose interest in this subject is very well known, for his welcome to this measure. It is a small but very worthwhile measure, which I should like to commend to your Lordships. Rate rebates are payable as of right to ratepayers in England, Wales and Scotland, provided their gross incomes do not exceed certain prescribed limits. I would thank my noble friend Lady Masham for her reference to Scotland and to myself. I believe the other place did a great deal to bring this measure within that scope. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, nodding agreement.
Under the present arrangements, attendance allowances which are paid to the most severely disabled members of our society count as income for rate rebate purposes. This has meant that some ratepayers receiving attendance allowance under the scheme introduced in December, 1971, by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services have lost or had reduced their entitlement to rate rebate. The purpose of the Bill, as my noble friend has just explained, is to disregard attendance allowances as income for rate rebate purposes.
It is difficult to estimate the number of ratepayers who will benefit under this Bill. Although we know the total number of persons receiving attendance allowances, we do not know how many of those people are ratepayers and who therefore will benefit. However, we estimate—and I would emphasise that this is only an estimate—that some 6,500 people will benefit and that the total cost of the relief granted could be of the order of £170,000 in the financial year 1973/74. Seventy-five per cent. of the total cost (some £130,000) will be met from national taxation and the balance of about £40,000 will be borne by the general body of ratepayers.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, referred in very light vein to anomalous situations and to certain other allowances which he personally would like to see made. As a war pensioner myself, and knowing many people who have suffered much more grievously than I and who have war pensions, I know what the noble Lord was referring to. I realise that these pensions at present count as income for rate rebate purposes. We

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have introduced a Green Paper on Local Government Finance (Cmnd. No. 4741) which discusses the possibility of a new rate rebate scheme which would exclude as income the first £2 per week of disablement pension and payments of the kind I have just mentioned.
The Government's proposals for the reform of local government finance, including the introduction of a new rent rebate scheme, will be announced in due course. Your Lordships will not, I am sure, expect me to say more to-night. I should like to assure your Lordships that the Government have very much in mind the treatment of war pensioners which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, hinted at in connection with rate rebates. If, as the Government hope, this Bill receives the Royal Assent, steps will be taken to publicise its benefits. Indeed, the Department has already written to rating authorities drawing their attention to the terms of the Bill at present before your Lordships' House. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lords, Lord Garnsworthy and Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for their support. All those who have taken an interest, and will take an interest, in this Bill will be very pleased to have the support of the Government and the Opposition. I am also pleased to hear that the Government will give the Bill as much publicity as possible. It is often those who most need support and help financially who are least likely to come forward and ask for it. Therefore publicity is needed in this respect. I should again like to thank both noble Lords for their support.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

BADGERS BILL [H.L.]
9.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Arran.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 10 [Enforcement, penalties, etc.]:
LORD SOMERS LORD SOMERS moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 4, line 3, leave out from beginning to ("arrest") in line 6 and insert—
("(1) Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any person is committing an offence under this Act, or has committed an offence under this Act and that evidence of the commission of the offence is to be found on that person or any vehicle or article he may have with him, the constable may—

(a) without warrant stop and search that person and search any vehicle or article he may have with him;

(aa) without warrant").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is little more than a drafting Amendment. I raised an Amendment with the same intent on the Committee stage but the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, was not satisfied with the wording. At that time he said that I should not think of saying what was the correct legal terminology for any Act of Parliament. He was quite right; I should not, any more than he would think of suggesting the correct registration for any organ work. But thanks to the great kindness of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, this Amendment comes from the Home Office and therefore I hope your Lordships will accept it. It merely implies that a constable may have grounds for suspicion rather than actually seeing the man committing an offence. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said, he moved similar Amendments at the Committee stage. I said that although the Government had no objection to the principle of the Amendments, the drafting was not satisfactory. The Amendments have now been redrafted, and the Government have no objection to them.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, naturally I approve this Amendment. It has proper purposes which have been

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drafted by the Home Office. I am glad to support it.
Clause 11 [Interpretation]:
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 4, line 34, after ("occupier") insert ("shown to have been authorised by the owner or occupier,")
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment embodies a point on which I touched at the Report stage. It is intended to narrow the application of paragraph (a) relating to "the owner or occupier, or any servant". The phrase, "any servant of the owner or occupier" is, I submit, drawing the matter a good deal too wide. It is easy to think of an owner or occupier as one person living in a small place. He may be a very large landowner indeed with a large number of undefined servants. This is not necessarily the case of a landowner with a gamekeeper to whom he can say "Deal with the badgers". He might be a man with a place in the country containing woods and badger sets which was let to a tenant while he lived in London. His nursemaid, butler or anybody else could be authorised under certain circumstances in this Bill to kill badgers on that ground. The only defence against that situation would be a possible action for trespass brought on the part of the tenant. That is poor protection for the badger.
The matter could be a great deal more widespread than that; very large corporations and insurance companies are landlords and landowners. An enormous number of employees could be classified as "servants" and all would become authorised persons, if their employer was himself an authorised person. I think it is even conceivable that on Crown lands every member of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, and perhaps the Civil Service, in certain circumstances, would become an authorised person. Obviously this is ridiculous, but none the less it is theoretically possible under this Bill. We do not wish to draft a ridiculous Bill and therefore this Amendment has been drafted in order to narrow the field. The words "owner or occupier" will occur three times in
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the same short clause, or subsection, thereby possibly conveying the effect, if anybody reads it aloud, that he is reciting a kind of part song or catch. None the less Bills are not read aloud. It will I submit, meet the case. It is logical; it is sensible, and it strengthens the case en behalf of the badgers. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, this Amendment meets a point that was raised at the Report stage in the course of debate on Amendments which introduced the definition of an authorised person. As my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery has said, in paragraph (a) of the definition of "authorised person" as at present drafted a servant of an owner or occupier of any land would be an authorised person for the purposes of the Bill, whether or not he was acting with the permission of his employer. In effect, that would mean that if a servant killed a badger on his employer's land in defiance of his employer's wish, the servant would not be guilty of an offence under Clause 1. The effect of this Amendment would be to make the servant an authorised person only when acting with the permission of the owner or occupier; that is, he would need to show that he had been authorised by the owner or occupier. Such permission need not be in writing, and the amended definition would not therefore impose an additional burden on the owner or ocupier. The Government have no objection to this Amendment.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: I too, my Lords, am fully in agreement.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK THE EARL OF CRANBROOK moved Amendment No. 4.
Page 5, line 10, at end insert—
(""local authority" means—

(a) as respects England and Wales up to and including 31st March 1974, the council of a county borough, a London borough or a county district or the Common Council of the City of London;

(b) as respects England and Wales on and after 1st April 1974, the council of a district or a London borough or the Common Council of the City of London; and

(c) as respects Scotland, the council of a county or the town council of a burgh.")

The noble Earl said: My Lords, under paragraph (c) in the definition of an authorised person there comes a local

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authority. This is intended to meet the case not of a local authority owning land but of an authority which controls certain commons and the like, where there is no lord of the manor, or waste ground where there is no owner, and I am told by the Home Office that in fact this definition would meet both the case which exists to-day and the case which will exist after April next year when the new local authorities are established. My Lords, I beg to move.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, this Amendment of course is, as the noble Earl has made clear, consequential on the use of the expression "local authority" in the interpretation clause. Naturally I support it.
9.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. When I introduced the Bill I said that it had two main purposes: to conserve the species and to protect the badger from cruelty. My main supporter was the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, to whom I find myself deeply indebted. He has achieved 90 per cent. of what he wanted, I perhaps 40 per cent., but I had hoped for little better. What the future of the Bill in the other House may be I cannot forecast—there are procedural difficulties—but I think your Lordships may feel proud of having passed this humane and conservationist measure.
To the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, again many congratulations. To many other noble Lords, many thanks. I think of my noble friend, Lord Foot, of the noble Lords, Lord Somers, Lord Hoy and Lord Coleridge, of my noble kinsman Lady Ruthven and the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. I will not go on; there are others of course. Strangely, or perhaps not strangely, I also thank the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, whom I am not sorry not to see here to-day. I do not think he is well. There is a famous story of a candidate who was being visaed for a First in Greats. All the examiners gave him an easy ride except one who kept on asking difficult questions. The candidate got a Second and he blamed it on the one examiner. He was wrong. That examiner thought well of the candidate and prodded him
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in the hope of getting the best out of him. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, is my prodder and I like to think that he is trying to make me do better. I have tried.
As to the future, that is of course for the other place. Your Lordships may recall that I had to pass the Sexual Offences Bill through this House three times, but it now stands on the Statute Book under its correct name of the Abse Act. If I am unlucky this Session I shall persevere. I believe that what the country wants is protection from cruelty to the badger as an individual and his conservation as a species.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Arran.)
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, at this late hour I do not like keeping your Lordships, but I would say one thing. We have discussed this Bill thoroughly in this House and I greatly dislike to think that it would be guillotined or chopped off in another place at one stroke. Therefore I am going to ask the Government, who have been very sympathetic to this Bill all the way through, to make their best endeavours so that the Bill has a fair hearing in the House of Commons.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it was not my intention to say anything, but I could not allow this Bill to pass without acknowledging with thanks the reference that the noble Earl, Lord Arran, has made to me. From the beginning I decided to associate myself with the Bill, and despite all its trials I think we have now reached the stage, in agreement with the Government, of having a Bill which has unanimous support. That is a considerable achievement. Also, I think there is a sense of relief to many of your Lordships, because even if some of you were not altogether persuaded that this was a Bill of first moment, we have a great loyalty to the noble Earl; and the very fact that this Bill is about to leave your Lordshrips' House will at least give us a sense of relief, because we shall rot be tied to the House for much longer this evening.
Amendments have been made, and we are indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, for the constructive part he has played concerning the Bill. We are

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indebted also to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for the way she has taken the Bill through on the part of the Government. That gives us a little confidence that when the Bill reaches another place (which is not unknown to me) it will have a reception which may make it possible for this Bill to go through that other Chamber much more quickly than it has gone through your Lordships' House. So I want to thank all those noble Lords who have helped, and certainly not least Lady Young.
9.22 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, may I add my congratulations to the noble Earl, Lord Arran, for successfully steering this Bill through your Lordships' House, and my thanks to those noble Lords who have expressed appreciation of anything I have been able to do. During the debate on Second Reading I told the House that the attitude of the Government was one of neutrality towards this basic issue, but I had to say that the Bill we then had before us was not acceptable to the Government, and I suggested that if it went forward the noble Earl might be prepared to look again at some of its provisions.
At Committee and Report stages your Lordships have made a considerable number of Amendments and have even added a few more this evening. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, has shown himself ready to consider all the various suggestions that have been made, and as a result we have produced a Bill which is much more comprehensive and better fitted for the job it is intended to do. At the same time, its original purposes of conserving the badger and protecting it from cruel methods of destruction have been kept. I am happy to say that all the Government's objections to the original Bill have been met. The Government's attitude towards the Bill remains one of neutrality, though I personally am very pleased to see the Bill pass.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

RHONDDA CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported with Amendments.