Lords Sitting of 15 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 Rochester.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne —Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

DEMONSTRATIONS AND TRAFFIC CONTROL
LORD JESSEL: 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 why, on May Day, 1973, motorists for over one hour were prevented by the police from crossing Oxford Street and the marchers not halted at intervals to prevent traffic chaos.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF Cuutoss): My Lords, this is a matter for the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. He tells me that the prior arrangements made by the police with the organisers of the demonstration included provision for breaks in the procession to allow traffic to flow across its line. In the event, however, disruptive behaviour by some of the demonstrators prevented these breaks from being maintained and the police judged that it would not be conducive to public order to insist on re-establishing them when the procession was moving down Oxford Street.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he appreciate that the unwillingness of the police to enforce breaks in the march resulted in the fact that no vehicle was able on, cross Oxford Street from North to South, or vice versa, for almost an hour? Does he also appreciate that had an ambulance or fire engine tried to cross Oxford Street it would have been immobile for approximately
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the same time? Is this kind of situation to be tolerated?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords, I know that. The job of the police on an occasion of this sort is very difficult; they have to try to judge between sticking to and trying to insist on the prearranged methods of breaking the demonstration into several parts so as to allow traffic to go across, if necessary at the expense of a good deal of public disorder, and dealing with the situation as it develops. I do not think it would be right for me to comment on the judgment which they adopted on this particular occasion. It is for the person on the spot to judge which is the better of the two courses to take. In fact they decided not to try to separate the first and second halves of the procession, inconvenient though I appreciate this was for the public.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Viscount agree that, taken by and large with the many demonstrations that we have in London, the relationship between those who organise and those who participate in marches and demonstrations and that of the Metropolitan Police is excellent? Would the noble Viscount agree that if a fire engine or ambulance which was clearly on duty wanted to get through the line of marchers it would be inconceivable that anyone would have prevented it?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords. It is important that we should retain this consultation between organisers of marches and the police, and make every attempt to enable the stewards themselves, in conjunction with the police, to try to maintain the orderly situation that ought to exist at these expressions of what, after all, is a public freedom that we all cherish. If the fire engine or ambulance had been at the front of the queue the marchers would have let it through. What worries me a little is if it had been held up in a long backlog of traffic some way away from the point where the bottleneck occurred. Happily, I do not believe any such thing happened on May 1.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, while agreeing with my noble friend about the normal activities of the police, when a march to a meeting is over a certain size

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would it not be more sensible to have the march on different routes?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, on May 1 there were a certain number of marching activities going, on in London and they took different routes. This was a particularly large march and I do not know whether it would have been possible for the police and the organisers to arrange that the groups should come together at Speakers' Corner, at which the march was aimed, by different routes. It was intended that there should be a break between the two halves of the march in order to let the traffic go through. This would to some extent have had the same effect. Unfortunately, the operation did not work in practice.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, would it be an advantage if May Day were a public holiday? When do the Government expect to make an announcement about this matter, which they are considering?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am always answering questions about public holidays of one sort or another, but that one is not on the Order Paper to-day.
LORD MONSON: My Lords, is not the noble Viscount in his reply conceding that an action taken by a single individual which would lead to his immediate apprehension, such as obstructing traffic, is tolerated if perpetrated by a mass of individuals?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it was not quite as simple as that. The organisers, stewards, the police and everybody else intended that the march should be in two halves. By various means, some of which I do not think either the police, the House or I would necessarily approve of, the first half was slowed down so that the second half caught up. Whether this comes into the category of the question asked by the noble Lord I am not sure. It is a complicated situation on the ground and I believe that the police must be the best judges of how to handle the situation on the occasion.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, is the Minister aware that
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this is not the first time this has happened in London, that in fact it has happened many times and that I, for one, being a motorist who cannot take public transport, have not only been inconvenienced but been made perhaps even more angry than usual by the fact that people who have been walking along Oxford Street demonstrating—and thereby, I would think, probably not making our economy any better, or even earning their living—have delayed those of us who are trying to get to work for many hours? This has happened on more than one occasion, and I wonder whether the Minister could help us as to what is likely to happen in the future.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I very much regret that my noble friend has been inconvenienced in this way. I would suspect that the police would say the same—in fact, I am pretty sure they would. I would also think that the organisers of the marches would say the same, because I believe they wish to preserve the free flow of traffic, so far as possible, in parallel with their own freedom of expression which they are putting forward in this way. The trouble is to get this through to certain of the more unruly hangers-on who sometimes turn up at occasions of this kind. I can only express regret to my noble friend and say that the police and everybody else concerned try to avoid this situation.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble Viscount confirm that some people who object to marches ought also to object to State processions when Heads of State visit us, which also causes traffic troubles?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think I should speculate on what some people who object to one thing might also object to.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I think that the noble Viscount in his original Answer said that some members of the procession were rather obstreperous, or words to that effect, and made the procession close up. Have there been any prosecutions of people on that score?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, would not the Minister agree that these demonstrations are a very useful safety valve for the expression of the emotions of people who feel very keenly over a given subject? And even with the slight inconvenience that is caused from time to time, is it not advisable in this free society that both sides work together with a view to creating the least inconvenience while allowing these demonstrations to continue to take place?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. What is probably the most constructive course of all that can happen is for the stewards to try to keep control over their processions, their marches, in collaboration with the police. That is the way in which we shall avoid trouble of the kind which occurred on this occasion.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would not the movement of traffic be speeded up if definite instructions and markings by road signs were placed to divert the traffic along alternative routes?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I have tried on numerous occasions, but I am not altogether certain what alternative routes there are North and South across Oxford Street.

ARMED FORCES' PENSION RATES
2.47 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will clarify the statement made on the 2nd May 1973, regarding improvements in the Armed Forces' Occupational Pension Scheme and widows' benefits, and more particularly indicate whether any of these benefits, including the increased widows' allowances, will apply to First and Second War persons, for example, the blinded ex-Servicemen and their widows who are under the care of St. Dunstan's and the Scottish National Institution for the War Blinded.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, the improvements in the Armed Forces occupational pension scheme announced by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence on May 2 apply, as he then stated, only to those who give service on or after March 31, 1973. They do not apply to Servicemen disabled or killed in the World Wars whose disability or widows' pensions are the responsibility of my Department.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while thanking Her Majesty's Government and, for that matter, all Governments in the last fifty years of all Parties for the special consideration they have given to these categories in whom I am interested, may I ask whether it is not likely to be thought to be discrimination or invidious to give the young men so much more than the veterans, bearing in mind that both suffer the same disbility and both have to meet the same costs of living?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think we are all somewhat in the same condition, in that there are the two forms of pension: there is the National Insurance pension, which is a flat-rate pension, for which anyone who has contributed to the National Insurance Scheme is eligible, and then there are occupational pensions which are related to the earnings of the man in his career; and in all occupational schemes any benefits normally date from the time when increased benefits are made. I think this case is exactly the same situation: that the Scheme has been amended for the better but only people who are in the Scheme from March 31, 1973, will benefit.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware (in support of the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, whose work for the blinded ex-Servicemen everyone in this Chamber admires) that BLESMA, the limbless ex-Servicemen, that FEPOW, the Far Eastern prisoners of war, that AJEX, The Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen, and the great Royal British Legion itself, warmly congratulate Her Majesty's Government on this signal improvement in the condition of the ex-Servicemen and their widows after May, 1973; but that,

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having said that, it places the widows of the ex-Servicemen of the two World Wars in a less favourable position than the widows of Servicemen after May, 1973? Will he look at the whole problem of the position of the widows of the ex-Servicemen before May, 1973?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I should like warmly to welcome what the noble Lord has said about my noble friend's service for the blind ex-Servicemen. I am also grateful to him for speaking of the welcome given by various organisations to this new arrangement. But I would point out that war pensions have gone up a great deal in the last three years. I think we have done more than any Government to increase the pensions of the war pensioners. On the subject of the widows, of course this Scheme relates in the same way to the widow of any man who has an occupational pension scheme. When improvements are made in an occupational pension scheme it benefits those people who are in the scheme at the time when improvements are introduced.
So far as the widows of ex-Servicemen are concerned, there are plans to make it possible for a man who has hitherto been on the old Scheme to buy himself into the new Scheme, as it were, and to make it possible for his widow to receive the 50 per cent. benefit that the new Scheme offers rather than the one-third benefit that is possible under the old Scheme.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, while regretting the somewhat disputable claim that this Government have done more for ex-Servicemen than any other Government, which is not a matter we wish to argue about, except to say that it is highly dubious, is it not a fact that the Occupational Pension Scheme will not have an immediate effect because it is something that is essentially built up over a period, except where widows' benefits are concerned? And while we are moving in this respect on to a new system of pensions, and one in which I believe the Government are going the right way, is it for consideration as to whether some additional sympathy should be given to those who are nat able to get the benefit of this kind of scheme? We tend to leave behind the old who lived in a less just age. Could this matter
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be considered at the time of the annual review of pension rates?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, all these points are considered annually when reviews are made of all pension rates, and certainly, as I said before, in the last three years vast improvements have been made. A 100 per cent. pensioner from the last war who is married and getting unemployability supplement and full invalidity allowance, will be over £11·50 a week better off this October than he was in 1970. I think the present war pensions scheme has been greatly improved and I think the new Ministry of Defence Scheme, which has been so widely welcomed, is a great improvement.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while paying tribute to all Governments, of all Parties, is it not still the case that it is the "take home" money that counts, and that the young fellow or his widow will take home more money than the veteran? Can the Government look at this matter again please?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, as I was trying to explain to my noble friend, I am afraid this is common to all occupational pension schemes. It is exactly the same in the Civil Service, as it is in the Services of the Crown, that pensions have been improved recently and new occupational schemes have been introduced from which only those who have joined the scheme at that point are able to benefit.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he can clarify one point about the new arrangements? Is there any precedent in the history of war pensions whereby, when some new arrangement is brought into effect, those who have in fact been drawing pension under various old schemes are not brought up to the level of the new? Secondly, my noble friend referred to a serving man being able to buy himself into the new arrangement in certain circumstances. Is there any way whereby a widow, who no longer has a husband, is able to transfer from the old to the new Scheme?
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords. In reply to my noble friend's first question, there is, as I have been trying to explain, every precedent whereby people who have been working under one

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pension scheme do not change into a new pension scheme when it is introduced.
LORD FRASER or LONSDALE: In the ex-Service world, my Lords?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, what I was trying to explain about the widows' pensions was that where a man is now serving and his pension scheme therefore allows for his widow to receive one-third of his pay in the event of his death, we are trying to find arrangements which would allow him to improve that to the 50 per cent. payment which is available under the new Scheme.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he can say what the amount would be if in fact the new pension arrangements were applied to pensioners of the First and Second World Wars?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the amounts involved would be very large. I cannot give an exact figure, but certainly if one had to bring up to the standard of new schemes all those who were on previous schemes I doubt whether we should ever be able to afford to introduce a new scheme.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that it is somewhat anomalous that a war pensioner who receives a pension because of service in the First World War should be worse off than a pensioner who receives a pension because of service in the Second World War? Is that not the whole point?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think there are many other people who would say the same. It is not only the ex-Serviceman. There are a number of people working in industry and in the Civil Service, who, during the time they were serving were on one pension scheme and who are not so well off as those who may be currently serving on a new pension scheme.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it is not correct that the war pension is governed by Royal Warrant as against the other types of pensions to which he has referred? If such is the case, is it too much to ask that it should be submitted again for consideration by his noble friend?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I take deep note of what has been said to-day in supplementary questions on this matter and I will certainly report to my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence, and particularly what has been said by my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, and perhaps also the noble Earl the Leader of the House, would consider whether we might again debate the anomalies. This is an immensely complex field with different types of pensions coming into effect now. Would the noble Lord agree that there is a feeling in the House, a feeling which I share and which I do not doubt that he himself appreciates, that in regard to those who have missed out—covering a very large number of people, including Members of Parliament—from earlier pension schemes, some further consideration might be given to an amelioration of their lot, and particularly in relation to the disabled from the First World War?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, my noble friend the Leader of the House has taken note of what the noble Lord has said and I am sure that if it is his wish a debate could be arranged through the usual channels.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, may I ask one question? The noble Lord has just said that were we to do this for earlier sufferers it would possibly have made us unwilling (or I think he said "unable") to introduce the later Scheme because we should then have become aware of the enormous cost. If the noble Earl the Leader of the House is to consider whether we should have a debate, would the noble Lord give us some evidence as to the assertion he has made? I have some doubts about it. I am in no position to assert those doubts, but he did assert his belief. Therefore, before we have a debate would he give us some figures that we could consider?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, if I can, I will most certainly give the figures. I think there are something like half a million war pensioners and presumably all of them would be affected.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, if the noble Lord is going to consider a debate to

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deal with the anomalies of pensioners, would he bear in mind that non-complaining class, the ranks of the Regular forces in between the wars, who are always left out because their pensions are given by grace and favour and not under a pension warrant? They do not complain but they happen, like myself, to have been born somewhat too early.
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords, I will certainly bear that point in mind.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, when we had the debate about the pensions for Civil Service officers serving overseas, a tribute was paid to the previous Government and this Government for their generosity, and I readily acknowledge that. But left in everybody's mind was an uncomfortable feeling that widows had not been sufficiently taken care of. In discussing this matter with his honourable friend, would not the Minister bring out the Civil Service aspect of this matter?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I shall have to speak to my other noble friend on that point.

CIGARETTE SALES AND ADVERTISING
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have noted the item in the Sunday Times of April 15, 1973, headed "Cigarette makers limit sale of safest brand", which indicates that as the Department of Health reported that cigarettes named "Silk Cut Extra Mild" had the lowest nicotine and tar content of all the 111 Brands tested, the sales manager of the firm making that and numerous other brands of cigarettes, Gallahers, issued a confidential circular to their 400 salesmen (which asked the salesmen not to "show it to anyone"), urging them to "discourage stocking of Extra Mild" and instructing them to ration the issue of those cigarettes to retailers so as to sell them more of the other brands of the firm; and whether Her Majesty's Government have investigated or will now investigate this matter; and what
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action they have taken or will now take.
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords, A report that the sales of the listed brand with the lowest tar yield were being discouraged by the company making it was, of course, a cause for serious concern. Accordingly my Department immediately took the matter up with the manufacturers and we received an assurance that the sales of "Silk Cut Extra Mild" cigarettes were not being artificially depressed. On the contrary, the manufacturers have said that they are taking special measures to meet the full demand and indeed to foster it.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he regards it as an honest reply in the light of what has happened in recent weeks? May I further ask him whether he is aware that the firm has extensively advertised in the general scene the cigarette called the "mild cigarette" and that it has photographed and colour printed only three of their packs: "Regular Silk Cut", "Silk Cut King Size", and "Silk Cut No. 3" which have a tar yield of 11 and a nicotine yield of 0.8 milligrammes, and have never put a picture in of "Silk Cut Extra Mild" which the Health Council figure put on top of the list which has a tar yield of 0·4 and a nicotine content of 0·3?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, these are difficult matters. They are, in a way, commercial matters for the company. In fact, cigarettes with a tar yield of 11 or 12 milligrammes are a great improvement on those with the 20 or so which is the normal smoker's intake. The company themselves would not wish commercially to restrict the sales of cigarettes which are much in demand. I am informed that they are now turning out in one day five times what they were previously selling in a month of the "Silk Cut Extra Mild".
LORD PLATT: My Lords, has the noble Minister observed that in The Times of May 4 there was a whole page advertisement for "Silk Cut", the message of which was that if you smoked "Silk Cut" you should smoke the tobacco in cigarettes about twice the normal size, thus being part of this completely unscrupulous campaign to defeat

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any health measures which the Government may try to put forward?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the noble Lord is being very unfair. If he looks at the table of tar content he will see that "Silk Cut King Size" has 11 milligrammes tar yield whereas "Silk Cut" itself has 12. So in fact the "King Size" cigarette has less tar content than the normal one.
LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, that is an extremely unfair criticism of the firm which is leading the research into safe cigarettes, having produced no less than 5 brands in the first 12 of the low tar yield. Would the noble Lord agree that the reasons why the "Extra Mild" cannot be supplied is, first, that the demand has increased by 100 times, and the firm are quite unable to meet it; and, secondly, if a man smoking cigarettes at the 20 tar yield suddenly smokes at the 4 tar yield, he will go back to the 20 because it tastes of nothing except blotting paper. If, on the other hand, you can get him down—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD GISBOROUGH: Would the noble Lord agree that if you get it down to about 12, there is some chance that he can eventually smoke and enjoy the 4 tar yield?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I agree there is a certain amount in what my noble friend has said. Our only interest in the matter is to encourage people, if they must smoke, to smoke a cigarette with the lowest tar yield.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that all this propaganda is encouraging people to smoke more cigarettes, because they believe that if they smoke one which the Government or the cigarette makers say is safe they will not develop cancer of the lung? Would the noble Lord not agree that the cigarette smokers of course welcome these various brands? Further, can he tell me whether the cigarette makers have ever tried to promote public health? All they are interested in is increasing their profits; and there is evidence of that all down the years.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, what the noble Baroness calls "all this
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propaganda" has drawn to most people's attention the dangers of smoking. I do not think that there are many people in this country who are not now aware of the dangers of smoking.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that it would be better to leave this question of percentages of nicotine out of account and to keep to the State's view that cigarette smoking is harmful, and perhaps force companies to show the amount of nicotine content on their packets and then let the public themselves decide?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, that may be the noble Lord's view; but we feel that as there are people who are certainly not going to give up smoking it is better to encourage them to smoke safer brands.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Lord issue regular statements to the public, say every quarter, showing the increase in the consumption of low nicotine cigarettes and the relative decrease in the consumption of high nicotine content cigarettes?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, those will be interesting statistics if they are available to see how this table has had effect.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, in future correspondence which the Minister may have with the company or companies concerned, could he bear in mind that certainly until four years ago, and it may still be the case, bronchitic ailments engendered largely by cigarette smoking were the biggest single contributory cause to absenteeism from work?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, yes, that is another factor in the evils of cigarette smoking.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, is it not also a fact that Gallahers and Benson and Hedges, the same people under a different name, are spending increasing amounts of money on sponsoring sporting activities, not in order to encourage sport, but, as my noble friend said, to make more money? Is that not blatant hypocrisy, and is it not time that the Government edged away from this hypocrisy, and did something, if necessary by legislation, to stop it?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the noble Lord will know that we have already made arrangements that advertising by cigarette firms at sporting events shall not be shown on television programmes.
LORD WIGG: But my Lords, the noble Lord is not as innocent as all that.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD WIGG: Is the noble Lord not aware that not only do they spend money directly in supporting sporting activities, but the grounds are littered with advertisements which are picked up incidentally to the sporting activity? That is well known to the Minister. I went to see him myself on the point, and nothing has been done about it.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, nothing has so far been thought necessary in order to reduce cigarette advertising as such. The point I was making was that television companies have agreed not to show advertisements for smoking at sporting events.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, in view of that extremelyy unsatisfactory reply—if I may say so with great respect—do I understand that the Government do not then disapprove of this immense advertising of cigarette smoking, and are going to do nothing whatever about it?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we are doing our best to make it quite clear that there are very significant dangers in cigarette smoking and we believe that we have achieved a great deal in various ways, by printing the warning and now by the tables of tar and nicotine. To go further than that is very seriously to intrude, partly on the independence of companies competing with each other, and partly on the independence of individuals who should surely be left to make up their own minds as to what is safe for them and what is not.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I have not complained in any way, in public or in this House, of any individual smoking. I only ask Her Majesty's Government whether they approve of this campaign for pushing this addiction? That is a different matter.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we have done our best to make use of it by
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printing a warning on all posters and advertisements.

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION AND THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
3.10 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: 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 when the provision of artificial insemination by a donor is to be made available within the National Health Service, as recommended by the Panel on Human Artificial Insemination.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, under present arrangements it is possible for human artificial insemination by husband or by donor to be obtained under the National Health Service when it is recommended on medical grounds. I am aware of the recent report of the Panel on Human Artificial Insemination but have not as yet received any recommendations concerning it. The Panel was set up by the Board of Science and Education of the British Medical Association and I understand that the report is still the subject of consultation and discussion within the Association.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. In view of the fact that Sir John Peel, the eminent gynecologist and obstetrician, was chairman of the Panel —there had been a previous report about two years ago of a different nature, but those recommendations were changed on this occasion—could the noble Lord say when we may have a statement on whether the Government are going to accept Sir John Peel's recommendations?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, it is not really a question of the Government's accepting Sir John Peel's recommendations; it is a question of whether the British Medical Association wish to accept Sir John Peel's recommendations, because Sir John Peel's Panel was set up by the B.M.A. Until the B.M.A. as a whole has given some judgment about these recommendations it would be quite

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inappropriate for the Government to do so.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, while I must apologise to the noble Lord for contradicting him, may I ask whether he is aware that Sir John Peel recommended that five or seven centres should be set up throughout the country? Of course, the British Medical Asociation does not set up centres. The only authority capable of setting up the centres which Sir John Peel asked for is the Government, through the National Health Service.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the report has not yet been adopted or in any way commented upon by the British Medical Association, who set up the Panel. Therefore, it would be quite out of order, and quite ridiculous, if I may say so with respect, for the Government to take action on recommendations of a Panel whose recommendations have not yet been considered by the body which set it up.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, am I not right in saying that if an important body of this kind asks the National Health Service to establish these particular centres, then the Government must recognise that they are the agents? Therefore it is for them to discuss these matters with the British Medical Association, which, after all, is simply an association of doctors in this country.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords. I really do not think I can add to what I said previously.

LAW REFORM (DILIGENCE) (SCOTLAND) BILL
LORD HOY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(Lord Hoy.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN BILL
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment to or speak in Committee.
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Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45(21, that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Hylton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HALLMARKING BILL
3.14 p.m.
LORD SANDYS: 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 Sandys.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The VISCOUNT HOOD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Prohibited descriptions of unhallmarked articles]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("overstating") and insert ("understating").
The noble Lord said: In rising to introduce the first Amendment, I feel that I owe your Lordships an explanation, if not also an apology, because, as your Lordships are aware, there is a list of no fewer than 84 Amendments set down to this Bill. Your Lordships will recollect that yesterday we considered a Private Member's Bill on recommitment and two Amendments were set down. We have just discharged a Bill, a few moments ago, from Committee. Therefore, the question must arise in your Lordships' minds why it is necessary to set down this very large number of Amendments to this Private Member's Bill. There is an explanation. It is an unusually technical Bill. It is, of course, concerned with the regulation of hallinarking and has involved considerable complexity of draftsmanship. I should here like to pay tribute to the work of the two principal Parliamentary Counsel, Mr. Stainton and Mr. Caldwell, whose unstinting help has been given by Her Majesty's Government, whom I should also like to thank for their assistance between the time when this Bill left another place and its arrival in your Lordships' House.
The first Amendment appears to be the sort of Amendment which your Lordships might have thought would have been picked up automatically in another place. Why is it necessary to set it down here? In point of fact, this Amendment was picked up in another place, as the whole of Clause 1 was replaced at the final stages of the Bill in the House of Commons, and further amendment there was found to be too late. This is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD SHACKLETON: Before we proceed any further, may I ask whether, in contradistinction to yesterday, we are going to have the help of Ministers on this Private Member's Bill? The noble Lord may be aware that yesterday we were told that the Minister would merely listen, but it appears, from the degree of excellent drafting done by Government draftsmen, that the Minister on this Bill will be participating. He may not have known what happened yesterday, which caused some offence in the House.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): I do not want to intrude where it is unnecessary, but I shall certainly be willing to help if I can.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This is really consequential on the last Amendment. The effect is to extend paragraph 1(1)(c) in Part IV of Schedule 1 so as to enable the Secretary of State, by order, to make consequential amendments not merely to subsections (2), (3) and (4) of Clause 1 but also to this part of Clause 1. The point again is essentially drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 8, leave out ("preceding").(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Once again, this is a purely drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 32, leave out ("said Act") and insert ("Act of 1968").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Unhallmarked articles]:
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 4 is once again essentially a drafting Amendment. This Amendment implies that the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are, for the purposes of the Bill, to be treated as foreign territory, and that is the intention. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 21, leave out from ("Kingdom") to end of line 22.—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 5 is again a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 17, leave out second ("manufacture") and insert ("or the date of any alteration, the manufacture or altefation").(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.20 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 23, line 24, leave out from ("presumed") to end of line 27 and insert ("to be an indication that the article or metal is of gold, and that its fineness is that specified in the following table for that number of carats.
(2) This paragraph shall not apply if (as in a case where the article is a precious stone) the word carat' is used as a measure of weight for precious stones, and not as a measure of fineness.")
The noble Lord said: Once again, this is a purely drafting Amendment. Paragraph 2 is intended to deal with the special use of the word "carat" when used as a measure of weight for precious stones and not as a measure of fineness in relation to gold as a precious metal.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, which is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 36, at end insert ("and so in proportion for any other number of carats").(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 23, line 38, after ("or") insert ("except in the phrase Britannia metal')").
The noble Lord said: The phrase "Britannia metal" is used of base metal

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in certain circumstances by dealers, and therefore has to be excluded from the definition of "Britannia" as an indication that an article is made of silver. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendent No. 9, which is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 38, leave out ("until the contrary is proved").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 24, line 11. leave out from ("in") to end of line 12 and insert ("section 1 of this Act").
The noble Lord said: The purport of this Amendment was explained earlier in relation to Clause 1. At this stage, I do not feel it necessary to go into any further detail. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Meaning of approved hallmarks, etc.]:
LORD SANDYS: With Amendment No. 11 I should like to link Amendment No. 12, if that is for the convenience of your Lordships. Both of these are purely drafting. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 3, line 22, leave out from ("which") to ("and") in line 23 and insert ("has been made to an article bearing approved hallmarks").
Page 3, line 28, leave out ("mark") and insert ("hallmark").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 30, at end insert—
("Provided that paragraphs (b) and (c) of this subsection shall not apply if after the making of the addition, alteration or repair the article has been re-assayed and struck with any further approved hallmark.").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment contains a proviso to make clear that if an article has some improper alteration made to it but is then re-assayed and struck with a further approved hallmark which the assay office may require, the alteration ceases to be
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a prosecutable impropriety. I beg to move.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am just wondering whether the noble Lord can enlighten us. We have so far dealt with 12 Amendments and have agreed all of them. We have been told that they are drafting, but the Bill came before us so recently that one wonders why these Amendments were not made to the Bill originally. Can he explain why it is necessary to have so many drafting Amendments'?
LORD SANDYS: The noble Baroness may not have been in the Chamber when I gave my explanation. The Bill has been largely recast with the assistance of Parliamentary Counsel, and it has been thought both more readable and better draftsmanship to put forward these Amendments at this stage.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I thank the noble Lord very much.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Sponsors' marks]:
LORD SANDYS: With Amendment No. 14 I should like, with your Lordships' permission, to take Amendment No. 15. They are both drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 4, line 25, leave out from ("exhibits") to ("as") in line 27.
Page 4, line 27, at end insert—
("(4A) Registration or renewal of the registration of any sponsor's mark under this section shall be subject to the approval, provision and recording from time to time (in accordance with regulations made by the Council) of such punches or other equipment as may be specified in such regulations.")—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Approved hallmarks]:
LORD SANDYS: Once again, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to link Amendments Nos. 16, 16A (which is a new Amendment, put down to-day) and No. 17. These are all drafting Amendments and are of no particular significance. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 5, line 9, leave out ("column (2) of").
Page 5, line 11, leave out ("of that table").
Page 5, line 13, leave out ('"column (3) of").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 5, line 16, leave out from ("assaying") to ("specified") in line 18 and insert ("to a standard of fitness").
The noble Lord said: This also is a drafting Amendment, but a somewhat more specialised one. The existing wording dates back to the time before the Bill contained definitions of the words "fineness", standard of fineness and "minimum fineness" of gold on page 18 of the Bill. "Standard of fineness" has imported into it by those definitions the concept that the article referred to must in all its parts be not less than the fineness of the standard of fineness. This is a technical point. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 19 is again a simplification. Amendment No. 21 to page 5, line 41, achieves the purpose of the lines which this Amendment seeks to leave out. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, leave out lines 22 to 25.—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.30 p.m.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 20 is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, leave out from beginning to end of line 37 and insert—

("(b) as respects articles comprised of two or more precious metals and satisfying the conditions of Part II of the said Schedule 2, marks struck in accordance with that Part; and

(c) as respects articles comprised of precious metal and other materials and satisfying the conditions of Part III of the said Schedule 2, marks struck in accordance with that Part;").—(Lord Sandys.)

VISCOUNT AMORY: My noble friend Lord Sandys is showing a complete mastery of this Bill, and we are very fortunate in the knowledge that he has. But I wonder whether, for the benefit of those of us who do not have so much technical knowledge, he will give the explanations
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of some of these drafting Amendments which are perfectly clear to him but which are not quite so clear to us. Some of his explanations were a little fast and difficult to follow. But I am quite sure that he is leading us in the right direction, and I should be the last person to complain of the remarkable progress that we are making to-day.
LORD SANDYS: I will certainly attempt here to fill out, if I may, some of the points made. The clause here reinstates in a much more concise form and in a unified way the existing law, yet gives it a flexibility to the regulation-making power afforded to the Secretary of State. It will be seen from Schedule 2 that Parts 2 and 3 impose necessary safeguards against deception of the purchaser of articles which consist of two or more precious metals or of a precious metal with other materials. It is as I said earlier, my Lords, it is a technical matter of significance.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 5, line 41, at end insert—
("(2) If it is shown to the satisfaction of the assay office that the article was made in the United Kingdom, the assay office mark and the standard mark shall be those specified for that assay office in column (2) of paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to this Act, and in column (3) of paragraph 2 of that Schedule; and otherwise the marks shall be those specified in column (3) of the said paragraph 1 and column (4) of the said paragraph 2.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment has been mentioned a little earlier in connection with lines 22 to 25. I do not think I should say much more about this particular Amendment. I accept the point which my noble friend Lord Amory has made. These are unusually obstruse matters and rather than make or attempt to make a Second Reading speech about each one, I hope he will forgive me if I do not dwell too heavily upon the matter here. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 6, at end insert ("a").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 6, line 24, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
("(3) A person who knowingly makes a false statement in furnishing any information to an assay office for the purposes of subsection (2) above shall be guilty of an offence.")
The noble Lord said: This is an offence provision in the new subsection (3). It is a new offence but it is obviously right to include it in common sense, and I think this is where we can bring our judgment to bear on the Bill as a whole. I beg to move.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I would only ask whether we are not going a little too quickly. Surely, we have here provision that it is an offence for any person knowingly to make a false statement. Perhaps the noble Lord would explain what is the difference, because if you are furnishing a false statement to the assay office, surely that is no different from making a false statement anyway. I cannot quite see the difference.
LORD SANDYS: I think the explanation here is that very often a specific requirement of the assay office is to provide a piece of paper which indicates the position in regard to an article prior to its submission for hallmarking and that is taken to be evidence, in an equivalent way to verbal evidence, but of course a written statement is far more conclusive.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It might help the noble Baroness if she will compare the words which are proposed to be left out with the words that are proposed to be inserted. I think she will probably get some indication of what this Amendment is designed to achieve. It is a great simplification. It really covers the same ground, because as I understand it, the Amendments that my noble friend has been moving—that is, 16, 17, 19 and 21—provide that the assay office must be satisfied that the article is of British origin before they apply the United Kingdom hallmarks, otherwise they must apply the mark used for the imported goods, and, of course, in some respects there are different marks for imported goods and British ones. The Amendment makes it an offence for a sponsor also to mislead an assay office about the origin of an article. This is clearly necessary, because
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the assay office are largely dependent on the sponsor's statement and has little means of checking it. We are not here concerned with the transaction between the two, so it would not be covered, for example, by the Trade Description Act. They are not selling the goods to the assay office, and therefore special provision is needed.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I thank the Minister for his explanation. I should still have thought that it was covered by:
"… it shall be an offence for any person knowingly to make a false statement under this subsection".
I should have thought that rather specifically referred to whether you were presenting the goods to the assay office, or whether you were in fact dealing with them in any way where you had knowingly misled either orally or in writing. But I will accept that it is unecessary to add this.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This is again a purely drafting Amendment, filling out the existing subsection (4). I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 33, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
("(4) If—

(a) an assay office have refused to hallmark an article, submitted to them for hallmarking under this section; and

(b) the person submitting the article has referred the matter to the Council in writing;

the Council shall consider the case and, if they are of the opinion that the assay office were acting unreasonably in refusing to hallmark the article, they shall direct the assay office to strike the article with the approved hallmarks.
(4A) It shall be the duty of an assay office to whom a direction has been given under subsection (4) above to comply with the direction.").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Approved Hallmarks]:
3.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 25, line 9, column 3, leave out ("and the figures 925.").
The noble Viscount said: This Amendment and the two following ones cover very much the same point, and perhaps it

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will be to your Lordships' convenience if I speak to them more or less together. They concern the marks required to be struck on wares of silver or platinum other than imported articles—that is to say, they concern British produced wares —and the purpose of my Amendment is to delete the new requirement that what are called millesimal marks should he added to the established symbols denoting the fineness of metal in each case. Millesimal marks are figures expressing the standard of fineness in parts per thousand of pure metal in the material of which a ware is made. Thus in the case of sterling silver a millesimal mark composed of the figures 925 means that 925 parts in one thousand of the material are pure silver; and similarly with other standards.
The requirement that millesimal marks should be added to the recognised marks by which the fineness of British silver has been denoted for many generations, and also the new mark for platinum, was introduced by the Government in another place. The reasons there given in support of this change, to which I may say the assay offices and those who manufacture and trade in these metals are strongly opposed, may be briefly and I hope fairly summarised. They were: that millesimal marks are more readily understood; that their use is generally increasing; that they are already used on gold and on imported silver, and that they will form a part of the so-called EFTA mark if that Convention comes into force. As to whether millesimal marks are in fact more readily understandable I shall have more to say in a moment. They are indeed widely used abroad and, for all I know, may be more so in future, but their use is not universal. In the E.E.C. they are not required in France or Holland, with some exceptions, or in Ireland. To say, as was said in another place, that it would be confusing if imported silver and British silver do not bear the same marks is surely to mistake one of the objects of hallmarking itself, which is to show the origin of the article.
If British wares do not bear the same marks as foreign wares I should have thought the result would be to avoid confusion rather than to increase it. Moreover, many foreign marks, millesimal marks, are put on by the manufacturers
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and not by any independent authority. They are thus not certification marks and indeed, I regret to say, are often found to be inaccurate. As to the EFTA Convention, if that Convention comes into force the mark required under it will not be a national mark and should not appear to be one; it is a mark of a different kind. As to gold, millesimal or decimal marks have certainly long been used to distinguish between different standards of fineness in the same metal. For this purpose they are accepted and understood, and it is not suggested that they should now be changed. But the same consideration does not apply with any force to silver, and I suggest that it is false logic to suggest that it does.
At this point I might add that the organisations which were consulted by the Department on this and other matters now in the Bill were consulted before the Bill was drafted and could not have known what is now in it; and I can add, without breach of confidence, that two important organisations, the Design and Research Centre and the British Antique Dealers' Association, which were quoted in another place as being in favour of these millesimal marks, have, now that they have seen the Bill, come out against them, and I understand have so informed the Department. There are many reasons against adding millesimal marks to British silver. Some are not perhaps conclusive, but, equally, they are not wholly negligible. They are partly æsthetic, mainly technical. They are strongest where small articles are concerned, and small articles constitute a large and increasing proportion of those to be marked. I will not attempt to go into the details of punches and other equipment, but will say only that the practical objections to adding millesimal marks to the four marks already required are felt most strongly by those whose work will be mostly closely concerned with them and who should best know what they are talking about.
But the really important point is this. Does the addition of a millesimal mark to the recognised symbols on British silver further the main purpose of the Bill, which is, after all, to protect the consumer'? I do not think it does. Those who are familiar with the existing hallmarks will gain nothing by it: they neither need nor would be helped by the

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addition of figures. The users of Britannia silver, of which very little is made, are of this class, as I suggest are those who may buy platinum, the sale of which would in any case be confined to fairly narrow circles by its very high price. In fact, almost all the silver wares made in this country are of sterling silver, and the mark denoting this, the lion passant, has been in existence and recognised for over 400 years.
The consumers we should most be thinking of are ordinary people with no special knowledge who go into shops to buy pieces of standard silver, generally fairly small, sometimes very small, and seldom very expensive. I really cannot believe that the figures "925", without further explanation, will mean more to them than the lion passant, which some at least know already and many more are learning. In any case, if explanation is needed they will have the protection of Clause 10 of the Bill, which requires every dealer to exhibit conspicuously in his premises a notice describing the approved hallmarks with such explanatory matters as the Hallmarking Council think fit. It is surely no more difficult to explain the symbol than the numerals; and to add the figures would complicate rather than simplify. If the article to be bought is not new but one of the thousands, not to say millions, already in existence, it will not bear a millesimal mark now or in the future. To introduce such an extra mark on new pieces will serve merely to confuse rather than to help; and, after all, the more marks the less easy to follow.
Domestically, then, I find it hard to see that the addition of millesimal marks will benefit the manufacturer, the dealer or the consumer. When we consider the export of British silver wares there are good reasons for thinking that it would be actually damaging to the export trade; and I am informed that this is the view generally held by the exporters themselves. British silver has a high reputation abroad, notably in the United States of America, and this, both in antique and in modern wares, rests not only on artistic merit and craftsmanship but also on the hallmark itself, which on the larger articles, and particularly on reproduction wares, is a feature in its own right. As such, the established four symbols are
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familiar and welcome. To add a fifth of a different kind is to risk raising a suspicion in the mind of the buyer that the new mark is not the authentic British mark they have long known and trusted but indicates something different, and even possibly inferior. if your Lordships think that this is an exaggerated opinion, I can only say again that the exporters hold it strongly, and they, after all, are the people who have to sell the goods. On this ground alone, if there were no others, I would oppose the millesimal addition.
I submit, then, that there are no good reasons for changing the well-known and long-established marks on British silver by the addition of these numerals, or for introducing them on platinum, and many good reasons against doing so. To make such a change by this Bill would be a retrograde step. It would increase the confusion rather than increase the assistance given to the consumer, and I hope your Lordships will oppose it by accepting this Amendment. I beg to move.
3.47 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: In supporting my noble friend in this Amendment I should like merely to emphasise once again the two points which I attempted to bring out on Second Reading. The first is that the millesimal mark, were it to be applied to sterling silver, the technical difficulties of such an application having been overcome, would by the very nature of the usage to which sterling silver is subjected be physically erased in a comparatively short time, and so would have no lasting value
The other point which I seriously suggest to the Committee needs emphasis is that of confusion. The millesimal mark is, as we have heard, only a measurement of fineness of the whole, and it is not in any sense a measurement of value. Consequently, if the consumer needs to be protected he really wants to have explained to him markings over which there may be no confusion whatsoever. If one places on the counter before him a white gold item at 18 carats with a millesimal marking of 750, or a platinum item at 916, or a silver item with a mark of 925, and the customer, the ultimate consumer, says, "Mr. Trader, what is the difference?", an unscrupulous trader may very easily say, "There are the numbers: you must judge for yourself". It

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follows reasonably, I think, that the uninitiated are going to say, "The bigger the number, the bigger the value"—and this, of course, is not so.
For those two reasons—I admit, a reemphasis of what the noble Viscount has already said—I think there can be no particular value in this proposal. That other countries may use a millesimal marking for their silver denoting a degree of fineness, which items we may then import, I do not think is relevant at all. We are primarily talking of our own sterling silver. The sterling mark, the lion passant, having been known and accepted worldwide for hundreds of years, is not going to be enhanced by the addition of numbers; neither incidentally is the millesimal number on imported pieces of silver going to bear that much relationship to a home-produced item. For these reasons and for those which the noble Lord has put forward I would support his Amendment.
3.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: I am sure that other noble Lords feel the diffidence I feel in intervening in this technical debate. When my noble friends Lord Sandys and Lord Drumalbyn gave us their explanations they sounded impressive and I am sure they were absolutely accurate. I was very careful not to imply that they had not made me wiser. I remember the case of the Judge who replied to Mr. F. E. Smith on one occasion by saying, "Mr. Smith, you have made me no wiser," and who got the sharp response: "Without question, no wiser; but perhaps better informed." I suggest that we should be very wise to attach great weight to the advice which my noble friends Lord Sandys and Lord Runciman gave us this afternoon on these points because they are great experts in this field. I think that we should attach great weight to the considered opinions of those who administer the assay offices and who therefore know about these things.
I was impressed when my noble friend Lord Runciman said that in general the feeling of the trade was that the addition of these numerals as well as other marks would be damaging to our export trade. Another far less significant reason occurs to me. I think that with very small articles often if the markings are unnecessarily complicated or long they
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detract from the attractiveness of the article in question. I have a very strong inclination in this case to think that my noble friend Lord Runciman is right, and I hope that those of your Lordships who also feel like that will support him in pressing for your Lordships' approval this afternoon.
LORD MAY: I must first declare a personal interest in this matter. I am a manufacturer as well as a retailing jeweller. I have spoken to many people in the trade but I have yet to meet somebody who favours the addition of this millesimal mark. Traditionally, the lion passant is accepted throughout the world as a standard of sterling quality. This is something of which everybody is justly proud. Figures, particular on precious metal, are always very suspect. A short while ago I was in Germany where a manufacturer showed me some 13½ carat gold. When I asked what it was, I was told that it was to be marked 14 carats for export to the United States of America where there was a half-carat tolerance. This country's manufacturers ask for no tolerance; we do not get it and my noble friend Lord Runciman will never let us have it.
The point of view of the retailer has been put comprehensively by my noble friend Lord Lucas. The display of any notice, which I gather is about to come into being, must stop any confusion there might possibly be. Figures basically are not pretty. Perhaps the most important aspect of this Amendment is the aesthetic one. Hallmarks are in themselves aesthetically pleasing, and the assay offices co-operate very readily to try to do their best to enhance any piece of jewellery or silverware which comes to them. If you are asked to add the figures "925" then you are going to find it very difficult to make anything pretty out of it. Finally, I think of the general long chain of disappointments which is going to start with the assay worker who is asked unwillingly to mark a piece of silver. It will continue with the craftsman who sees his own work defaced and then with the retailer who must explain to the customer why his purchases have been spoiled. This last disappointment will continue for many generations and will cause untold misery. If this addition goes into law, it will on past experience remain there for a very

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long time and it will mark 1973 as a very black year indeed for hallmarks. I believe this to be an unsightly, unnecessary and quite useless addition.
VISCOUNT LONG: I have wondered when we were going to stop for a breather and have an argument. At the rate that these Amendments were going we were all getting out of breath. I should like to say that my noble friend Lord Runciman has put a strong case for all the technical points. The main two points are, first, the confusion that may arise by the addition of these numbers stamped on silver which in any case will not make the silver any more valuable but will probably make it ugly. I do not think your Lordships really believe this to be a good idea. The second point is that with all the arguments of experience against all these Amendments, I should have thought it was going to cost a great deal more to have to put further stamps on the back of these metals. Therefore I do not think it is necessary. We have previously had our silver stamped with a crown and I think that that is quite adequate. I do not see any point in taking up more space on the back of a fork or knife with numerals.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Perhaps it might be desirable for me to suggest to your Lordships that there must be some reasons why these provisions appeared in the Bill in the first place and that the argument is not necessarily all on one side. For example, I noticed that my noble friend Lord May referred to the disadvantages to the sponsor, to the assay officer, to the appearance of the goods and to the retailer. But he said nothing about the consumer, the purchaser of the goods. These Amendments propose that whereas gold articles—it is necessary to make this case—are to be hallmarked with the standard mark consisting of a symbol and a figure showing the fineness of the metal in hallmarking terms, silver and platinum goods made and hallmarked in Britain should bear only a symbol and not the figure; in other words, in the case of gold the symbol is not in itself an indication of fineness since the crown will appear on all four of the finenesses in which articles of gold are normally made in this country (375, 585, 750, 916·6) but an indication that an article is made in
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the United Kingdom. This is what the symbol means.
The Amendment proposes that in the two grades of silver and one grade of platinum in which articles are made and hallmarked in the United Kingdom the sole indication of fineness should be a symbol. I accept that at the present time almost all silver articles made and hail-marked in the United Kingdom are of a fineness of 925, but it cannot be assumed that that will always be so or that platinum will always be made only of a fineness of 950. In legislation we have to think of the future as well as of the past and the present. Indeed, the object of this Bill is to bring the law up to date and make it as uniform as possible so far as hallmarking is concerned; retaining as much as possible of the good and getting rid of the unnecessary or the less good. Even if we were to accept that articles of silver and platinum would continue to be made wholly or predominantly of one standard of fineness in the United Kingdom, how many people in this country—outside the comparatively narrow circle of experts, collectors and connoisseurs—if asked what standard of fineness the lion or the Britannia symbol, or for that matter the orb and cross, represented would be able to give the right answer? Yet, as my noble friend Lord Runciman pointed out on Second Reading:
"Almost everyone these days owns, or wants to own, some article of gold or silver, however small—wedding rings, for example. In so doing, they want to be assured that it is gold and silver and not something different but that looks like it".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3/5/73; col. 236.]
In other words, we have to legislate to protect everyone, particularly the people who are purchasing small articles.
It may well be that people who have lived quite a long time will know what the lion passant denotes, but I venture to doubt whether the younger generation will necessarily know that, or whether, with the first article of silver they buy, they will look for the lion passant. But in buying they will want to be assured that the articles they buy are of the right quality. In the case of gold they want to be protected by the millesimal marking. If these Amendments are carried, all fineness would be indicated in one way for gold, whether the goods were home produced or

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imported; but in different ways for silver and platinum. The Bill provides for a millesimal system of marking for gold, silver and platinum articles alike, coupled in the case of the United Kingdom-made goods with a symbol indicating the type of metal.
There is no possibility of confusing the hallmarking of white gold, silver and platinum because all articles will bear an appropriate symbol as well as the millesimal mark: the crown for gold, the lion or Britannia for silver and the orb and cross for platinum, as well as a different shape of shield. But these Amendments would take away the millesimal markings for silver and platinum and leave only a symbol in the case of British-made goods, but not of imported goods. The shopper who wanted to buy a piece of silver would find that some of the articles in the shop quite properly described as silver were marked with a symbol and others with a millesimal mark, either alone or, where the country of origin had adopted the international convention devised by EFTA (it is not just an EFTA convention, it is an international convention devised by EFTA) with the addition of symbols. The shopper might well doubt whether they were of the same quality, though there surely must be an advantage for the consumer in a uniform system of marking. Indeed, there is an advantage for traders too, because it will mean that to a growing extent in the future hallmarking in one country will he accepted in another without any need for the goods to be assayed a second time in the importing country. I entirely agree that British hallmarks are respected throughout the world; but reciprocity in international arrangements is a fact of life, and in the future we may well find a growing tendency in countries to accept our hallmarking only if we accept theirs, and to accept only hallmarkings which include the millesimal indication of fineness.
On Second Reading I indicated that in the last three or four years the Government had been reviewing the Stone Committee's proposals and in that review had consulted many interested parties including the assay offices, the trade and similiar organisations. It was, of course, to project consumer interests that assay officers were established, as my noble friend Lord Runciman made clear on Second Reading. But that is not to say
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that assay offices and similar organisations take the same view as to the best means of protecting the interests of consumers. In fact, as I said on Second Reading, the consumer organisations consulted, almost without exception, were in favour of fineness being marked in figures. Since these consultations took place we have participated in preparing the International Convention which requires millesimal marking, and proposals have been made by the E.E.C. for the use of millesimal markings in order to facilitate trade in articles of precious metal. I am, of course, aware that there are countries in which a certain tolerance, while not allowed, seems to happen. We are all living in a time when consumer protection measures are being increased and there is a considerable demand for consumer protection; and we are likely to see in the future a greater degree of consumer protection in hallmarking as elsewhere. So I do not think that we need attach too much importance to the tolerance argument, even at the present time.
As for the argument about exports, noble Lords will have noted aready, that we have passed provisions (they can be found on page 21 of the Bill) which exempt from the hallmarking requirements any article intended for dispatch to a destination outside the United Kingdom. So, as I am advised, it would be quite competent for anyone who is importing hallmarked goods, anybody importing silver goods, not to have them marked at all or completely in accordance with our own requirements or with such marking as was required by the importer at the other end of the transaction. So in that case it would not be necessary, I am advised, for them to export goods bearing the millesimal mark if in fact the importer did not want the millesimal mark to be shown. Continuity of the past will be assured by retaining the lion passant or Britannia for pieces assayed in England. The need for better and more precise information for the consumer will be secured by showing the fineness in millesimal figures, not only for gold but also for silver and platinum.
The desirability of promoting uniformity, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sandys when introducing the Bill, for the purposes of international trade will be promoted by adopting millesimal markings for all three precious metals.

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The assay offices will lose nothing. They will keep their lions. They will be gaining a millesimal mark and so doing something which is wanted by such bodies aiming to help the consumer as the County Councils Association (I think my noble friend Lord Amory will find himself in a divided position in this, since the County Councils Association want it and the assay offices do not); the Institute of Weights and Measures Administration, now the Institute of Trading Standards, the Consumer Association or the Consumer Council as it then was. I may say that the members of the Institute of Trading Standards will bear the main burden of enforcing the provisions of this Bill all over the country in the interest of the consumers. They believe that millesimal marking will make things easier for the consumer and better for those who have to enforce the law in the interest of the consumer. The Stone Committee observed that if the law can be enforced easily the greatest deterrent to fraud has been achieved. It is for these reasons that the Government feel that the words as they are in the Bill at the moment should be retained and I hope that these reasons will commend themselves to the Committee.
LORD COTTESLOE: Notwithstanding the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, it appears to me, as an ignorant layman, that the weight of evidence is very strongly in favour of the Amendments and I shall certainly support them.
4.10 p.m.
LORD CACCIA: May I, too, as an ignorant layman, extend my thanks to the Minister for the careful way in which he has explained—and, as usual, with great courtesy—the reasons why the Government think that the Amendments should not be pursued. But the more I listened to the reasons given the less I was persuaded that we were not here faced with the situation described in another context last week by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock. The question is: is this really necessary? If that test is applied to this Amendment, I think it answers itself. The Bill as it stands tries to create a uniformity for the sake of uniformity and. as I understood it, for the sake of the future. We
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are answering a hypothetical question which I thought all Governments, on the whole, wish to avoid. It is not as if at the present time there is a problem about the fineness of silver in this country. Therefore we are trying to bring in some figures in order to protect a situation that has not arisen. Is that really necessary?
Then again, some foreign countries have these figures and others do not. The French and the Dutch, we are told, who have been in the silver trade I dare say for as long as we have, and have a great past and a great present in silver making, do not put on these figures. Therefore, what are we setting out to achieve? If a new situation arises, if the Government think it right in the end to adopt this EFTA international agreement, or something else arises, it would not be difficult, I should have thought, to introduce a short amendment to this Bill to bring about the situation which the Government wish to have now, as I think, on their own arguments, ahead of time. In sum, on the question whether this is really necessary, I am bound to say that I think the case falls, and I shall support the Amendment.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I have listened carefully to the arguments, I have read a great deal of the debate in another place and I have tried to enlighten myself over a period of years on this quite fascinating question of hallmarking. Yesterday, when I approached with an open mind an Amendment submitted by a noble Lord on the other side and announced that I supported it, this did not seem to find favour with my noble Leader; but as he is not here, I assume that on this occasion I can exercise an open mind on this Amendment. The Minister has carefully explained the reasons why the millesimal marking is proposed in the Bill, but I must say, as a consumer representative, that I think we should be overstating the case if we suggested that it would make it any easier for the average consumers to understand what they were buying. This is a very special trade, and until recently I did not know what a carat was. One simply knew that one asked for 9 or 18 carat and relied totally on the honesty of the seller—and this is a trade which has always seemed to me particularly honest in its dealings with customers.

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So I feel it is not a totally valid argument to say that the consumer will find buying easier by having this mark, particularly as we learn that this uniformity is not a real uniformity because certain tolerances are allowed in other countries.
LORD DRUMALBYN: When the goods from those countries arrive here they arrive un-hallmarked, as I am advised, and would have to be hallmarked. There is no possibility of any deception in this country from that source.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I thank the noble Lord. I understood the noble Lord, Lord Mais, to say that the figure had a different meaning in some countries from others. Perhaps I misunderstood him.
LORD MAIS: All I said was that the figures on articles of precious metal are not always to be believed.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: That is good enough for me. When I buy my next piece of precious metal—I have a feeling that it will be a long time coming—I shall certainly bear that in mind. I may say that it is rather nice to see some of the noble Lords who are concerned with this business: it is just as much a joy to see them as the metals they handle. So if this uniformity is of some doubtful value, perhaps we are not achieving exactly what we imagine by the marking of the millesimal figure. I understood in the course of the debate to-day and from reading the debate in the other place that this could be a mark of the manufacturer and not an assay mark. That seems to me to have some relevance in the case of the consumer. I would support the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, in that although the arguments put forward by the Minister are very convincing it does not appear to be totally necessary to add yet another mark to what in many cases will be very small articles which the average person will be purchasing. For those reasons, unless I hear something else that is more convincing, I shall support the Amendment.
VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD: I do not wish to detain your Lordships, but I should like to comment on one point which fell from the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. He said, with truth, that it was not necessary to hallmark
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foreign articles. But if the foreign purchaser says, "I want the articles hallmarked", and he adds, "but I do not want the millesimal figures", then he is not getting the articles hallmarked. That is a small point, but I think it could be important from the point of view of relations between the buyer and seller. The only other thing I should like to say is that whatever we do this afternoon we are doing "for now". One of the agreeable features of this Bill is that, unlike what has gone before, if it should be found that circumstances change in the future, there are provisions in the Bill for dealing with them. So, whatever we do, we are not committing ourselves for all time. However, I repeat that in the circumstances of the present day I am not convinced by the argument in the Amendment, and I shall ask your Lordships to express your opinion in the Division Lobby.
LORD ROBENS OF WOLDINGHAM: Would the noble Lord not agree that a hallmark on a precious metal, say, silver, is already an indication of the quality of that metal? That is part of the assay masters' test: to take their strengthenings and judge the quality of the metal. So in adding a number one is merely duplicating the information about the quality of the metal. Is it not more important, in the interests of the consumer, that the assay marks themselves should be well publicised, and when a piece of silver is sold for the first time there should be a little leaflet indicating what the assay marks mean? Because in the assay marks is contained the quality of the metal.
The other point I should like to ask the noble Lord about is whether he does not appreciate that when one is dealing with very small articles—rings, salt spoons and things of that kind—to add another assay mark is not the easiest of tasks? On small articles the hallmarks will be so small that no ordinary consumers buying in the shop will be able to make out what they are unless they have a powerful magnifying glass as used by opticians. Therefore is not this a case of duplication, adding to the labour and making the task of the consumer more confusing, when they have both a number and an assay mark to indicate the purity of the metal?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Perhaps I might reply to those remarks. The argument really is not that we are buying British silver. There will be foreign silver in the shops, and this is likely to increase in the future. There will be more and more interchange of goods of this kind. The consumer will then be comparing an imported article, which under this Bill will have to be marked with the millesimal marking. He will be comparing that with the hallmarking in Britain, if this Amendment is carried, which will not have the millesimal marking to compare it readily with the imported article. The noble Lord is perfectly right in saying that the lion passant is not really a mark of origin; it does denote the fineness, but my noble friend has made it clear that it has come to be regarded as the typical mark of English-made goods, and of course it will continue to be so. It is a fact that an additional hallmark would be required over and above what already exists in order to show the millesimal marking on British goods. But, equally, on imported goods from EFTA an additional marking will have to be put on to show that they come from EFTA; so there will be the additional mark there also.
I fully understand the position regarding small articles, believe me, but I am informed that there is already a very good pamphlet available. In addition the Bill requires in Clause 10 that there should be a notice showing the meaning of hallmarks. This argument, if you like, is one that cuts both ways, because it will be possible for the buyer to refer to the notice and see that tile lion does not denote "925", and compare that with the 925 marking. But it would leave in the consumer's mind a feeling of "Am I really quite sure about this?" It seems to me that the millesimal marking will give absolute certainty as between one article and another. There will be no dubiety about it at all. This is why I would urge that the House accepts the Bill as it now is.
LORD ROBENS OF WOLDINGHAM: Before the noble Lord resumes his seat, may I ask him whether he is not taking rather too lightly this question of the export market? He indicated, and it is perfectly true, that the Bill does not provide for the number to be stamped on
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anything going for export, because the noble Lord knows that a vast amount of silver is exported from this country, not as new but as secondhand; and it may well be that secondhand exports are far greater in total quantity than newly made silverware. When this rosebowl, or whatever it may be, is in a foreign land—perhaps in the Middle East, China, Singapore or Hong Kong, where a great number of silver transactions take place —the individuals concerned do not necessarily speak English. They look at a hallmarked piece of English silver and see four assay marks on it. To them, for over a century, that has been a guarantee that it is good English sterling silver. Now they will receive some pieces of silver that have five marks on them. My guess is that they will tend to put such pieces on one side until such time as they can be assured that these are not inferior to the pieces of silver they have handled for generations which have had four hallmarks on them and which they have accepted as a guarantee. I wonder whether the noble Lord would agree, as has already been suggested, that if it proved necessary in due course the fifth mark could be added. This really would be a better way of dealing with this matter, so that we could let those who are engaged in the silver trade, and particularly with exports, be content that they have not now to teach a very large number of traders throughout the world that in future there will be five hallmarks and not four. This would be a very difficult lesson to teach and it could in fact affect the hallmarking of English silver.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I would not myself have thought there would be a great deal of difficulty about this because buyers on the whole, particularly if they are not connoisseurs, will have regard to what they are told by the person selling the goods to them—the jeweller, or whoever it may be. It would not be a difficult matter for exporters to inform all their customers that as from January 1, 1975, a fifth hallmark is to be included on any goods made for the British market, and if such goods go abroad that is the explanation for the appearance of the fifth mark.
I have considered this point very carefully and I have seen a good many of the goods concerned: reproduction goods,

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new articles and the like. It seems to me that although this is quite a valid argument, it is also an argument that cannot be pressed too far. It is one that has to be balanced with the other argument—and the primary argument for us—of the protection of the consumer in this country.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (VISCOUNT HOOD): The Question is that Amendment No. 25, to leave out "and the figures 925." be agreed to. As many of that opinion will say "Content". To the contrary "Not-Content". I think the "Contents" have it. Clear the Bar.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN or COMMITTEES: Tellers for the Not-Contents have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 51. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the "Contents" have it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD: On behalf of my noble friends I should like to move Amendment No. 26. This follows the Amendment we have just considered. I should like to link it with Amendment No. 27, as it reads with the previous two. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 25, line 15, column 3, leave out ("and the figures 958.").
Page 25, line 18, column 3, leave out ("and the figures 950.").—(Viscount Runciman of Doxford.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Once again this is a purely drafting Amendment to formulate a more satisfactory lead-in for the subparagraph in paragraph 4 of the Schedule. I beg to move Amendment No. 28.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 25, leave out from beginning to end of line 29 and insert—
("4. An article comprised of two or more precious metals shall be hallmarked only if:

(a) it is of a description specified in one or other of the following sub-paragraphs; and

(b) it complies with paragraph 5 of this Schedule.

and shall be hallmarked only in the manner specified for an article of that description;") —(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendments Nos. 29, 30, 31 and 32 are all essentially drafting Amendments to integrate the later part of sub-paragraph (c) to the reference on page 25 in line 39 to the same standard of fineness which at present is not reflected in the later parts of this paragraph. Logically all the Amendments are needed and relate to each other. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 29 to 32.
Amendments moved—
Page 25, line 41, after ("of a") insert ("higher standard of fineness or of a").
Page 25, line 42, after ("of the") insert ("higher standard of fineness or (as the case may be) of the").
Page 25, line 44, after ("of the") insert ("lower standard of fineness or of the").
Page 25, line 45, leave out ("that metal") and insert ("the metal of which those parts are comprised.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This Amendment is a purely drafting Amendment to provide a more easily readable lead-in to paragraph 6. I beg to move Amendment No. 33.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 24, leave out from beginning to end of line 27 and insert—
("(6) An article comprised of precious metal and one or more other materials (in this paragraph referred to as "other materials") shall be hallmarked as if the precious metal were comprised in a separate article if, but only if, it complies with one or other of the following sub-paragraphs—").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendments Nos. 34 and 35:
Page 26, line 30, at end insert ("by regulations made by the Council (or, in relation to any single article, approved by the Council)—").
Page 26, leave out lines 40 to 46.
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee I should like to suggest that we take Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 together. It has been agreed that the regulations governing the use of base metals in the manufacture of an article of otherwise precious metal should be made solely by the Council and the Secretary of State should abandon the regulation controlling the powers of the Hallmarking Council for which provision is made in the earlier versions of the Bill; that is, the Bill as originally introduced

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in another place. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 34 and 35.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 [Alterations to hallmarked articles]:
4.36 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 36:
Leave out Clause 5 and insert the following new clause:
Alterations to hallmarked articles

("4A.—(1) Subject to subsections (3) to (5) below, it shall be an offence for any person to make an addition, alteration or repair to an article bearing approved hallmarks, except in accordance with the written consent of an assay office.

(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, it shall be an offence for any person to remove, alter or deface any mark struck on an article, except in accordance with the written consent of an assay office.

For the purposes of this subsection "mark" means a sponsor's mark, any approved hallmark, the word "filled", the word "metal" or any other word for the time being prescribed by or under section 4 of, or Schedule 2 to, this Act.

(3) It shall not be an offence under subsection (1) or (2) above to batter an article so as to render it fit only for remanufacture.

(4) It shall not be an offence under subsection (1) above to make an addition to an article which is not a new ware if the character of the article, and the purposes for which it can be used, remain unaltered and—

(a) the addition is of the same precious metal as that of the article;

(b) the metal added to the article is of a fineness not less than that of the metal of which the article was made; and

(c) the amount of metal added does not exceed the lesser of—

(i) I gram of gold, 5 grams of silver or 0·5 grams of platinum, as the case may be; and

(ii) 50 per cent. of the weight of the article immediately before the addition was made.

(5) It shall not be an offence under subsection (1) above to add a coating, of a thickness not exceeding 2 micrometres at any point, to the whole or any part of—

(a) an article of gold, if the coating is of gold of a fineness not less than the standard of fineness of the article; or

(b) an article of silver, if the coating is of silver of a fineness not less than the standard of fineness of the article; or

(c) an article of silver, if the coating is of of gold or not less than the minimum fineness: or

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(d) an article of gold, silver or platinum, if the coating is of rhodium.

(6) In giving any consent for the purposes of subsection (1) or (2) above an assay office may make it a condition of the consent that the article concerned, or any addition made to it, be further assayed and struck with—

(a) the sponsor's mark; and

(b) such of the approved hallmarks as may be specified in directions issued by the Council for the purposes of this subsection or, in the absence of any such directions, such of the approved hallmarks as may be determined by the assay office.

(7) If—

(a) an application for consent under subsection (1) or (2) above has been refused by an assay office; and

(b) the applicant has referred the matter to the Council, in writing;

the Council shall consider the case and, if they are of the opinion that the assay office were acting unreasonably in withholding the consent applied for, they shall direct the assay office to grant the consent.

(8) Without prejudice to subsection (6) above, it shall be the duty of an assay office to whom a direction has been given under subsection (7) above to comply with the direction."

The noble Lord said: At this point we start a re-numbered Amendment and it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I take this rather more slowly. In this case the complete clause has been redrafted and set out in Amendment No. 36 as laid to-day. In yesterday's Marshalled List it appeared as Amendment No. 37. The clause reproduces in a more precise form what is substantially the existing law, and is intended to safeguard the integrity of hallmarks struck by assay offices against illegal alterations and additions made to articles which have been hallmarked. Unless the alteration is by way of an addition of precious metal in a small amount, as in the case of the repair of an article, the consent of an assay office to any alteration is required, and it is an offence to make such alterations without consent. These safeguards have been found to be essential and the criminal penalty to be fully justified if the very real risks of illegal interpretation and deception of the public are to be avoided.
The structure of the clause has been re-arranged. Subsection (1) makes it an offence for any alteration to be made to an article bearing approved hallmarks unless the written consent of the assay office is first obtained. Subsection (2) would make it an offence to remove, alter

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or deface any sponsor's mark, approved hallmark, or the words "filled" and "metal" when prescribed under Schedule 2 to the Bill; namely, to warn a purchaser that an article is filled or it has been partly made of a base metal.
Subsection (3) makes an exception of the battering of an article for remanufacturing purposes, which is an obvious exception. Subsection (4) affords certain further exemptions of what may be described as miniscule additions of the same precious metal so that the article which has been altered has been varied to only a small extent. Subsection (5) allows a coating of an article after hallmarking but only to a properly prescribed thickness of 2 micrometres. On Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, inquired about the substance "rolled gold". Perhaps I may give a layman's description of "rolled gold". It is a base metal with a coating applied. That is a rough description, but it will suffice in this case. This clause refers to a point which the noble Baroness very properly raised on Second Reading.
I should refer to the expression "micrometres" as it is new. Formerly in hallmarking we referred to microns; now "micrometres" is the "in" word. The two are precisely identical so far as measurement is concerned, but for the sake of a degree of uniformity this change has been thought to be desirable.
Subsection (6) entitles an assay office to insist on the re-assay and hallmarking of an article when their consent to a proposed alteration to an article is sought. Subsection (7) gives a right of appeal to an agreed applicant for consent to the Council—that is, the Hallmarking Council—and subsection (8) requires an assay office to abide by the Council's decision on appeal. I beg to move.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am not going to impede the passage of this Amendment in any way, but, despite the noble Lord's explanations, which are very interesting, it seems that this new clause is only a rearrangement of the various subsections. I cannot even see any great difference in the penalties or the additions or the the descriptions in relation to rolled gold and so on. It is very satisfactory to have the provisions rearranged, but does it really serve any useful purpose? I have looked at it quite carefully and I cannot
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see any great difference. Perhaps the noble Lord could point out just one of the substantial differences.
LORD SANDYS: Parliamentary draftsmanship is an esoteric subject; it is a very esoteric subject in this particular case where we have a subject which is so technical that many of us find it extremely difficult to follow. I agree with what the noble Baroness has said in almost all respects. The draftsmanship is one of style rather than of substance, and here Parliamentary Counsel have advised that this form for the clause would be more readable and acceptable. This is the only explanation I can give to the noble Baroness.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I would not dare, of course, to question Parliamentary draftsmen, but at one stage I taught English grammar and I thought it was always preferable to say "it shall be" to "it shall not be". Now they seem to have moved into the negative, do they not? However, I would not dream of impeding.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6 [Counterfeiting, etc. of dies and marks]:
4.42 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 8, line 34, after ("die") insert ("or any article bearing a counterfeit of a mark").
The noble Lord said: Once again, two Amendments, Nos. 37 and 38, are linked and I should like to deal with them together. These two Amendments constitute a substantial extension of the present scope of the clause but not of the law. I would emphasise that: the law is not being altered, but the substance of the clause is. The penalty provisions for forgery of hallmarks under this clause, indicated at the foot of page 8 of the Bill, are on indictment—and I stress that in excess of the penalty provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, applied with regard to other offences under the Bill by Clause 8. The penalty provisions of the Act are now proposed to be incorporated in the new Schedule 2A. In paragraph 1 of that new Schedule it will be seen that on summary conviction a fine not exceeding £400 is the maximum penalty, and on conviction on indictment

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a fine without limit or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both, are prescribed. The imprisonments prescribed at the foot of page 8 for forgery are much in excess of those general limits. I think it has concerned the assay offices that under Clause 6(1)(c) it is an offence for any person to utter or counterfeit a die, supply or offer to supply a die, when knowing it, or believing it, to be a counterfeit.
I think it would be for the satisfaction of the Committee to know that the expression "utter" is defined in the Bill; it is set out there. It is an unusual word in this context, but it has a very particular meaning. And the word "die" is further explained and described very accurately further on in the Bill. The offences mentioned in this clause are now brought more into line with the law between England and Scotland, and it is of considerable importance that these offences should be set out in this manner. This follows the existing law and the effect of the Bill as originally presented in the House of Commons some months ago. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It may be of interest to noble Lords if I say that I support this Amendment. It carries further forward the possibility of bringing to book people who counterfeit; it makes it easier to do so. It does that because it extends the penalty for making a counterfeit of any die or mark to any article bearing a counterfeit of a mark. So it is not only the die itself but the articles on which the die is imprinted that will attract the penalties. I think this is right, and I support it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 38.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, leave out from ("die") in line 9 to end of line 10 and insert ("or article bearing a counterfeit of a mark if knowing or believing the die or mark, as the case may be, to be a counterfeit, he supplies, offers to supply, or delivers the die or article.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Treatment by assay offices of unauthorised marks]:
LORD SANDYS: I fear we are suffering from a particularly difficult problem in that all the Amendment numbers have been revised to-day, and what was set out yesterday as Amendment No. 40 is Amendment No. 39 to-day. It is a small point but nearly always makes procedure somewhat difficult. Amendment No. 39 is purely drafting, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 29, leave out ("an authorised manner") and insert ("a manner authorised under subsection (3) of this section").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: With permission I feel I should speak to Amendment No. 40. This is a further drafting Amendment, but the expression "ancient mark" now being defined in subsection (7) is a mark struck before December 22, 1854. This was the stopping point considered in an earlier Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 32, leave out ("a hallmark") and insert ("an ancient mark").—(Lord Sandys.)
VISCOUNT AMORY: I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Sandys would tell us a little about the technique of cancelling? From the context, I take it that cancelling is quite different from defacing.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Before the noble Lord replies to that question, may I say that I am not quite clear why an ancient mark is not a hallmark, because from the consumer angle we have spoken all the time about the "hallmark". I am not quite clear why now we do not refer to a hallmark, because of the date, but we refer to "an ancient mark". Is it not an ancient hallmark?
LORD SANDYS: The noble Baroness is taxing me with an excellent point and it is one which I think bemuses those concerned with the production of this measure. Ancient marks, in certain cases, were marks struck by the assay offices with the agreement of the sponsors. There are historically cases where more than four marks were struck: in the period when the Plate Duty Act war in

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operation five marks were struck, so when this agreed date was reached the expression "ancient mark" was used. I hope the noble Baroness will accept this explanation. It is not entirely satisfactory, but I think for most purposes we can take it that "ancient mark" means "hallmark". But it is a fairly nebulous field and I should like to take advice from my colleagues before giving a further rendering of it.
VISCOUNT AMORY: Can my noble friend say something about the technique of cancelling? I take it that it does not mean the complete removal of the mark?
LORD SANDYS: I regret that I am not able to supply my noble friend Lord Amory with a satisfactory answer to his question. I have not on any occasion at the various offices seen this technique physically carried out on an article. I take it that he is referring to the physical act of the removal of a mark of some description.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I do not know whether I may be of help—and I hope I am right about this. I asked about this and I was told that cancellation could be done by putting on a cross above the hallmark, so as to avoid obliterating it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Once again this is a purely drafting Amendment, consequential on the earlier inclusion in the Bill of the definition of the expression "improper alteration". I beg to move Amendment No. 41.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 36, leave out ("but").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This Amendment is also drafting. I beg to move Amendment No. 42.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 38, leave out from ("of") to ("or") in line 40 and insert ("an improper alteration").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
4.55 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 43:
After Clause 7 insert the following new clause:
Offences
7A. The provisions of Schedule (Provisions as to offences) to this Act shall have effect in relation to offences under this Act."
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 are linked together. Amendment No. 43 inserts a new clause after Clause 7 and will be Clause 7A. This Amendment aims to reproduce Sections 18, 19, 20, 23 and 25 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. The measure now before your Lordships owes a great debt to this particular Act, and indeed to its successor Act in 1972, in enabling this question of definition and consumer protection to be better placed. It has been thought that it would assist the reader if these provisions were set out in a Schedule rather than incorporated by reference to the Act of 1968. Legislation by reference is always difficult. If the section of the Act is incorporated in the Bill it is so obviously an advantage to the reader. I do not think I need enlarge on that. Provision is made in paragraph 6 of new Schedule 2A, which we shall come to in a moment, reflecting the defence of mistake, accident, et cetera, afforded under Section 24 of the Act of 1968 but in a much more limited form. These two Amendments are linked indissolubly in this respect. This matter has been the subject of considerable discussion with the Department of Trade and Industry and with Parliamentary Counsel, who are responsible for the redraft as a whole. It is to them that we can look, and we also thank them for the very sensible suggestion which has been put forward. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT AMORY: It strikes me that this is the sort of Amendment where it might be helpful to have just one word from my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn —if he feels like helping us—just to say whether this seems to be satisfactory in every way from the point of view of the Department.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, willingly. The Government support this. There is one small point to which my noble friend did not refer. The duty to enforce the

719
provisions of the Bill is laid by this Amendment on the weights and measures authorities. Power to enforce the provisions of this Bill is also conferred on the Council but not a similar duty to enforce the Bill. That is obviously right. It is very much part of their functions but not part of their duties to enforce the provisions of the Bill and the Council and the assay offices are not now given a duty to do so under the Bill but are given the power to do so. That is the right way to do it and fits in very well with the Trade Descriptions Act.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: There is one small point that I should like to raise. Perhaps I have misread this and again the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, can put me right. The new Schedule 2A says:
"A person guilty of an offence under this Act for which no other penalty is specified shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £400; and

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both."

But in Clause 6 we refer to:
"…conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years."
That appears to refer to any part of the Bill. There seems to me to be a slight conflict there.
LORD SANDYS: Once again I do not think that I should give a categorical answer without advice of Parliamentary Counsel because the noble Baroness has referred to the Bill as a whole, and without going through it clause by clause it would be misleading to your Lordships if I said anything further. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that at this stage.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Yes.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 44 was linked with the earlier Amendment. I do not think I should speak further to this Amendment unless there is some specific matter that your Lordships may feel I should refer to. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Schedule 2 insert the following new Schedule—

SCHEDULE 2A PROVISIONS AS TO OFFENCES
Penalty for offences
1. A person guilty of an offence under this Act for which no other penalty is specified shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £400; and

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.

Time limit for prosecutions
2.—(1) No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be commenced after the expiration of three years from the commission of the offence or one year from its discovery by the prosecutor which ever is the earlier.
(2) Notwithstanding anything in section 104 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952, a magistrates' court may try an information for an offence under this Act if the information was laid at any time within twelve months from the commission of the offence.
(3) Notwithstanding anything in section 23 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 (limitation of time for proceedings in statutory offences) summary proceedings in Scotland for an offence under this Act may be commenced at any time within twelve months from the time when the offence was committed, and subsection (2) of the said section 23 shall apply for the purposes of this sub-paragraph as it applies for the purposes of that section.
(4) Sub-paragraph (2) above shall apply to Northern Ireland as if for the references to section 104 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 and the trial and laying of an information there were substituted respectively references to section 34 of the Magistrates' Courts Act (Northern Ireland) 1964 and the hearing and determination and making of a complaint.
(5) Sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) above do not apply where—

(a) the offence was one under section 1(1)(a) of this Act and was committed by the making of an oral statement; or

(b) the offence was one under section 1(1)(b) of this Act and—

(i) the description was applied by an oral statement; or

(ii) the description is deemed to have been applied to the article concerned by virtue of subsection (7)(b) of the said section 1 and the article was supplied in pursuance of an oral request.

Offences by corporations
3.—(1) Where an offence under this Act which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent and connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable

721
to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(2) In this paragraph "director" in relation to any body corporate established by or under any enactment for the purpose of carrying on under national ownership any industry or part of an industry or undertaking, being a body corporate whose affairs are managed by the members thereof, means a member of that body corporate.
Offences due to fault of other person
4. Where the commission by any person of an offence under this Act is due to the act or default of some other person that other person shall be guilty of the offence, and a person may be charged with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this paragraph whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person.
Innocent publication of advertisement
5. In proceedings for an offence under this Act committed by the publication of an advertisement it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that he is a person whose business it is to publish or arrange for the publication of advertisements and that he received the advertisement for publication in the ordinary course of business and did not know and had no reason to suspect that its publication would amount to an offence under this Act.
Defence in proceedings under section 1

6. In any proceedings for an offence under section 1 of this Act, it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that—

(a) in reliance on information supplied by another person, he believed that the article concerned was one which was exempt from hallmarking by virtue of Part II of Schedule 1 to this Act; and

(b) that he could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained that it was not such an article.").—(Lord Sandys.)

On Question. Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8 [Application of certain provisions of Trade Descriptions Act 1968]:
5.2 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 45:
Leave out Clause 8 and insert the following new clause:
Enforcement of Act
".—(1) It shall be the duty of every local weights and measures authority to enforce the provisions of this Act within their area; and section 26 of the Act of 1968 (enforcing authorities) shall apply in relation to the enforcement of this Act, by such an authority, as it applies in relation to the enforcement of that Act.
(2) The Council and the assay offices may also enforce the provisions of this Act.
(3) Subject to subsection (7) below, the following provisions of the Act of 1968 shall
722
apply in relation to the enforcement of this Act as they apply in relation to the enforcement of the Act of 1968, that is to say—

section 27 (power to make test purchases);

section 28 (power to enter premises and inspect and seize goods and documents);

section 29 (obstruction of authorised officers);

section 30 (notice of test and intended prosecution);

section 31 (evidence by certificate); and

section 33 (compensation for loss, etc. of goods seized).

(4) Any reference, in the provisions of the Act of 1968 mentioned in subsection (3) above (other than those of subsections (2) to (4) of the said section 30), to a local weights and measures authority and a duly authorised officer of such an authority shall be construed, in relation to the enforcement of this Act, as including respectively a reference to the Council and an assay office and a duly authorised officer of the Council and of an assay office.
(5) Nothing in this section shall be taken as authorising the Council or an assay office to institute proceedings in Scotland for an offence.
(6) Subsection (1) above shall not apply in relation to the enforcement of this Act in Northern Ireland but, in addition to the power given by subsection (2) above, it shall be the duty of the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland to enforce this Act in Northern Ireland.
(7) For the purposes of the enforcement of this Act in Northern Ireland by the said Ministry, sections 27 to 29 and 33 of the Act of 1968 shall apply as if for references to a local weights and measures authority and any officer of such an authority there were substituted respectively references to the Ministry and any of its officers."
The noble Lord said: We come to Clause 8 of the Bill, and once again a complete clause has been removed from the Bill, redrafted by Parliamentary counsel and replaced within its context. There are a number of alterations, and I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I go through them.
The proposed new Clause 8 constitutes a reproduction of that part of the present clause, which incorporates Sections 26 to 33 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. The new clause provides for the enforcement of the Bill by the local weights and measures authorities and by the British Hallmarking Council and the assay offices. Subsection (1) reflects the duty laid on the weights and measures authorities by Section 26 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, as regards the enforcement of that Act. Subsection (2) enables the Council—that is, the Hallmarking Council—and assay offices also to act as enforcing authorities. This

723
is an interesting point. Previously assay offices have brought actions against those who in the view of assay offices have contravened the law. As prosecutions in this country are nearly always personal prosecutions, the name of the assay office is normally omitted and the name of the person bringing the prosecution is that which relates to the case. A few years ago there was the very interesting case of Westwood v. Cann and this clause would enable that procedure of prosecution to continue. It is an important point, but I do not think I need dwell on it further.
Subsection (5) applies to the Council and any assay office the same restriction as is imposed by Section 26(5) of the Act of 1968 on local weights and immures authorities. It is a principle of the criminal law in Scotland that no criminal proceedings may be instituted otherwise than by the Lord Advocate, and it is necessary to apply to him before proceedings can be commenced. Subsection (6) provides, in effect, that local weights and measures authorities shall not have power to enforce the provisions of the Bill in Northern Ireland; but instead, the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland shall be the principal enforcing authority although the Council and the assay offices can also act in the enforcement of the Bill in Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I perhaps say a word here, because the renumbering of the Amendments to-day has put us in a slight difficulty. This Amendment provides for the leaving out of Clause 8 of offences due to the fault of other persons. Perhaps I may take the opportunity to say here that the provisions in the long Amendment we have just passed follow the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 model, apart from the rather limited third party defences. But the basic offence, that of using the description "gold, silver, or platinum", in relation to unhallmarked articles, is one which any trader could easily avoid by the exercise of only moderate care, and therefore he needs no defence against it. Where it can be shown that an offence that has occurred was due to the act or default of another person, that other person can be proceeded against by virtue of paragraph 4 of the Amendment we have just passed.
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The style of defences provided by the Weights and Measures Act 1963 is not appropriate to this Bill since it is unsuited to proceedings taken on indictment, a possibility for which this Bill rightly provides. I hope that answers my noble friend's point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clauses 9 to 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [The British Hallmarking Council]:
LORD SANDYS: Once again these Amendments, Nos. 46 and 47, are linked in drafting, and I suggest to your Lordships that we take them together. They are purely drafting Amendments. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 46 and 47.
Amendments moved—
Page 12, line 21. after ("shall") insert ("in addition to the functions specifically conferred on them by or under any other provisions of this Act").
Page 12, line 33, leave out ("metals") and insert ("metal").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 12, line 40, leave out paragraph (d).
The noble Lord said: This Amendment, for the deletion of paragraph (d) of subsection (2), is also a drafting Amendment consequential on the fuller treatment given by the Amendment inserting the new Clause 4(4) and the new Clause 4A(7) regarding the determination by the Hallmarking Council of appeals made to them against decisions of assay offices refusing to hallmark an article or, as the case may be, to give consent to an alteration proposed to be made to a hallmarked article. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 3 [The British Hallmarking Council]:
5.10 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 27, line 30. leave out from beginning to end of line 12 on page 28 and insert—
2.—(1) Ten of the members of the Council shall be appointed by the Secretary of State. (2) Three of the members appointed by the Secretary of State shall be persons appearing

725
to him to be suitably qualified by virtue of their knowledge of, and experience in, organisations established, or activities carried on, for the protection of the consumer.
(3) Four of the members appointed by the Secretary of State, but not more than four, shall be persons appearing to him to be suitably qualified by virtue of their engagement wholly or mainly in trading in, or manufacture of, articles of precious metal.
(4) Before making any appointment under sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph the Secretary of State shall consult the assay offices and such bodies representing persons engaged wholly or mainly in trading in, or manufacture of, articles of precious metal as he thinks appropriate.
3.—(1) Six of the members of the Council shall be appointed by the assay offices as follows, that is to say—

(a) two of those members shall be appointed by the London Assay Office;

(b) one of those members shall be appointed by the Edinburgh Assay Office;

(c) two of those members shall be appointed by the Birmingham Assay Office; and

(d) one of those members shall be appointed by the Sheffield Assay Office.

(2) Any person appointed under this paragraph shall be a person appearing to the assay office appointing him to be suitably qualified by virtue of his knowledge and experience of hallmarking.
(3) A person engaged wholly or mainly in trading in, or in articles manufactured of, precious metal shall not be appointed under this paragraph."
The noble Lord said: I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if at this stage I went into some detail about the British Hallmarking Council. First of all, I should like to express the warm appreciation of those concerned in negotiations with my noble friend, Lord Drumalbyn, for the time and trouble he took to examine our case and to reach a solution satisfactory to the parties concerned. This matter has been a particularly difficult one to resolve. We are concerned with the right to appoint representatives, and the Amendment as set down is to alter the constitution of the Council so that the assay offices have restored to them the right to appoint which they had in the original Bill introduced in the House of Commons. There is, of course, a modification in the numbers of representatives. Nevertheless, the structure of the Hallmarking Council, as revised, is thought to be a satisfactory solution to a very difficult matter of checks and balances.
My noble friend, Lord Drumalbyn, will recollect that during our visit to Goldsmiths' Hall only a few days ago we entered a room in which very careful micro-balancing was carried out in deciding upon articles to be hallmarked. Here the checks and balances between the number of representatives of the trade, those appointed by the Minister to represent the consumers on the Hallmarking Council, and those to represent the assay offices, are somewhat similar to those by which we saw articles being judged in Goldsmiths' Hall. The conclusion which I think one can reach is satisfactory, to the extent that the assay offices will continue to exert a degree of influence upon the Hallmarking Council, in keeping with their very long existence for establishing the probity of hallmarking of articles in this country. I should like to point out that under the Schedule the assay offices are meeting all expenses; not a penny has to be spent from revenue funds from the Treasury on the management or functioning of the Hallmarking Council—not a penny of taxpayers' money. This in itself is a small justification but a definite justification for having a right of representation by the assay offices on the new body to be established. This first Amendment of a series, Amendment No. 49, is straightforward and foreshadows a group of further Amendments. Having expressed our warm appreciation to my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn and his colleagues in the Ministry, I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is perhaps a matter on which I should say a word, because it is one of the two subjects which appeared to be likely to give rise to some dissension at this stage of the Bill. I said on the Second Reading that the Government attached importance to the appointments to the Council being made by the Secretary of State, apart from the two additional members which the Council, once it is established, may co-opt. The reason for that importance was that the Government felt that the Council should be shown to be an independent body, not only in this country but in dealing with other countries, who very often have hallmarking bodies as official bodies—that is, State bodies. It was never our intention that the Secretary of State should simply appoint whom he thought fit, irrespective of the wishes of

727
the assay offices. Of course, as the Bill now stands, it provides for recommendations to be received from the assay offices. We took it for granted that unless there were some very exceptional case those recommendations would be accepted, and those would be the people who would be appointed by the Secretary of State. That did not satisfy my noble friend, and the consequence is that this Amendment has been put down after discussion. It provides for the assay offices to appoint their own members.
The majority of the Council will be appointed by the Secretary of State. The assay offices will appoint six, and the Council will be able to co-opt two more. Of the ten members of the Council to be appointed by the Secretary of State, three will be:
"persons appearing to him to be suitably qualified by virtue of their knowledge of, and experience in, organisations established, or activities carried on, for the protection of the consumer".
Four of the members from the trade will be:
"persons appearing to him to be suitably qualified by virtue of their engagement wholly or mainly in trading in, or manufacture of, articles of precious metal".
The remaining three will be persons representing the general public in one way or another, people who can make a special contribution to the Council without actually having the qualifications laid down in the other sub-paragraphs.
I believe, with my noble friend, that this compromise is a satisfactory one to all parties, and I have every confidence that it will work. I might be accused of being ungracious if I were to say that we on our side do not think it makes all that difference, because the result would be very much the same, but I understand and sympathise with the attitude of the assay offices.
VISCOUNT AMORY: At the time of the Second Reading debate some of us were not at all happy about the proposals in the Bill for appointing the Council. It seemed to us that the Secretary of State was proposing to keep an unnecessary degree of control in his own hands. Therefore we are very grateful indeed to my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn for having taken the trouble to see whether he could meet the wishes
728
of the assay offices; and this very satisfactory compromise is the happy outcome.
VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD: As one who had something to say on this matter on Second Reading, I should like to thank both my noble friends Lord Drumalbyn and Lord Sandys for working out this present arrangement with which I, for one, am perfectly satisfied.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I, too, am delighted that the trade has also been recognised, because that is only sensible. But I want to ask the Minister whether the words,
"Three of the members appointed by the Secretary of State shall be persons appearing to him to be suitably qualified by virtue of their knowledge of, and experience in, organisations established"
and so on, will exclude a consumer organisation set up by the Government, because there are now remarkably few in number which are ad hoc bodies.
LORD DRUMALBYN: No; the words are certainly not intended to do that. It is not intended that officials should serve, but if they are persons serving on an advisory committee, or something of that kind, I think they would be activities "carried on for the protection of the consumer".
LORD MAY: I also am very grateful to see that this Amendment makes some allowance for members of the trade. But I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, whether he will consider defining a little more precisely how the trade four will be made up, because there are regional considerations to be taken into account, apart from all the various break-ups in different parts of the trade, such as retailing, manufacturing and so on. Can the noble Lord give some guarantee to areas and branches of the trade, which would be of great use to many of us?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I take note of what my noble friend has said, but it is difficult to accommodate the various regions, interests and the like when there are only four members to be appointed. That is one reason why there is provision for consultation, and paragraph 4 states:
"…the Secretary of State shall consult the assay offices and such bodies representing persons engaged wholly or mainly in trading in,

729
or manufacture of, articles of precious metal as he thinks appropriate."
I hope my noble friend will accept that the assay offices know a great deal about this subject, and may know a great deal more than the Secretary of State. The appointments are left in the hands of the Secretary of State, but I am sure that the consultations will be as wide as possible. I do not think that it will be possible to lay down more precise details as to how those four will be divided between the various sections of the trade. I am quite prepared to' have another look at this point between now and Report stage, and if my noble friend has certain views to express I shall be very glad to hear them.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: In supporting my noble friend in this Amendment I should make my position reasonably clear, particularly in the light of the assurance which my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn has given. My support for this Amendment is on the understanding that it is something of a compromise solution, because I thought I made it fairly clear on Second Reading that the retail side of the industry was deserving of firm representation, particularly in view of the fact that although the assay offices contribute the monies towards the operation of the Council, it is, in the first place, the first consumer, the retailer, who will buy the goods from the manufacturer after they have been assayed, and the retailer will thereby contribute towards the Council; as, indeed, the ultimate consumer will support the three members who are concerned with consumers' interests.
The trade is somewhat fragmented. One can quickly think of four rather distinct groups—the bullion dealers, the manufacturers, the exporters and the auctioneers—apart from the retailers, and, while appreciating the difficulty of adequate representation on such a small Council, I would ask my noble friend on the Front Bench to implement the assurance that he has given, by seeing that these various interests can be reasonably sure of being represented in the four places allotted to them on the Council, as proposed in the Amendment which I support.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My noble friend Lord Drumalbyn was wise not to give too impetuous a reply to this very difficult
730
question of the selection of the representatives. I remember once, when I was a Minister, very glibly answering a question about whether there would be four representatives. I said that of course one would be a Scot, one would be a Welshman, one would be a trade unionist and one would be a woman, and I had a little insufficient room for the wider representation that was required.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendments Nos. 50, 52 and 53 are all linked and consequential upon No. 49. I do not want to make a long speech, particularly as time is getting on and business is awaiting discussion. The first Amendment, under which the Secretary of State will not now be appointing all the members of the Council, paves the way for the further Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 28, line 13, leave out ("by the Secretary of State").
Page 28, line 34, leave out ("or elected").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 53 is consequential on the earlier Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 39, leave out from beginning to end of line 46 and insert—
("9.—(1) The Council shall elect a person to serve as chairman from among the members of the Council and notice of his election shall, as soon as is reasonably practicable, be given in writing to the Secretary of State by the the secretary or other person for the time being authorised by the Council in that behalf.").—(Lord Sandys.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: This Amendment is intended to give the Council greater autonomy in its selection of a chairman, and instead of the appointment of a chairman needing to be approved by the Secretary of State, the appointment merely needs to be notified to the Secretary of State. I hope that this Amendment will commend itself to the Committee.
LORD SANDYS: Once again, on this important matter my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn has shown both the diplomacy and tact with which we always associate him. It is a matter of very great importance that a newly appointed

731
Council should have discretion in this area of appointing its own chairman, and I am quite certain that the decision taken by Her Majesty's Government is the right one.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: An excellent practice which we hope we shall see creeping in to other boards—very democratic.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 54 is purely drafting, linked with Amendment No. 56. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 4, at end insert—
("(3) If any member appointed by an assay office is elected as chairman of the Council, paragraph 8(2) of this Schedule shall have effect as if that member had ceased to hold office otherwise than by retirement.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This is a purely drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Page 29, line 32, after ("determine") insert ("; and any such committee shall be").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: This is again a purely drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 17, leave out ("shown") and insert ("ascertained.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 13 [Power to alter, etc. constitution of Council]:
LORD SANDYS: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 19. after ("omissions to") insert ("or from").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 14 [Functions of assay offices, etc.]:
LORD SANDYS: This is self-evident, being purely a drafting matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 32, leave out ("in this Act contained") and insert ("contained in this Act").—(Lord Sandys.)
VISCOUNT AMORY: May I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, whether the grammar is thoroughly satisfactory in the Amendment as now proposed?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I would rather that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, was the expert on this. Frankly, I should have thought that the phrase we are changing to is not good, but then equally I do not like the word "ascertain", so obviously the Parliamentary draftsmen have their own standards.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Powers and duties of assay offices]:
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 59 is once again a drafting Amendment, and it is there so that the wording accords with Clause 7, subsection (4) in the last two lines on page 9 of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31 line 27, leave out from ("the" to end of line 30, and insert ("assay office (but not any other person) shall be liable in damages to any person interested in the article").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Here again there are four Amendments linked together which are purely drafting, Amendments Nos. 60, 61, 62 and 63. I beg to move Amendment No. 60.
Amendment moved—
Page 31 line 33, leave out ("gold, silver or platinum") and insert ("precious metal".—(Lord Sandys.)
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Is there another precious metal other than gold, silver or platinum?
LORD DRUMALBYN: There are other metals like palladium or rhodium, but they are not designated for hallmarking purposes. But this Amendment goes a little further than drafting because it

733
would be possible to designate another metal for these purposes.
LORD SANDYS: One of the conveniences of this Bill is that we shall not be locked into its provisions for 150 years before there is further Parliamentary time. We have certainly used plenty of it this afternoon. By Order the Minister can expand the extent of the Bill, and I think the noble Baroness will obtain some satisfaction from that.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 61.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 6, leave out ("minimum")—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 62.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 22, leave out ("gold, silver or platinum") and insert ("precious metal"). —(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 32, line 29, leave out ("for its services to that office") and insert ("in respect of the performance of their functions under this paragraph.").
The noble Lord said: This is a little beyond a drafting Amendment—and I accept the strictures of my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Procedure for orders]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 34, line 48, leave out ("from the beginning of paragraph 2 to the words") and insert ("in paragraph 2 before").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 64, 65 and 66 are all purely drafting Amendments. I beg to move No. 64.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 65.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 4, leave out ("shall").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 66.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 5, after ("(1)") insert ("shall").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 67:
Page 35, line 11, leave out ("Paragraph 3") and insert ("Paragraphs 3 and 9").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 67 is to correct a drafting omission in not integrating paragraph 9 to the situation under Part II where the Secretary of State is proposing to make an order of his own Motion. However, in addition the Amendment excludes the right of the Secretary of State under paragraph 9 to claim costs from the assay office concerned where the Secretary of State himself takes the initiative in making an order. This seems to be only just to the assay office and has been agreed with the Department of Trade and Industry. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Application of Act to other precious metals by Order]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 15, line 27, leave out ("precious").
The noble Lord said: With due respect to those lawyers present I should like to say that this Amendment is a real lawyers' Amendment. It is concerned with tautology, and although it is a drafting Amendment the expression "precious metal" is defined in line 22, on page 19 of the Bill, and includes "any metal prescribed under this clause" Therefore, reference to "precious" metal is tautologous. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 and 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Local inquiries]:
5.40 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 69:
Page 16, line 33, leave out from ("section") to ("evidence") in line 34 and insert ("250 of the Local Government Act 1972").
The noble Lord said: This is another drafting Amendment. It substitutes reference to the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972 for reference to the Local Government Act 1933, which of course will shortly cease to be operative. This is only common sense and takes the current legislative situation into account. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20 [Regulations and orders]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 70:
Page 17, line 22, leave out ("15") and insert ("16").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment corrects the reference to Section 15, which by an oversight was not altered in an earlier version of the Bill, so as to make it refer to Clause 16, which deals with the application of the Act to other precious metals by order. It will be recalled that that clause requires an Affirmative Resolution by each House of Parliament. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 20, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 21 [Interpretation]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 71:
Page 18, line 25, leave out from beginning to end of line 29.
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment, and concerns the definition of the word "die". Since we have already altered Clause 6 in this regard and have set out the definition in that clause, it is thought unnecessary to set it out again in the interpretation clause. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 72:
Page 18, line 39, after ("(2)") insert ("of paragraph 2").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 72, 73, 74 and 75 are all purely drafting Amendments. I beg to move No. 72.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 73.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 38, at end insert—
(""unhallmarked" has the meaning given by section 2(4) of this Act").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 74.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 40, leave out ("which is") and insert ("who are").—(Lord Sandys.)
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I have one small point—I must say "bloody but unbowed". I notice that the Bill, when it refers to the Hallmarking Council, says "which shall be", but when it comes to the assay office it is to say "who are". You either take the Government as a corporate body or you take it as a set of individuals; but obviously there is something different about this Bill. However, I will not detain your Lordships.
VISCOUNT AMORY: Relevant to the point which has just been raised by the noble Baroness. Lady Phillips, I think that just now we changed the Mint from "it" to "they", which seemed to me a rather strange alteration.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendment No. 75, as I said, is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 41, leave out ("which carries") and insert ("who carry").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 21, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT AMORY: Before we proudly adopt Clause 21, may I refer to one of the interpretations that we discussed just now—that of a "precious metal"? It there seems to give power to the Miinster, by order, to apply hallmarking to any metal, such as iron, copper, steel or anything else. I wondered why there is such a wide power. One imagines that a Minister would in fact confine himself to precious metals,

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but why is such a wide power as this given?
LORD DRUMALBYN: It would at least need the Affirmative Resolution of the House, and I doubt whether the House would be prepared to designate iron or steel as precious metal, even though there is a temporary scarcity.
VISCOUNT AMORY: But Ministers do very strange things occasionally, and I should think a waste of time might result if a Minister went off his head and tried to apply a hallmarking to other than a precious metal. I suppose we have to rely on Ministers' in fact not going off their heads.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 22 [Repeals]:
On Question, Whether Clause 22 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD SANDYS: Before we pass Clause 22, which deals with the very considerable amount of repealing which is undertaken under Schedule 6, I should like to express the gratitude of those concerned in the assay offices to our legal advisers, who have dug up and researched a vast area of Statute Law of the United Kingdom. I think this expression is the very smallest that can be extended to them, because no fewer than 32 Acts of Parliament are concerned.
Clause 22 agreed to.
Clause 23 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 76:
Page 20, line 11, at end insert ("and, so far as it relates to matters with respect to which the Parliament of Northern Ireland has powers to make laws, shall be deemed for the purposes of section 6 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 to have been passed before the day appointed for the purposes of that section.").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment concerns the Short Title, commencement and extent of the Bill. As this refers to the Parliament of Northern Ireland and very shortly the new Assembly is to be set out in and appointed under a Bill which I understand is published today, we cannot foresee the future of this particular Bill or future contingencies, and therefore we refer in this Amendment to the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
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I think it is self-explanatory, but I wanted to make this point in passing reference. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Enactments repealed]:
5.50 p.m.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 36, line 17, at end insert—

("15 Geo. 2. c.20.

The Gold and Silver Thread Act 1741.

The whole Act.")

The noble Lord said: In leading into Schedule 6 I have already referred to an area of repeal, and three of the remaining Amendments—Nos. 77, 78 and 81—are linked, each of them concerning gold and silver thread, in a series of Acts passed during the 18th century. They are an area of historic interest, but beyond that I think it is quite clear that the Acts should be repealed, and this will enable Schedule 6 to form a more substantial part of the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 78:
Page 36, line 19, at end insert—

(" 28 Geo. 3. c.7.

The Gold and Silver Thread Act 1788.

The whole Act.")

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is linked with Nos. 77 and 81. Each concerns the Gold and Silver Thread Act. I beg to move.
LORD STRANGE: I should like to put a question on this Amendment. Do the precious metals recognised in the Bill come into this?—because there can be platinum threads and other threads, and it is possible that these threads, as well as gold and silver threads, will be used in uniforms. How does the repeal of this Act affect the use of these other precious metals?
LORD SANDYS: The noble Lord, Lord Strange, has introduced an interesting point. I expect he is aware that platinum is more than twice as valuable as gold, as a substance; therefore I think it is beyond possibility that it would be felt desirable to introduce the use of this metal for costume jewellery and the like. Nevertheless I am afraid that I am not prepared to comment on this particular

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aspect. I am assured that these three Amendments relating to the Gold and Silver Thread Acts 1741, 1788 and the Gold and Silver Thread Act (Ireland) 1761 should all be repealed if this Bill is to carry with it the authority that it should in an area which is rather unusual.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: Amendments 79, 80, 82, 83 and 84 are all linked. I beg to move No. 79.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 6, column 3, after ("c. 26") insert ("15 Geo. 2. c. 20.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 80.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 7, column 3, after ("c. 52") insert ("28 Geo. 3. c. 7.").—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 81.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 12, at end insert—

(" 1 Geo. 3. c.9.(Ir.).

The Gold and Silver Thread Act (Ire-land)1761.

The whole Act.")

—(Lord Sandys.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 82.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 32, column 1, leave out ("Geo. 5. c. xi.") and insert ("8 & 9 Geo 5. c. lxi.").—(Lord Sandy's.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS LORD SANDYS moved Amendment No. 83.
Page 37, line 35, column 1, leave out ("6") and insert ("16").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 are the last two Amendments on the Marshalled List. Both are drafting. In moving them I would express our gratitude to your Lordships for bearing with us over the long list of Amendments to the Bill. I can assure your Lordships that the later stage of the Bill, in about a week's time, will not contain quite so many Amendments. I beg to move Amendment No. 83.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDYS: I beg to move Amendment No. 84.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 36, column 2, leave out ("Confirmation Order") and insert ("Order Confirmation").—(Lord Sandys.)
VISCOUNT AMORY: I should like to thank my noble friend for the extremely lucid and succinct explanation given to us of these two final Amendments and to express our gratitude for all the valuable advice given to the Committee throughout our discussions this afternoon.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I would congratulate my noble friend on getting through 84 Amendments so quickly.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with the Amendments.

CIVIL AUTHORITIES (SPECIAL POWER) REGULATIONS (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1973
5.56 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND (LORD WINDLESHAM)THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND (LORD WINDLESHAM) rose to move, That the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1973, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, under the terms of the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972 any regulations made under the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Acts (Northern Ireland) 1922–43 need the approval of each House of Parliament.
The regulations before your Lordships to-day were made on April 11 under the urgent procedure contained in the Temporary Provisions Act, and came into operation on April 17. The regulations deal only with a single point: the deletion of Republican clubs from the list of unlawful associations contained in Regulation 24A of the Special Powers Regulations. The reason for taking this action now is to try to encourage further opportunities for debate and discussion as methods of furthering political aims, as opposed to violence and the use of force. Republican clubs (of which there are currently believed to be about 162) have

741
only been proscribed since 1967 and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State concluded that it would be timely to lift the ban on them last month in order that they might make arrangements to take part, if they so wished, both in the local government elections to be held on May 30 and in the elections for the new Assembly which follow on June 28. The urgent procedure was used to allow this timetable to be met.
I should add that there will be an opportunity to debate the general issue of the proscription of certain organisations when your Lordships come to consider the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill which is currently before a Standing Committee in another place. This is the measure which implements the Report of Lord Diplock's Commission and repeals and replaces the special powers legislation. In Clause 18 and in Schedule 2 it deals with proscribed organisations. But to-day the Government are merely asking your Lordships to approve the Secretary of State's action in removing the Republican clubs from the list of proscribed organisations which for the moment is still contained in the Special Powers Regulations. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1973, be approved.—(Lord Windlesham.)
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we welcome this Motion. This is a difficult decision for the Government, but none the less I think a wise one. It is one which we have been pressing on the Government. I realise that it is tricky, but I should like to urge the Government to find some way of enabling the other wing of Sinn Fein—the Republican clubs are the official Sinn Fein organisation—also to take part in elections. This is not because (let me hasten to say) we have any sympathy or support for them, but because we believe the great majority of people of Northern Ireland are in neither organisation. Both branches of Sinn Fein are legal organisations in the Republic because they can distinguish—though I realise it is rather tricky—between the military and the political bodies. I would not do more than press that point of view which I think is consistent, and since the Government have
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gone some way, perhaps in a slightly easier way, I hope they will bear this in mind. If the Minister prefers not to comment on my remarks to-day I shall quite understand; I just press that point of view.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTORAL LAW (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1973
6.2 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM rose to move, That the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) Order 1973, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Order standing in my name. I should make clear that this Order relates only to the elections to the district councils in Northern Ireland to be held on May 30. Its provisions do not affect either the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will follow at the end of June, or to any Westminster elections. The Order before your Lordships provides for postal voting facilities and hours of polling on the same basis as for the Border Poll. It also gives candidates standing at these elections the right to send election addresses post free, and authorises the Chief Electoral Officer of Northern Ireland to prepare a polling station scheme for the elections. Postal voting is dealt with in Article 3. The extensive postal voting facilities granted for the Border Poll were widely welcome and there were few complaints of irregularities.
During the debate on the Motion for the approval of the Northern Ireland Border Poll Order the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that he hoped that there would be adequate publicity for postal voting. In the event, the Government undertook a comprehensive publicity campaign and we are involved in a similar commitment for these elections. It seemed to us sensible to provide the same facilities to vote by post at the local elections later this month and for the election for the new Assembly in June. Anyone on the register of electors who can satisfy the returning officer that he is the person he says he is, and who has an address in the United Kingdom, can get a postal vote.
Article 4 deals with the right of candidates to send election addresses post free. As noble Lords will be aware, the elections are to be held to 26 new district councils the boundaries of which were drawn up by an independent boundary commissioner following the acceptance of the recommendations of the Macrory Review Body on Local Government. In the light of the numbers of electors and the geographical area covered by each candidate, and because of the exceptional conditions which, unfortunately, still prevail in parts of Northern Ireland, the Government consider that it would be fair to allow for free postage for election addresses in the same manner as for Parliamentary elections. Article 5 enables the chief electoral officer to prepare a polling station scheme designating the polling stations to be used in these elections. There are over 500 wards—I think the figure is 526 in all—for local government purposes and the chief electoral officer has been able to designate nearly 600 polling places on the basis that the electors should be inconvenienced as little as possible. Article 6 reproduces, for the purpose of these elections, the hours of polling which applied at the Border Poll; that is, 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. My Lords, I think that is all that needs to be said by way of introduction to this Order. It is a brief one and, as I have said, it is confined only to the elections for the district councils on May 30. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) 1973, be approved.—(Lord Windlesham.)
6.6 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we welcome this Order. It is only very recently that we debated the electoral law to set up the Assembly, or to provide for the elections to the Assembly, and although this Order relates to local government elections our general discussion on the previous occasion covered many of the points which arise on this Order. Therefore I do not propose to do more than take one or two minutes to discuss it. As I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham said, the provisions for the local elections are virtually the same in respect of the postal voting as for the Border Poll. I wonder
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how many people actually applied for a postal vote on the last occasion; that would give some idea of how many would apply on this occasion. But perhaps that is rather a "fast question" and I would not press it.
May I take the opportunity to say that I am exceedingly grateful for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, wrote to me, and no doubt to others, after we had debated the matter, and gave information which clarified points which were not clarified in the debate. The noble Lord answered so many other points on the last occasion that I am now raising only one or two matters which are possibly of general interest. Clearly, there is a good deal of urgency and it will be as bit of a rush to get out polling cards, and so on, in time. I have no doubt that the Government are doing everything they can, as was apparent from the remarks of the noble Lord. I do not know whether previously there were any serious difficulties about people not receiving their polling cards. As the noble Lord expected, there have been complaints about rush; however, the Government have no option but to proceed, so long as the procedure is reasonably satisfactory.
It is interesting to note that election addresses are to be post-free. This is quite an exceptional provision, and I think a valuable one. I hope the election addresses will all be delivered and not just dumped. There is to be a quite striking increase in the number of polling stations, if I understood the noble Lord correctly. My only regret is that the hours of the poll are rather shorter than have been decided on for the Assembly elections. Probably it is less important in local government elections, certainly in England where the polls are so much smaller. None the less, I note that the polling stations are to be opened only until 8 p.m., although the Government have heeded the request and the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and some other noble Lords and have given an extra half hour. Clearly this is a very important election. It is not just another local government election. It is another opportunity for re-establishing democracy in Northern Ireland. We hope that people will take full advantage of the opportunity and that the elections will go off peacefully.
6.9 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for his welcome to this Order. As he said, we had a fuller debate on the Northern Ireland Assembly Bill which covered a number of the same matters—postal voting, the number of polling stations and so on—and we have therefore been over the ground comparatively recently. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked about the number of applications for postal votes in the Border Poll. The figure of applications was approximately 160,000 out of an electorate, from memory, of round about 1 million. About 80,000 people actually used their vote. As the noble Lord said, the timetable is undoubtedly tight. That we accept, but it was necessary to fit in these three elections, the Border Poll, the local government election and the election for the new Assembly, before the July season of holidays, marches, traditional parades and demonstrations, and before the August general holiday period. It is important to maintain that timetable.
It has been encouraging that a great deal of interest has been shown by political Parties in organising themselves, nominating candidates for the local government elections, as well as for the Assembly, and this degree of interest is a heartening development in trying to win people's interest and attention towards representative political institutions. The noble Lord was quite right in what he said about the number of polling stations. I believe there will be in excess of 200 more polling stations than there were at the time of the Border Poll.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HEAVY COMMERCIAL VEHICLES (CONTROLS AND REGULATIONS) BILL
6.11 p.m.
LORD BETHELL: 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 Bethell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD GRENFELL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Control of heavy commercial vehicles]:
LORD BETHELL LORD BETHELL moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 23, at end insert (", such chief officers of police (within the meaning of the Police Act 1964)").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to subsection (2) of the proposed Clause 1A, on page 2 of the Bill, under which local authorities will be required to consult certain other authorities and various interests before submitting proposals to the Secretary of State under the Bill. It has been suggested that local authorities should not only consult each other, and various commercial and trade union interests, but should consult also senior police officers in order that the police may be conversant with what is proposed and may take such measures as are appropriate. I beg to move.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: This Amendment has been recommended by the Home Office on behalf of chief officers of police, and we therefore regard it as a sensible and beneficial addition to the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 30, after ("in") insert ("the provision of travelling fairs or circuses and ").
The noble Lord said: I should like at the outset to express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and to other noble Lords for being so kind as to agree to the rearrangement of the business of the House—I am ashamed to say, to suit my convenience. My only excuse is that I was engaged on Parliamentary duties in the Special Orders Committeee, and it would have been perhaps rather tiresome to my colleagues there if I had not stayed to the end.
I move this Amendment really at the instance of the Showmen's Guild. Your Lordships may remember that when we discussed the Industrial Relations Bill there was a good deal of reference to the Showmen's Guild, which is an organisation of persons who conduct country fairs. The purpose of this Bill they

747
would all entirely endorse and wholeheartedly approve. They do, however, stand in a very special position. As your Lordships may know from personal observation, those who conduct these country fairs have to transport their equipment in large vehicles, which I should have thought would undoubtedly come within the definition of the heavy commercial vehicles with which the Bill deals. Local authorities are to prepare a survey and make recommendations which would include recommendations for the purpose of preserving the amenities for through routes, prohibited routes and prohibited zones. As your Lordships may well imagine, those who conduct these country fairs frequently have to transport their equipment through roads which may well fall within the type of roads that would be proscribed by plans formulated by local authorities for amenity purposes.
I hope your Lordships may feel able to agree that it would be rather a pity if these showmen were seriously inhibited in transporting their equipment—equipment necessary to set up the various buildings and installations in which country fairs are conducted. It has for many years—your Lordships have no doubt seen them on country roads—been the custom, and indeed the inevitable and unavoidable practice, for those who go round the country organising these fairs to transport on these heavy lorries the large equipment which they have to install. I submit that they are therefore in a rather special position. They are not the sort of people who shake ancient buildings; the equipment is not as heavy as all that. They are not heavily laden lorries, but I should have thought that they are undoubtedly lorries which would be within the purview of this admirable Bill.
I hope your Lordships will feel able to accept therefore the broad proposition that special care should be taken to see that they are not too hampered in the transporting of this equipment. Country fairs (perhaps I should be going a little far if I called them a country amenity) undoubtedly provide a great deal of pleasure for country residents, and particularly the younger residents, although even those who are older in years also derive some enjoyment from them. If
748
the showmen could not transport their equipment through these roads it would mean no fair. That would be, I submit, a great pity. The approach, therefore, that I make, at their suggestion, is this. The clause provides that there must be consultation—and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, referred to it when he was moving his Amendment. I seek by this Amendment to insert in paragraph (c) of subsection (2) on page 2 of the Bill a special reference, as your Lordships will see, to those engaged "in the provision of travelling fairs or circuses". Provision is already made for second groups and categories of persons requiring that they should be consulted. What I seek to do in this Amendment is to add to those groups or categories of persons who have to be consulted by the local authorities, when conducting their survey, organisations which provide for travelling fairs and circuses: in other words, the authorities would have to consult such bodies representative of those who provide the travelling fairs and circuses as appear to the local authority to be appropriate.
That is the purpose of this Amendment and I hope your Lordships will feel, in the first place, that it in no way operates to lessen the effectiveness of this Bill. It will go some way to preserve what is I hope I may not too inaccurately describe as something of a country amenity, perhaps of a rather different type. It is certainly an activity which gives pleasure, and it is an activity which I submit is put at risk by the very necessary provisions at present contained in this Bill. I would add one assertion of fact. I am told (I think perhaps your Lordships may think that that is irrelevant) that the heavy vehicles concerned do not normally travel as much as 1,000 miles a year. I beg to move.
6.20 p.m.
LORD BETHELL: I am sure that most people in this House will share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, that travelling fairs and circuses should continue to provide the enjoyment that they have always given to young and old throughout our countryside. Certainly there is no intention on the part of the sponsors of this Bill to curtail in any way the activities of those who run travelling fairs and circuses and who provide great enjoyment and fun. However, I would submit that the noble Lord's point

749
is covered by paragraph (c) of subsection (2) to the proposed Section 1A on page 2 of the Bill, which provides that local authorities must consult persons engaged in other commercial or industrial activities before submitting proposals for restrictions or prohibitions. It will therefore be incumbent on local authorities to consult any organisation which indulges in any commercial activity, and proprietors or organisations representing fairs and circuses will fall into this category. It will also be open to proprietors of fairs and circuses to make representations to local authorities, and these will of course be taken into consideration.
I understand the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, about this matter, but I feel he may be perhaps a little unnecessarily alarmed about what this Bill will bring about should it become law. I very much doubt whether it is the intention of local authorities to impose such blanket prohibitions on main roads throughout the country as would make it impossible for very large vehicles to pass reasonably and sensibly from place to place. The very strict prohibitions which could be made if the Bill became law would be made only if a local authority thinks that any particular place, part of a city or a park is of special value to the community from the point of view of amenity. I very much doubt whether any local authority would put a stringent prohibition on a large stretch of road covering many dozens of miles. If it did, I very much doubt whether the Secretary of State would allow such a proposal. For that reason, the supporters of the Bill do not believe that a special case can be made out for fairs and circuses. One sympathises with what they provide, and certainly there is no intention to curtail their activities. Moreover, it will, of course, be open to them to make as many representations as they desire, in the same way as other persons engaged in other trades and activities may do. For that reason I would ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment.
LORD STOW HILL: May I, as the mover of the Amendment, speak again? It may be that I and those who have asked me to intervene in this debate are unduly apprehensive. They did, however, consider very carefully the provisions of paragraph (c), and I did also.
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In the first place, I am told that some consultations are already taking place and that the Showmen's Guild have not yet been invited. That may be an omission. I am not quite sure what those consultations are and what form they may take, but the words in paragraph (c) are:
"persons engaged in other commercial or industrial activities;".
It may be that when one considers the English language in its strict application one would construe a person who conducts a country fair as such a person, but I should have thought it was at least on the cards that one would not. One looks at an actor or at someone conducting a Punch and Judy show; one looks at a number of persons providing entertainment of various sorts; and in the ordinary connotation of these words I should have thought they might not be thought to be persons "engaged in other commercial or industrial activities"—certainly they would not be engaged in industrial activities, and it does not at once strike the mind that they are conducting commercial activities. Perhaps I am wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said (assuming that those words would apply to them) that the local authorities in any event were under an obligation to consult with them. The difficulty about that argument, I would submit to him and to the Committee, is that they have not got to consult any such persons but they have to make a selection. They have to consult those engaged in other commercial or industrial activities as appear to them appropriate. Therefore they have to form a judgment. The local authority concerned who, up or down the country, may be about to make recommendations have to make a judgment; and I should have thought that on many occasions it might not occur to them that those who organise local fairs and who appear in the locality just once or twice in a whole year for perhaps one, two, three or four days are people falling within the same general description as those who drive enormous lorries about the place, loaded with heavy and expensive machinery to he installed in factories. There is something different in type, I should have thought, between the two.

751
Therefore the apprehension which I and those associated with me in promoting this Amendment have is that over and over again it may well not occur to local authorities that these occasional visitors (for that is what they are) are not persons of the sort one ordinarily has in mind as "conducting industrial or commercial activities", and they may not be consulted. On the other hand they may find themselves ousted from a particular locality where the fair has gone on for a century. The noble Lord has given me a careful answer. I wonder whether he would be so good as to say whether, in view of the apprehensions I have expressed, he would give the matter some further thought between now and the Report stage.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I apologise for having missed a little of this debate, but I particularly came into the Committee to support my noble and learned friend. The insertion of these words will in no way damage the Bill, because all we are asking for is that these organisations be consulted. Fairs have been rolling over this pleasant land for centuries, and mostly they bring a lot of joy to many country areas throughout Britain, particularly to kids. I well remember times when, in country districts in Wales, we have welcomed the circuses and fairs. For Heaven's sake, let us keep a little balance about it! The small and narrow roads at the beginning of the century and up to the beginning of the First World War, and afterwards, were not ruined by the rolling old caravans of circuses—even though occasionally the elephant had to trudge along them. All we are asking is that local authorities should consult the organisations such as the Showmen's Guild.
These circuses and shows are part of the charisma of "Britishness", and there is far too great a tendency to sweep aside some of these old forms of entertainment in the "swinging world" in which we are allegedly living to-day, because we have no time for them. Whatever was said about them, they were some of the heaviest things that travelled the lanes and by-ways of Britain for centuries. They never damaged the roads all that much. I consequently can see no reason why, in formulating proposals under this section, a local authority should not consult
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organisations such as the Showmen's Guild. It gives me great pleasure to support my noble and learned friend, and I hope that the Minister in his reply will give a little comfort and succour to the Showmen's Guild for the sake of what they have done in the past for Britain.
6.30 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Bethell could look into the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill. Perhaps he could widen the scope of that point. I believe that my noble friend Lord Bethell, or my noble friend on the Front Bench, could confirm that there might be a difficulty for casual users of heavy vehicles—the Showmen's Guild would be one class. Another class which is uppermost in people's minds, particularly in Wales and in the West Country, is the forestry industry. They could perhaps be in the same difficulty. If a council makes an order for no heavy commercial vehicles could the forestry industry, along with the showmen's vehicles, go in, or would they need to receive permission? If so, what happens if permission from the local council is refused? That could be serious and damaging to interests in the countryside, from the industrial as well as the amusement point of view, as we have heard. Could my noble friend Lord Bethell and my noble friend on the Front Bench consider some provision to strengthen a right of access for such heavy commercial vehicles? I put that forward for their kind consideration at the Report stage.
LORD BETHELL: Clause 1A(2)(c) makes it encumbent on local authorities to consult persons engaged in other commercial or industrial activities. My noble friend mentioned the forestry industry. It will be encumbent on local authorities to consult representatives from any industry which it sees as appropriate. It will also equally be open to representatives from any industry or commercial interest to make representations to local authorities.
It would defy the ingenuity of legislators if we were to include in the proposed Bill all the interests which could legitimately be seen to have a right to demand consultation on this Bill. There might be several hundreds of them. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has

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mentioned circuses and, as his noble friend pointed out, this is a matter of importance. It would be a kill-joy on the part of those who sponsored the Bill if they were in any way to curtail the activities of fairs and circuses. But I suggest to your Lordships that there is sufficient provision in the Bill as it stands to enable representatives from forestry and proprietors of fairs to make representations and to consult. The specific point which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, mentioned, about whether a proprietor of a fair was engaged in a commercial activity, seems clear. A proprietor of a fair often has a number of vehicles under his control; he is engaged in commercial activity. I imagine that most of your Lordships who have been to a fair or circus will accept that commercial activity is being conducted. It therefore seems clear to me—and, I hope, to most of your Lordships—that such persons will be able to obtain consultation under the Bill as it stands. While I will look at the matter again, and give it further consideration—and the noble and learned Lord might like to write to the sponsors of the Bill—I cannot see any reason for accepting the Amendment at this stage.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My noble friend Lord Bethell has given the answers to the questions which noble Lords have shown fears about. This is not a major Bill; it is a small Bill to help local authorities think about the problem of the heavy lorry in their environment. It is giving them powers but they do not have to use these powers. If they take powers the Secretary of State has to confirm them; if they do not take powers the Secretary of State can initiate some movement from them. It is a flexible Bill; flexibility is the keynote of this Bill.
I should like to assure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, there will be a circular to local authorities if this Bill becomes law. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be more than happy to include in the circular advice to local authorities dealing with travelling fairs and circuses and, as my noble friend Lord Bathurst mentioned, forestry vehicles, if that were thought to be necessary. Circuses and travelling fairs would be considered. Local authorities are not out to deny to the inhabitants
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of their towns—after all, they elect them—what they want. This is a little Bill designed to help them make life more pleasant. This is not a heavy axe coming down, with the authorities saying. "You will do this and you will not do that". What my noble friend Lord Bethell has said can be taken as being fairly accurate.
LORD STOW HILL: The noble Lord suggests a circular. It may be that that is the right answer. The noble Lord, the sponsor of the Bill, said that he had not entirely closed his mind, although he had taken a provisional view. There is the question of forestry and other temporary users. I very gladly avail myself of the opportunity to give further thought to this point and perhaps make a further approach to the noble Lord between this and the next stage of the Bill. It may be that the right answer is the circular, and not to make special provision in the Bill. I should like to consider the position generally. In the meantime, I ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.38 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 4, line 10, leave out from ("has") to end of line 11, and insert ("a gross vehicle weight exceeding sixteen tons").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. This is the same Amendment as was moved during the Committee stage in another place and was withdrawn on the understanding that the promoters of the Bill and the Government would give further thought to that which was intended. Unhappily, no compromise agreement was arrived at and the definition of 3 tons unladen weight remains for the purpose of this Bill. I appreciate that if this Amendment receives the Committee's support other consequential amendments will have to be made. Principally the Amendment rests on the definition of the heavy goods vehicle and provides for the blanket inclusion of a class of vehicles larger than that for which the Bill provides.
There are a number of fundamental reasons for choosing 16 tons gross weight as a definition for a heavy goods vehicle.

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First, the unladen weight is meaningless and we should always be thinking in terms of gross tonnage. There are four prime reasons why an unladen weight is meaningless. The unladen weight is that weight at which a vehicle is offered at the weighbridge for licensing purposes. It has no meaning other than this. Years ago when I was selling lorries—and it was a long time ago—it was the practice to use the regulations to the absolute limit in getting the weight down. The regulations provide for allowances to be made for the driver's weight, petrol, spare wheel, batteries and so on; and it was not unknown to stretch the regulations just a little farther. It might be more meaningful if one were to substitute tare weight for unladen weight. I have chosen to think in terms of gross weight.
A further reason is that gross tonnage means what it says: the whole package moving up and down the roadway. This is something that almost everybody understands, and it is quite usual for this term of measurement to be used in the European Economic Community and it therefore has greater usage in this country. Furthermore, the term "unladen weight" will in fact be removed from those regulations which come into force in 1976 affecting drivers' regulations. There is to be substituted 7.38 gross tons. I suspect by 1976 we shall probably be talking in terms of 7·5 metric tonnes. Indeed, earlier this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, speaking from the Front Bench on the Committee stage of another Bill, spoke of using in this country terms of measurement that were coming into greater use in the European Community. If we adopted this suggestion we should be some way towards that goal. That other regulations may have to be changed, signs changed and so on, in changing from unladen weight to gross tonnage weight is, I believe, immaterial. It is important that that which is recognised to be in common usage should be adopted at the earliest possible moment and this Bill provides for just that.
One last point on unladen weight. Three tons unladen weight at the time the regulations were made provided largely for vehicles approaching 5 to 6 tons gross; in other words, a vehicle that
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was 3 tons unladen at licensing had something approaching an all-up weight of 5 to 6 tons. To-day this is not so. To-day one can produce a vehicle—indeed, one is on the market—which will go 7½ tons gross on a 3-ton unladen basis. So, whichever way we may look, a 3-ton unladen weight basis seems to be quite wrong and quite impracticable.
Moving to the substance of the Amendment, I recognise, and recognise to a greater extent than some noble Lords may credit, that heavy goods vehicles cause concern. I might say—I do say—that the real concern is what might be called the heavy heavy-goods vehicle: that vehicle which is more normally described as "a juggernaut"; a vehicle which, in common parlance, has a gross tonnage of 30 to 32 tons. This Bill, as it is currently written, will exclude those vehicles from certain roads and zones. There are about 204,000 of these vehicles only out of a total of 1,550,000 general goods vehicles on the road. I take these figures from the 1971 Highway Statistics, Table No. 6 on page 13 of the Department of the Environment's publication—
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Will he help me? My information is (and it may be completely wrong, but the noble Lord is knowledgeable in this area) that nearly 3,000 lorries of the juggernaut type come into England daily from the Continent. Is this correct—because it has a bearing on this Amendment? Can the noble Lord give me any accurate information, or information that is as near accurate as possible, on this point?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I think I could help the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, on this matter, but were I to give him the figures I do not think they would be tremendously helpful. I am speaking of the number of vehicles currently in use in this country at a particular time. Certainly a large number of vehicles come in and go out. Currently there are a higher number of new registrations of the heavy heavy-vehicle. But to establish some kind of a mean, I have taken the last generally accepted figures published by the Department of the Environment in their booklet Highway Statistics, and I think this is reasonably meaningful.

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The Amendment seeks to include within the provisions of the Bill those vehicles between 3 tons unladen, which is somewhere around 7½ tons gross, and 5 tons unladen, approximately 16 tons gross, of which there were only 221,000 at the time that the figures which I am using for comparative purposes were taken: that is, at the end of 1971. The only other figure with which I need weary the Committee is in respect of those vehicles up to 3 tons unladen. There are 1,130,000 vehicles which will come below the prohibited, the restricted and the zonal measures imposed in the Bill. We are in fact talking in terms of only 221,000, something like one-fifth more of the vehicles currently permitted, but at the same time excluding those vehicles—the juggernauts of 20, 30 or 32 tons—which we all acknowledge cause most concern. The principal reasons for including these vehicles, the 221,000 16-ton gross vehicles, are quite legion. Those of your Lordships who have followed the arguments presented by the honourable Member for Nuneaton during the Committee stage in another place may be well aware of them.
It may be helpful to the Committee if I were to summarise the principal points. Most food and general goods for retail sale are delivered to the ultimate selling point in a 5-ton vehicle. Most of the large foodstuff wholesaling companies base their transport and distributive arrangements on the 5-ton vehicle. A typical 5-ton (or 16-ton gross) vehicle is 27 feet long; and a typical 3-ton (or 7-ton gross) vehicle is 20 feet long. It follows, therefore, that more smaller vehicles will take up more road space. They will take up more road space when parked or when making their deliveries, but even more when they are travelling. It is a fact that delivery journey times are taken up mainly in terms of running rather than in terms of parking and discharging goods. So again it follows that if one reduces the amount of goods to be carried into certain areas on certain roads by a reduction in the type of vehicle to be used, more smaller vehicles will have to be used, and they will take up more space and cause more congestion and therefore cause more annoyance.
This point is already proven in the number of 3-ton unladen vehicles which are coming on the roads as a result of
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the regulations pertaining to heavy goods vehicle drivers and their licensing. If I may quote from the Business Monitor, the Department of Trade and Industry's monthly statistics for February, 1973, the number of vehicles under 3 tons registered and in use in February, 1972, was 16,429; in 1973, the number was 21,780, whereas the group of vehicles between 3 and 5 tons was 1,275 in 1972 and 1,280 in 1973—an infinitesimal increase in numbers.
I am seeking here to show to the Committee that there is already an increase in the number of smaller vehicles and that the potential restriction that the Bill provides would have a tendency to encourage the greater use of smaller vehicles. Noise and fumes pollution generally attributable to commercial vehicles is largely concerned with the engine, and it is a design fact that the engine size ratio to payload is considerably higher with the smaller vehicle than it is with the larger. So that a diminution of noise from engines, smoke exhaust and other pollutions, all damaging to amenity and environment, will not necessarily occur by using smaller vehicles. Using vehicles under 3 tons unladen and under 7½ tons gross, as provided in the Bill, could necessitate considerable reinvestment in vehicle distribution fleets, and I am told, on what I consider to be very reliable authority, that such a reinvestment could increase by 70 to 80 per cent. the cost of distribution. The cost of distribution is approximately 10 per cent. of the shop selling price of most foodstuffs and most general goods. Therefore it follows that one may envisage that were an authority to use the blanket powers given in the Bill this type of goods would easily increase.
It has been said—it was indeed said during the Second Reading debate—that trans-shipment is the answer; that out of town shopping areas may have to be created so that the heavy goods vehicle as defined in the Bill is kept away from certain amenity areas. Trans-shipment, even between a gross ton vehicle of 32 and a 5-tonner is an expensive business, and it could quite easily be foreseen that a further trans-shipment down to a 7 ton gross loaded vehicle could increase by 3 or 4 per cent. the cost of goods so handled.

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It is also necessary to find trans-shipment areas; it is also necessary to find out of town shopping areas where the larger vehicle may more easily go, and I wonder whether your Lordships would permit a small example. A typical English out of town shopping centre takes up about 20 acres, of which 60 per cent. is devoted to car parking and 40 per cent. only to usable selling space. A hypermarket, again advocated as one means by which commercial vehicle traffic can be reduced, takes up considerably more space—up to four times as much space to make it economical, with an even higher proportion of car parking space. So in a country such as ours, where there is so little land, can we afford to think in these terms?
There are other arguments, but it would be wearisome of me to continue. However, by this Amendment I am suggesting that in the passageway of this small class of vehicle—221,000 only—of between 3 and 5 tons unladen, a very small increase should be permitted. It should be integrated with regulations that are already available to local authorities in terms of weight and height, weight and width limitations on certain specific roads, and would continue to maintain a certain quality of life in the city and town areas and also in urban areas that the Bill in fact seeks to maintain. I beg to move.
LORD BETHELL: I am sure we are all grateful to my noble friend, with his great knowledge of this particular subject, for intervening in this Committee stage and giving us the benefit of his experience. However, I think some noble Lords could have been forgiven if they had gathered from what my noble friend has just said that wholesale prohibitions and restrictions were most likely to be imposed on a very large number of places in our city centres as a result of this Bill, if it becomes law. However, it seems to me, and, I would suggest, to anyone who studies the Bill with great care, extremely unlikely that this will be the case. What this Bill proposes is that there should be a strict lower limit for defining vehicles which in certain circumstances would be banned from certain areas. But it is only in very hard cases that this strict limit would be applied by local authorities.
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It would seem logical to assume that local authorities will not be keen to ban vehicles with an unladen weight between 3 tons and 5 tons from city centres where there are shops or supermarkets, with a consequent rise in distribution costs, as my noble friend has mentioned, unless this is really necessary for other reasons. It is extremely unlikely that local authorities will want to cause inconvenience to commercial interests in their towns. It is, after all, people engaged in commerce, as well as others, who elect them and, perhaps equally important, it is shoppers who elect them—and if shoppers notice that because of a policy adopted by their own local authority prices are rising, they are not going to be terribly keen to re-elect those local councillors who went overboard on amenity grounds. I would not suggest that there was any great evidence that local councillors were likely to be excessively biased on the amenity side of this argument as opposed to the commercial and access side.
Operators of any commercial vehicle that comes within the scope of this proposed Bill will, of course, have the right to consultation, as was mentioned in the previous Amendment, and any provision which prohibits the access of heavy commercial vehicles into anywhere for a period longer than 8 hours in 24, will require the approval of the Secretary of State. It will also be open to the Secretary of State at any time in the future, should he see fit, to alter that limit. That is part of the flexibility of the Bill which my noble friend on the Front Bench has suggested is one of its better points. Furthermore, the proposals to limit the access of certain heavy vehicles, above 3 tons unladen, would do no more than to bring the rest of the country into line with the situation which presently exists in the area controlled by the G.L.C.; and I would have thought that your Lordships would not have noticed any very great price rises or curtailment in normal commercial activity in the G.L.C. area as a result of the somewhat stricter regulations which apply in London as opposed to the rest of the country.
That is the burden of the flexibility provisions which exist in the proposed Bill and I suggest that my noble friend is being perhaps a little too apprehensive about what will happen if this Bill becomes law. Of course, if a draconian

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local authority were to impose wholesale prohibitions and restrictions there would be chaos: prices would rise and shoppers would be up in arms. But that is extremely unlikely to happen, and I must come to the conclusion that my noble friend's fears are groundless. On the other hand, it may well be that local authorities in certain areas will impose the strict limit, the strict prohibition, as they are entitled to do. For instance, in a National Park area a sign may be erected, if this Bill becomes law, banning any vehicle with an unladen weight of more than 3 tons from entering the park; or, in a town centre, from approaching buildings which are old and likely to suffer from vibration; or certain areas with very narrow streets; and areas of great beauty which would be affected by the intrusion of heavy vehicles. I would also suggest that it is the heavier vehicles which cause the most concern to people who dislike lorries on amenity grounds. There is not so much objection to the smaller ones.
My noble friend also raised a somewhat different issue: the advisability of having a weight limit on a laden basis rather than an unladen basis. It may very well be that this might become possible in the future, particularly in the light of our membership of the E.E.C.; and it could be that in that context a movement might be made towards a laden weight definition. But at present most existing legislation concerns vehicles defined on an unladen weight basis. Vehicles which have a unladen weight of more than 3 tons have to carry red and yellow markers on the back which immediately label them as coming into this heavy commercial vehicle category. It will thus be much easier to enforce the provision at the moment if this present definition is adopted as opposed to the definition proposed by my noble friend. There are also large numbers of signs mentioning certain prohibitions and restrictions on heavy vehicles. These, too, are on an unladen weight basis. If this Bill becomes law there will be a few more, albeit not quite so many as my noble friend thinks; but it would be confusing if certain signs were to be on a laden weight basis and certain others on an unladen weight basis. As a result of the progress we make towards the common European policy on this matter we may
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eventually go over to a laden weight definition, but at the moment there would be a very confused situation if we were to adopt the suggestion of my noble friend. For this reason, I hope that your Lordships will not support this Amendment.
7.7 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I should like to reinforce what my noble friend has said and to give the Government's views. The Government, generally speaking, accept the view that he has given. What he has reminded us all about the G.L.C. and London is very relevant to this Bill. No such dire happenings have taken place in the heavy lorry world in London. The police and local authorities are people of common sense. They must have regard to public opinion, and public opinion must have regard to what is essential in life. We want to prohibit only what is unnecessary. One cannot go on repeating that too often. Therefore, when my honourable friend in another place and my noble friend in this House put this weight as "Unladen weight 3 tons" it was with their eyes wide open.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth said that he regarded unladen weight as meaningless. I hope that is not the case, because if it were so all our traffic regulations would have to be changed. My advice is that in Section 194 of the Road Traffic Act, 1972, my noble friend will find a full definition of what is meant by "unladen weight". It means the weight of the vehicle including all the body and all parts which are necessary for its use on the road. Gross weight, as my noble friend Lord Bethell has said, is not used in existing legislation and it would definitely cause confusion. But that is not to say, looking ahead, that if and when the time comes to integrate our road legislation more with that of the E.E.C. countries, we might then have to consider going over to gross weight. But if this legislation is to be enacted it should be done—and I think your Lordships will agree—across the whole board, not just for a small Bill of this type.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, had a point when he said that the figures which my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth gave applied only to British registered vehicles. Undoubtedly foreign

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vehicles are coming into the country. As we do more trade with the E.E.C. countries that trade may increase still further and those vehicles would come under this law. But the important point which has been emphasised again and again by my noble friend Lord Bethell, and which I tried to make last time I intervened, is that local authorities can make exceptions as to times, classes and circumstances. They have all these powers in the Act. I regard it as unthinkable that they would not use them as they saw necessary.
In all the circumstances, therefore, it is probably wise to keep the smaller tonnage in the Bill as laid down and to let the local authorities, the local police, the Secretary of State and public opinion, if necessary, cause it to be raised.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: If prohibition is not envisaged, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said, why is it necessary to give the local authorities the powers?
LORD BETHELL: I do not think I said that prohibition was not envisaged. I hope I said that widespread prohibition was not envisaged, and that total prohibition of heavy commercial vehicles in any particular place would be comparatively rare.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Be that as it may, I do not think we are going to get very far down that particular road this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said that I had described as meaningless vehicles of 3 tons unladen weight. It was done within the context of this Bill. I am appreciative of the definitions "unladen", "tare" and "gross" weights. I would just draw your Lordships' attention to one further point. In an article in the Sunday Times on May 13 it was said:
"The County Councils Association admit that their members have lockers full of powers."
This is in relation to the control and movement of heavy goods vehicles. I would suggest that the giving of further and additional powers under this Bill is not going to help them any further in this matter. However, that I have been unable to find any support has been demonstrated in the Committee this evening, and rather than take up any
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further time I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
7.12 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I should like to say a few words on the question of access. Under the Bill local authorities have power to impose a total prohibition on certain routes and in certain zones on the ground of amenity for a total of 24 hours, a power which they have not had hitherto, it having been limited, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethel!, has told us, to eight hours. I believe that this is a very negative approach. It is negative in that it gives an authority the power to deny access at all times to any kind of vehicle for any kind of purpose through 24 hours out of 24, and it seems to me that it is wrong that the Government should endorse such a negative approach. Rather, they should find some better and other way of meeting the quite proper demands and requirements of those other people. There are, of course, certain practical difficulties if there is a 24 hour prohibition. How does an essential vehicle get into the area? One might assume that this will be allowed for under an exemption. Who, and under what circumstances, is going to decide what are exempted classes? What happens if a plumber is urgently required? Does he apply for exemption and wait patiently for the wheels of bureaucracy to grind out an answer, or does he break the law and go and fix the water leak?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: With great respect, how many plumbers does my noble friend know who arrive in vehicles of 3 tons unladen weight?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: A plumber installing a washing machine, with perhaps four other calls to make that day, could quite easily use a vehicle of 3 tons unladen weight. However, we are not talking about vehicles of 3 tons unladen weight; we are talking about a total prohibition of all vehicular traffic through 24 hours under the subsection dealing with access. I hoped I had made it clear that I was dealing with the extension from eight hours to 24 hours. If

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I have misunderstood, perhaps the noble Lord will correct me.
LORD BETHELL: I must apologise if I mislead my noble friend when moving the Second Reading. Certainly it is no purpose of this Bill to prohibit all vehicular traffic for any time. This Bill relates solely to heavy commercial vehicles, which means a vehicle of unladen weight of 3 tons or more.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: If I have misunderstood, I apologise to the Committee. I will take very good care to read it again so that my understanding is more correct at a later stage. If I find that my understanding is more nearly correct than the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, assumes it is, I shall have further things to say then.
I should like, therefore, to move on to Clause 1(1), the subsection dealing with the new subsection (3AA), paragraph (a), which deals with through routes. The local authority may include proposals on designating through routes. There is no great quarrel with this, in so far as there is already a system of through routing, broadly upon an advisory basis, and this is working quite well. It is going to be another seven years, 1980, before all our current road programmes are planned to come to fruition, and it is therefore not always quite as easy in practice to designate through routes. In the designation of such a through route, I wonder what happens when something goes wrong? Suppose, for example, a designated route from Southampton Docks to London is by way of M.3, prohibiting the rather more leisurely and certainly more pleasant routes of the A.30 and the A.35. There comes an occasion when, due to road maintenance, accident, or something of that nature, the road is blocked. Do those lorries patiently queue back to Southampton Docks or are they redirected off the designated route? Who, and in what circumstances, will have the power to redesignate? Are we quite satisfied that by the time the provisions of this Bill may be implemented, only 3½ years from now, there will be sufficient facilities for drivers and their vehicles on what may appear at first sight to-day a designated route? We have discussed this matter on innumerable occasions in your Lordships' House. Why does a lorry driver take an XYZ laden vehicle into such an
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area? I have told your Lordships, and I think your Lordships have believed me, in the past, that it is because there are not adequate facilities, mainly for the driver and certainly for the vehicle, on some of the routes which one would expect the heavy goods vehicle to use.
There is one other aspect of the designated through route system. Are the county councils or the associated transport authorities going to provide a manual for the use of transport managers? I have tried to describe and illustrate to your Lordships how the cost of distribution is a material cost in the ultimate selling price of goods. Unless there is some kind of manual of operation, how will a transport manager based, let us say, in Manchester, sending goods to the South-West, the North-East or any of the four corners of the United Kingdom, know where his lorry may go at what time and in what circumstances? All these factors, while having the most desirable effect, can inhibit the operation of goods vehicles moving legitimately up and down the country.
LORD BETHELL: My noble friend has raised a number of issues the most important of which is the question of through routes, which is the first major proposal suggested in this Bill. This provision is mainly one which may be useful in the future. It does not provide for any means of enforcement at the present stage, and it is recognised by those who sponsor the Bill that, at the moment, the enforcement of through routes is not possible. For this reason, it would be premature to lay down precisely what steps should be taken if a vehicle breaks down or for one reason or another in an emergency has to leave a prescribed route. When it becomes the strict letter of the law that a through route must be adhered to, this problem will be faced. But, for the moment, this is a "toe in the door", a step towards the setting up of through routes, which one hopes may be useful in the future when these routes are properly constructed and labelled and when drivers of heavy commercial vehicles can use them without breaking the law.
My noble friend also mentioned the possibility of emergency vehicles coming into certain areas where prohibitions may be imposed by local authorities. There are ample opportunities available to local

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authorities to make exceptions for certain types of vehicles, such as fire engines, ambulances and dustcarts, to go into areas where there is a prohibition on other heavy commercial vehicles. It is unlikely that plumbers would be given such an exemption, but there would be exemption for fire engines and ambulances. Other vehicles would be able to enter such zones only if they were below 3 tons unladen weight. I hope that I have covered all of my noble friend's points and that your Lordships will approve the clause.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: If I may just dot the odd "i" and cross the odd "t" oaf my noble friend Lord Bethell, I should like to emphasise that what we are talking about is not the primary trunk routes of the country. We all know that by the 1980s we shall have some 3,500 miles of motorways and trunk routes, and over 80 of the 120 listed great historic cities, which are congested in the middle and which have some lovely cathedrals, will have been by-passed. We also know that by that date national lorry parks, about which my noble friend Lord Lucas is worried, will have been provided. It is essential to repeat the word, "flexibility". No local authority will refuse access to a town unless there is a reasonable way around it, such as a bypass. When we drive along in our motor cars and there is an accident ahead, we find a diversion sign and I am quite certain, if local authorities designate routes, that they are capable of putting up a diversion sign if there is a snowfall or something of that sort. The only other point I would make is that local authorities already have power to refuse access to heavy lorries, and this Bill will only give them powers for the other side of the coin—to suggest where they will go.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for what they have said in answer to my questions. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for his assurance that by 1980—
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: The early 1980s, I think I said.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: By the early 1980s. So that the time when
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lorry parks will have been provided is only 12 years off, at the best or the worst. May I take this opportunity of apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to my noble friend on the Front Bench and to other Members of the Committee if I take leave of the Committee at this time in order to enable me to keep a long-standing engagement. I do no feel that I can be of any further help in the consideration of this Bill at this stage.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Prohibition of parking of heavy commercial vehicles on verges and footways]:
7.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON VISCOUNT DAVIDSON moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert—
("(c) that it was parked in contravention of this section on a footpath or the verge of a road outside a built-up area for the purpose of loading or unloading and that such loading or unloading could not otherwise have been performed in a satisfactory or convenient manner").
The noble Viscount said: This Amendment proposes the insertion of a new paragraph (c) to subsection (2) of Clause 2. The existing paragraphs (a) and (b) set out the circumstances in which a person shall not be convicted of an offence under Clause 1; namely, if he proves to the satisfaction of the court,

"(a) that it was parked in accordance with permission given by a constable in uniform; or

(b) that it was parked in contravention of this section for the purpose of saving life or extinguishing fire or meeting any other like emergency."

It seems to me that this Bill has been devised primarily to resolve some of the problems caused by heavy commercial vehicles in urban areas. The purpose of this Amendment is to draw attention to certain difficulties which might well arise in rural areas under the Bill as it stands. I hope that the promoters of the Bill will consider these problems and, if this Amendment in its present form is not entirely acceptable, that they will bring forward proposals at a later stage of the Bill to meet the points which I am raising.
The first difficulty arises out of the lack of definition of the word, "verge". A "footway" is quite adequately defined

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by the Highways Act 1959, in Section 295, as:
"…a way comprised in a highway…over which the public have a right of way on foot only."
But "verge", so far as I can gather, has no legal definition although the meaning is given in one of the law dictionaries as,
"land at the side of the road which is part of the highway but not paved."
In many parts of the country there are wide grass verges which belong to the adjoining landowner, and therefore, if this meaning is correct and they are not part of the highway, then, presumably, a person parking a heavy vehicle on such verges would not be guilty of an offence under this clause. It may be that there is quite a simple explanation of this point, but it is one which I feel requires some clarification before this Bill is translated into law.
The second and main difficulty is that the Bill fails to recognise what is not only an accepted practice in the countryside but one that is growing increasingly necessary; that is, the need for heavy transporters of livestock and timber to park on the side of the road for the purpose of loading or unloading their goods. As the size and weight of the vehicle increases, so is it less practicable or possible for that vehicle to be driven off the highway into a field or into a forest. The ground may be waterlogged after heavy rain, or the nature of the soil may be such that it cannot bear the weight of the transporter, or the incline off the road may be too steep or the gateway too narrow. In such circumstances, it is essential for the vehicle to be parked on the verge, whether that verge is privately or publicly owned.
It may well be argued that I am exaggerating these difficulties, for after all someone might say that the driver of the vehicle has only to get permission from a constable in uniform and he will then be within the law and all will be well. Indeed, it has been suggested that the farmer or landowner—the farmer in particular—has only to ring up the police station the day before to say that a vehicle will be parked on the verge in order to unload. The only difficulty I foresee about that is that he will not be able to make sure over the telephone that the constable is wearing his uniform.
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As your Lordships will appreciate, uniformed constables are not as common in the countryside as they used to be, and it does not require a great deal of imagination to foresee the waste of time and effort and energy that will be involved if this procedure has to be followed on every occasion.
For the reasons that I have given I hope that both the Promoters of this Bill and the Government will agree that this Amendment is a reasonable one and that if they are unable to accept it to-day they will be willing to consider the issues which have been raised before the next stage of the Bill. I beg to move.
LORD MIDDLETON: I would support the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, when he spoke about the effect this clause would have in the rural areas where so many activities necessitate parking on road verges, usually for loading and unloading. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, said that this Bill is not a heavy axe descending on commercial activity, but in country areas I venture to suggest that that is just what it might be if this no-parking Clause 2 goes through as it stands. I do not want to repeat the noble Viscount's arguments, but one can think of many areas, especially in the uplands, where, for instance, milk has to be collected, livestock loaded and unloaded, and where it can be done only on the road verges, because of the nature or configuration of the ground, or because of the buildings and stone walls, fences and narrow gateways and so on, that make it impossible to get the ordinary farm lorry clear of the road.
The forestry industry in particular would find it very inconvenient to have to get permission from a constable in uniform every time they have to carry out their timber operations. In many areas that I know in the North-East of England, the woodland rises steeply from the roads and you have to bring the timber down the hillside to the road verge to load. I am thinking particularly of the Kielder Forest in Northumberland, and certain of the Commission's forests in Durham and the Wykeham Forest in Yorkshire; and I imagine that the problem would be even more acute in Scotland, particularly in the West. In

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short, there is a multitude of activities which require lorries to carry out their normal business on the roadside in areas where the police are very sparse, and this provision as it stands would really be quite unworkable.
It may be argued that this Amendment could lead to all sorts of abuse by drivers outside the built-up areas leaving their vehicles on the road verges on the excuse that they were about to unload or load up at sometime. But if the police suspected unnecessary parking surely they could use Section 95 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong, but I think the one in use at the moment is Statutory Instrument No. 321 of 1969, which says that no person in charge of a motor vehicle or trailer shall cause or permit the motor vehicle or trailer to stand on a road so as to cause any unnecessary obstruction thereon. I think that as a rule the road verges are part of the highway. Alternatively, the police can use Section 24 of the Road Traffic Act 1972, in the case of an obstruction likely to cause danger. And if damage is being done to the verges, and there is no obstruction, then the local authorities can take action under the Highways Act 1959.
This Bill is rightly framed to cope with the amenity problems arising from parking heavy lorries on pavements, but unamended it would introduce legislation that would be difficult to enforce outside the towns, it would add greatly to the work of the police and it would hinder the ordinary day-to-day tasks of farmers and foresters and all those who have to make their living in a rural area. I very much hope that this Amendment will be accepted.
7.34 p.m.
LORD BETHELL: I am grateful to my noble friends for what they have said. This is of course a matter of balance. It is thought by the Promoters of this Bill that it is in principle undesirable that people should park their heavy commercial vehicles on pavements in towns or on verges in the countryside. On the other hand, it may be that in certain cases the parking of a large vehicle on a verge could be the lesser of two evils, and for this reason it was decided to introduce
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the provision whereby any driver of a heavy commercial vehicle can park his vehicle on a verge if he obtains the permission of a police constable. It may be that in certain circumstances it will be difficult for him to find a policeman, but I think my noble friends may have overlooked a possibility which would be open to any driver of a heavy commercial vehicle, which is to obtain permission from the police authorities for a certain category of parking. If a driver of a heavy commercial vehicle were to make a case to the police authorities that it was essential, for instance, for the loading of timber from a hillside to be done by parking on the verge and that such loading was done twice a week or at certain times, it seems to me extremely likely that the police, being reasonable people, provided there was no particular danger involved in allowing permission, would communicate to the owners of such vehicles that they would be allowed to park their vehicles on the verges at certain times and for certain purposes.
The alternative, which is the Amendment proposed by my noble friends, is one which the Promoters of this Bill cannot recommend for one specific reason; that is, that it would be open under the proposed Amendment for anyone who was prosecuted for loading or unloading while parked on a verge to say in court that he found it inconvenient to unload in any other place. Under such a provision it would be almost impossible for the police to convict someone who had parked his vehicle and unloaded. We feel that there must be something a little stricter than this. While I am on that subject, there is one point I should like to make to my noble friend Lord Davidson. This provision applies only to parking on verges which are part of the highway. If there is a verge which belongs to an individual, of course it would not be an offence to park on it. The owner of such a verge would be permitted to park on his own land. Any other person of course would be technically committing trespass, but there would not be a prosecution under this Bill.
There is no doubt that certain damage could be done to verges, particularly by the heavy commercial vehicles which park there, and it can be that danger is afforded to pedestrians who find that a

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footpath which may run along a verge is obstructed by a heavy commercial vehicle parked there. It can be dangerous if they are forced to walk into the road because the place where they walk is blocked by a vehicle. It is that sort of thing which the Promoters of this Bill are trying to prevent as well as discouraging people from parking on verges. Obviously, there are times when a heavy vehicle must park on a verge but we should prefer drivers not to do so if they can possibly find some other place to put their vehicles. Up to now, it could be that certain operators of heavy agricultural vehicles have left their vehicles on a verge when they could have taken them through a gate and into a field. While I recognise that a field may be boggy and that it may be impossible in certain circumstances for such vehicles to be driven into a field, we would obviously prefer them to be driven into a field if it is humanly possible. It is for this reason that the clause has been inserted, and we feel that there is sufficient protection in the comparatively rare cases when parking on a verge is essential, or is the lesser of two evils, in the provision whereby a driver or owner of a vehicle can obtain permission from a police constable—not necessarily again and again, not by ringing up every day, but by setting out a case for a blanket approval, which would be granted, I would suggest, by any reasonable police authority. For this reason the Promoters of the Bill cannot recommend this Amendment to the Committee.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My noble friend Lord Bethell has dealt with this Bill with such skill that I hesitate to say that I found his last answer not absolutely satisfactory, or as satisfactory as the other explanations he gave to us. I feel that my noble friends who have proposed and supported this Amendment have made a very strong case for the need to avoid, whenever possible, having to apply to the police for special permission in rural areas. Those of us who live in rural areas know, as my noble friends have said, that the police are very few and far between nowadays, and the time that can be wasted by such applications is far greater in the country than would be the case when having to obtain police approval in a town or city. I think, too,
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that many drivers would find it difficult to be sure whether the verge on which they feel they have to park belongs to a private owner or is part of the highway. I hope that my noble friend Lord Bethell will think about this a little more carefully, because I am not happy at present that the provisions of the Bill as it stands are likely to be as workable in the country areas for the purposes that have been referred to as they are in relation to the other cases that have been considered in built-up areas.
LORD CHAMPION: I am an enthusiastic supporter of this Bill, but I am bound to say that I did not find the reply of the noble Lord entirely convincing. It appears to me that the inclusion of this subsection in this clause would not damage the purpose of the Bill at all, but would rather let out someone who did it in certain circumstances and without having had to try to obtain permission from the police. As the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, has said, it is not always possible for people to find the local police and to go to them when something of this sort is going to take place, and it would seem to me wholly desirable that we should have a subsection such as this somewhere in the clause. Perhaps the noble Lord thinks that this Amendment is not worded quite as it might be worded, but I should think that he could take it back and look at it between now and Report stage, and perhaps consult his noble friend Lord Davidson, and then come along with something which the House would find satisfactory in this connection. I am bound to say that it looks to me as if this Amendment makes good sense, but if some slight amendment to the Amendment is needed surely this can be done between now and Report stage. I hope that the noble Lord will promise to take it back and look at it again.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Before my noble friend answers the points which have been raised, I should like to make one or two comments from the Government's point of view. I think my noble friend Lord Middleton was a little optimistic in regard to some of the powers which the police already have concerning parking on verges and pavements. There are powers existing, some of which he mentioned; but in answering a Question in your Lordships' House not so long ago

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I said that unless a vehicle was seen being driven on to a pavement it could not be assumed to have been driven on. I remember there was laughter; noble Lords thought I was being funny. But I was stating a legal fact. One of the small things this Bill will do is to remove that apparent nonsense, so that we shall not have vehicle owners getting away with that sort of thing.
I should like to support my noble friend Lord Bethell in again emphasising that this Bill is flexible. It refers to parking. Most of the things which have been envisaged by my noble friends Lord Davidson, Lord Middleton and Lord Amory have been cases where work has been taking place. If you are loading on cattle, you will probably be able to find a gateway with a hard entrance into the field, and be able to put up a pen. It may be that you are fencing and there is not an easy field with a hard entrance the other side. Somebody mentioned a hill; or there might be a wood on the other side and trees which are dangerous. But these are matters of work which will arise as matters of necessity, and it is inconceivable that if you did not have time to ring up the police before you needed to do the job they would ever prosecute. One can think of many other cases. If one was digging out a dyke at the side of a road one might require a heavy machine for digging out the dirt and a large vehicle into which to put it. You might need a 3-ton vehicle, unladen weight, for that task. It is inconceivable, again, that if one has not the time to ask the police beforehand the police will take action, if something is being done for the good of the community. If my noble friend Lord Bethell requires advice from the Government as to what form such a paragraph (c) should take, I have no doubt that the Department would give him every possible help. But I would repeat that I find it inconceivable that the agricultural community, bearing in mind the intentions of the movers of this Bill, would find it the burden that they suspect it might be.
LORD BETHELL: I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. The point is that we have done our best in trying to find a balance between the two evils, but if there are any proposals which
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noble Lords would care to put forward at Report stage the proposers of the Bill will of course consider them extremely carefully. The device we have used has been the proposal that, with the permission of a policeman, parking may be permitted on a verge, and that such permission may be given at the discretion of the police. I agree with my noble friend that the police are likely to consider such applications as reasonably as they consider other applications, and I feel that perhaps some of my noble friends are a little too apprehensive about the inconvenience involved in obtaining permission from the police. They may be few and far between in rural areas, but they are all on the telephone, and it is not terribly time-consuming to make a phone call for one specific permission or to write a letter if a more blanket permission is required. But certainly, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned the possibility of some Amendments being set down at Report stage, I can say that those who have sponsored this Bill will be very happy to consider such proposals and to try to work out something which the House would prefer. I am bound to say that at the moment I cannot think what such an Amendment would be, or what other device could both satisfy the desires of those who support this Bill and allay the fears of those who know the countryside well and who realise the problems involved in unloading and loading in rural areas. But certainly we will consider anything that is put before us.
VISCOUNT AMORY: There is one other small point. To-day, the police really are overloaded with work, and I think we need to be very sure before we put a commitment on to somebody even in regard to ringing them up for an approval which is being sought, unless that really is necessary. That is why I hope my noble friend Lord Bethell will give more consideration as to whether it is really necessary.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: My noble friend Lord Bethell suggests that we might have been too apprehensive over this problem. That may be so; but I think it is right that one should be apprehensive at this stage of a Bill. I do not know whether one has been making a mountain out of a molehill or a heavy commercial vehicle out of a Mini-Minor,

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but I think it right that this point should have been raised. I am grateful to my noble friend for saying that he will look at this matter. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton for saying that his Department will help between this stage and Report. Finally, I should like to thank the Committee for the support this Amendment has received, and particularly my noble friend Lord Amory. With the proviso that we will certainly come back to this at Report stage if nothing is done in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.52 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 5 line, 10, at end insert ("or
(c) that it is parked on a footway for the purposes of a lawfully held travelling fair.")
The noble and learned Lord said: I have already argued on the previous Amendment which I moved the broad point which I seek to achieve in moving the present Amendment. As your Lordships know, street fairs are held in country towns. They generally last for a day or a few days and when they are not street fairs it often is the case that the lorries which those who organise them bring on to the scene have to pass on to a fairground. When they do so it is almost impossible to avoid their being driven over a verge on many occasions. Likewise, when street fairs are held it is very difficult in many cases to avoid their being parked temporarily on the footway. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, listened attentively to the arguments in support of the previous Amendment and said that it was a matter of balance. I sympathise with him and I am sure that all noble Lords do so. One wants to get this excellent Bill right, but at the same time to get it right without unduly interfering with processes that must go on.
I seek a very much smaller invasion of the principle of this Bill. When I first read the last Amendment I wondered whether I could say that the vehicles with which I am concerned crept within the scope of that Amendment and whether, if that Amendment were carried or if something emerged as a result of the consultations that are to take place, it would automatically include
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the owners of vehicles used for the purposes of street fairs and country fairs. I thought that they would not be so included because the previous Amendment dealt with loading and unloading; and that would not necessarily be the case when you are holding a street fair or a country fair.
The purpose of both Amendments is very similar. I would say, harking back to the use of the words on balance, that mine is very much more limited in scope. Perhaps it would be a little unreasonable, when the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has said that he would like to think about the previous Amendment, for me to press on him now the acceptance of the Amendment that I move. If he intimates that he will be willing to do so I shall be overjoyed; but from what he has said before he might find some difficulty in doing that. Therefore, might I ask that when he is considering the previous Amendment he would also consider the point of view of those to whom I have referred who conduct these street fairs and country fairs? I feel that he probably will be able to say that he will take both into account.
The noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, mentioned the point, when the discussion was taking place about communicating with the police by telephone. I entirely sympathise with what the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, said, about not further overburdening the police. I do not think that I shall be found to be overburdening them very much if I limit the scope of my Amendment to the street fairs which occur only once or twice a year—not more. The difficulty to which the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, pointed was that the Bill as drafted required that the person accused, against whom a prosecution has been brought, has affirmatively to establish that the constable who gave permission was in uniform. Obviously that cannot be done if you previously ring up a police station or possibly a police officer's home in some outlying district.
One possible approach might be to envisage that this sort of arrangement would in the future be made by telephone. It might be a standing arrangement, as was suggested, or an arrangement on a particular occasion; but the Bill might be amended—I put it to your Lordships for consideration—

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by the elimination of the words "in uniform". That, I submit, might give rise to the reasonable practicability that those who have occasion to load and unload or who wish to bring street fairs or country fairs to a particular amenity district could have some standing arrangement with the local police authorities to enable them, in so far as they must, to park for a short time on the verge or footway. That might get over the difficulty. It would assist the two noble Lords who moved the previous Amendment possibly to the same extent as it might assist those whose cause I am putting forward at the moment in relation to street fairs and country fairs. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to say that he will give consideration to my proposals when giving consideration to the previous proposals. The noble Lord who spoke from the Front Bench intimated that the Government had some sympathy with it.
It is conceivable that the right method might be, as was suggested on the occasion of the previous Amendment I moved, that a circular could be brought into play for this purpose and the police authorities could be sent a circular giving some kind of general practice which might be followed when this sort of situation arose. But no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, will be good enough to say that he will take my Amendment into account when he considers the previous one and will also think of all these possibilities. If he is able to tell me that, I shall ask permission of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment that I now move.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I will take just a minute of your Lordships' time. I should like the noble Lord to consider what would be the position in a lovely country area with a village green which might have 10 footpaths across it and on which from time immemorial circuses and country fairs had been held. Some cantankerous old crone who lived in a cottage by the side of the green and who did not like that fair would be able to refer to the noble Lord's Bill and say, "They are parking their vehicles and pitching their tents and caravans all around and about and on the footpaths";
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or some old curmudgeon on the other side could say the same thing and could use this Bill to move away a fair which for centuries has been held on that village green. I appeal to the noble Lord to remember that point.
LORD BETHELL: My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, with his great knowledge of the law. I will certainly consider his suggestion about an alteration being made to the necessity for telephoning a policeman in uniform. I remember once in the Army listening to a lecture on the use of the telephone and a soldier asking the lecturer, "If the 'phone rings and an officer is on the other end, do you salute?" The same principle could apply here and it could be that the use of the telephone is the key to this proposal. I will certainly consider what the noble and learned Lord has said. As for his Amendment in its precise definition, he is right in thinking that I hope he will withdraw the Amendment, roughly for the same reasons that I gave for not feeling able to approve the first Amendment that he moved. It seems most likely that by mentioning a "lawfully held travelling fair" the noble and learned Lord is making clear that no particular problem is likely to arise if a fair is lawfully held, and normally there are certain by-laws laying down where fairs may be held.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, mentioned the village green. Surely it would be incumbent on the local police to give any permission for parking on verges which was necessary in order that the fair should be conducted lawfully and give lawful enjoyment to the community. The police might take the view that the fair could be held without parking on verges, and that parking somewhere else would be better for the community. In such a case I hope the police would refuse permission to park on verges. But if there were no other way, and the fair was lawful. I hope and expect that the police would give permission for this lawful and enjoyable activity. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for what he has said.
LORD STOW HILL: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for

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what he has said. In view of it, I ask permission to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHAMPION: On Second Reading I said that I wondered whether the existing law regarding the parking of lorries in residential areas needed strengthening. After calling attention to the undesirability of this practice, for it certainly spoils the character of a street and often that of a whole residential area, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, to tell me something about this aspect. The noble Lord said he thought it a matter for the Committee stage. Subsequently, he was good enough to write to me assuring me that ample powers exist. So the question arises, why are these powers not enforced?
I also understand from Lord Mowbray and Stourton's letter that the difficulty that the police and other authorities experience in enforcing the law in this connection is that there is an absence of suitable overnight parking areas. Were it not for that, the noble Lord thought that the law would be enforced. My only point in raising the matter at this stage is to try to urge on the appropriate Government Department that they in turn should urge local authorities and ether responsible authorities to provide places for the overnight parking of lorries. This would relieve residential areas of the inconvenience of vehicles being parked outside houses, and so on. That was my only purpose and I will leave it at that. I do not intend to delay this Committee stage any longer.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for his words of wisdom. Of course the Department will take note of what he has said, and if there is anything further that I can tell him on Report, I will do so.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Directions to drivers of overloaded vehicles]:
8.4 p.m.
LORD BETHELL LORD BETHELL moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 6, line 11, leave out ("direct the driver to remove the vehicle") and insert ("by direction in writing require the person in charge of the vehicle to remove it").
The noble Lord said: Clause 3 of the Bill makes it possible for an enforcement officer to give permission for a heavy commercial vehicle which has been stopped because it was thought to be overloaded to be moved to a point where unloading may take place. Without this provision it would, technically speaking, be an offence for the enforcement officer to give such an instruction to the driver of the vehicle. He might be said to be conniving at the driving of an overloaded vehicle, and if such a vehicle were involved in an accident he might be held to be legally responsible, together with the driver. This Amendment makes it incumbent on the enforcement officer to give such instruction to a driver of an overloaded vehicle in writing rather than verbally. It is thought more desirable that a record should be kept of such instructions and therefore that the orders should be given in writing. The Amendment also changes the definition of the driver of the vehicle to "the person in charge of the vehicle", which brings the definition in line with the Section 57(7) of the Road Traffic Act 1972.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BETHELL LORD BETHELL moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 6, line 25, at end insert—
("(2) For subsection (9) of the said section 57 there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
"(9) A person who—

(a) drives a goods vehicle on a road, or causes or permits a goods vehicle to be so driven, in contravention of a prohibition under this section; or

(b) refuses, neglects or otherwise fails to comply within a reasonable time with a direction under subsection (7) above,

shall be guilty of an offence.";
and accordingly, in column 2 of the reference to the said subsection (9) in Part I of Schedule 4 to that Act, after the word "service" there shall he inserted the words "or refusing, neglecting or otherwise failing to comply with a direction to remove a dangerous heavy commercial vehicle".").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment relates to the same problem of a driver of an overloaded vehicle being directed to take his vehicle to a point where its weight could be brought down to the appropriate level. This Amendment envisages a situation where the driver of a vehicle so stopped might decide not to move his vehicle. If he took such unreasonable action he would

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not, under present legislation, be committing an offence. It is thought anomalous that such a driver who proceeded with his load and disobeyed the orders of an enforcement officer would be committing an offence, whereas if he simply abandoned his vehicle and refused to move it he would not be committing an offence. It is considered desirable that both these acts should be offences and be similarly punishable. I hope that the Committee will agree that this is a small but appropriate Amendment and will approve it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed. Bill reported with the Amendments.

COUNTRYSIDE COMMISSION REPORT
8.10 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government the following Question:
"Whether they intend to take any action on the Fifth Report of the Countryside Commission 1971–72; and, if so, what and when."
That means that I want to explore the Government's attitude to the work of the Countryside Commission as a whole, and to ask them how they envisage its future role. The terms of the Countryside Act are so wide that it is difficult to know in its many roles exactly what the Commission should be doing. It is not answerable to Parliament. It is to the D.O.E. that it looks for its funds, its staff, and indeed for its very being. It is all the more important that we should know what the Department's attitude to the Commission is because the Commission's only access to Parliament is through its Report. My Unstarred Question is directed at my inference from its Fifth Report about its role and its future.
What is the role of the Countryside Commission? Some eighteen months ago it put a Paper before the Department of the Environment setting forth what its role should be, and more or less ever since I think discussions have been going on within the Department as to how it
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should evolve. An hour ago I received a paper called The Guidelines for Priorities in the Work of the Commission. It is two pages long. The first half page summarises the Countryside Act, and the next paragraph states that conservation and recreation are complementary. Well, my Lords, they may be complementary, but they are frequently conflicting. The paragraph goes on to say that they are interdependent and of equal importance. Then it lists certain priorities: National Parks and key areas—that means areas of outstanding natural beauty, heritage coasts and Green Belts. It then goes on to mention recreation. It then mentions recreation again, and then recreational information. This is most useful, so far as it goes, but I presume that it is not the whole answer to what the Department of the Environment feel should be the role of the Countryside Commission. It is in order to try to elicit that from the Government that I have put down this Question.
My Lords, so far as amenity societies are concerned, I do not believe there is any great difference of opinion as to what the role should be. It falls into two parts. I think the first part is that the Commission should act in some measure as the environmental conscience of the Department of the Environment—that is not my phrase, but I think it is an extremely good one. I recognise fully that the Countryside Commission is not itself an amenity society; it does not pretend to be, and could not be. Nevertheless, it can offer leadership of a kind which even the very best amenity societies cannot give. It should not be afraid to oppose the Government and the Department, though again I can see that it cannot be seen to be lobbying too directly or to be opposing too frequently and too blatantly. It can, however, adopt a forceful public role as guardian of the countryside. That is the first aspect. I think all of the amenity societies, and the voluntary bodies see this as being perhaps the most important thing that the Countryside Commission can do.
Secondly, I think that it should concern itself with recreation. I said a moment ago that there was often a conflict between recreation and amenity, and it is the duty of the Countryside Commission to try to resolve that conflict.

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It is its duty, within the framework of recreation, to try to devise means whereby recreation can fit into all the other aspects of what goes on in the countryside—agriculture, forestry and a thousand and one things—whereby the land, as such, earns its living. Recreation is in some ways an explosive problem, because it has grown upon us so fast. So that research must be carried out into how one can enable the many millions of people who now have the means of getting into the countryside to enjoy it without destroying what they have come to enjoy, and at the same time without seriously damaging those aspects of it which relate not only to its amenity but to its workshop aspect. It may be said that this is too wide a term of reference for any body such as the Countryside Commission to be able to cope with. I am inclined to think that at present this is true, and that it can do this only if much more money is forthcoming: and if more money is not forthcoming, then these wider aspects, which are the ones I put first, with regard to its being the environmental conscience of the Department, cannot be implemented and the Commission must inevitably restrict itself to the rather narrower problems of recreation.
My Lords, I want to praise what the Commission has done and is doing—how good some of its Reports have been, how well thought out—but at the same time I want to enter one small hint of criticism. It is that it sometimes seems to me that when advice or Reports have come up against opposition, the Countryside Commission perhaps has tended to give way too easily. I wonder whether the reason why it does that is because it is not sure of its standing with regard to the Department of the Environment. One sometimes gets the feeling that there are a number of people in the Department who feel that there is no future for the Countryside Commission and that perhaps it could conveniently at some future date be wound up. I am looking forward to the answer that the noble Lord is going to give me, and hope he will say that I am very much wide of the mark and that that is nothing near what the Department think.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that the Commission is being compelled to spend too much of its time on research into
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recreation on the ground that the environmental conscience side and planning control (shall I say?) can already be dealt with by planning authorities; secondly, that that conscience is better supplied by the voluntary bodies; and thirdly, that the impact of recreation on the countryside is so explosive that this is something which must be considered first and foremost and almost all the time. I do not accept any of those three propositions. First of all, I think the planning authorities themselves sometimes commit outrages. In a town riot a thousand miles from here the activities of its planning authority are so outrageous that it looks as though they will have to be taken over by the Government Department. Again, I am not at all happy about how, under the new Local Government Act, the district councils which are to be responsible for the detailed aspect of planning will have enough expertise to be able to carry it out. It seems to me, from a purely conscience planning point of view, that the Countryside Commission not only can advise in every direction, but should do so.
With regard to the voluntary bodies, the feeling exists, I believe, that this environmental conscience of the Department can be exercised by the voluntary bodies. Well, it cannot. First of all, however effective they are—and, as we all know, they are not all that effective— they cannot give that leadership which a body like the Countryside Commission can give. They have not enough money; there are too many of them, and it is too easy for the commercial interests (because the prizes are enormous) to get the Commission to do something which the amenities societies might think to be wrong. Therefore, as I say, it is too easy and they can be picked off individually, one by one. If they are going to be stronger—though this conies into another context—is there any chance that the amenity societies might be able to get some of the money—£3¼ million, was it?—that it is suggested might come the way of the voluntary bodies? Perhaps the noble Lord could give some information on this when he replies. No money has yet come their way, nor does it seem likely that money will be given to them. It may be given to projects which are perhaps more emotive than the Countryside Commission.

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Lastly, I do not believe that the recreational explosion is so acute a problem that in fact the Countryside Commission should be devoting all its attention to it. It is an explosive problem, and a very difficult one. It is extremely difficult to sort out the conflict between amenity and recreation while at the same time leaving the countryside to earn its living by traditional methods. So it does not seem to me necessary, on that score alone, to say that it is a problem to which the Countryside Commission should be entirely devoted.
When the Countryside Commission put out its Report some months ago, I put my name down as the mover of a Motion to call attention to that Report. Indeed I would much have preferred to do this. I could then have gone over the Report in detail and given it the praise which I feel it very much deserves in all its different aspects. However, I have not been able to get time for such a Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, asked whether I would be willing to allow my Motion (as it then was) to call attention to the Report of the Countryside Commission to be linked with his own Report on National Parks, which is due any time within the next few months. I was not willing to do this, because I thought the two things were totally different. The Countryside Commission has of course a particular regard for National Parks, which it inherited from the old National Parks Commission. Nevertheless it is in fact something quite different. That is why I felt it would be wrong to put the two together, and I have settled for an Unstarred Question on a rather narrower issue than would have been the case with my proposed Motion.
There are two questions relating to National Parks which concern the Countryside Commission very closely. I should like to mention them now because they are outside the terms of reference of the noble Lord's Report on the National Parks. The first question concerns members of National Parks boards and committees. The Secretary of State is under an obligation to consult the Countryside Commission about this matter. As your Lordships know, these boards and committees will shortly be reconstituted. Two-thirds of them are to be county council appointments, and one-third will be made
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on the nomination of the Secretary of State after consultation with the Countryside Commission. In the past some of the Secretary of State's appointments have seemed to my friends and me to concern people, with, shall we say, no special aptitudes or qualifications for looking at the wider aspects—that is, national aspects as opposed to local interests. The local interests are very well taken care of by a two-thirds majority on the boards and committees and the remaining one-third —and a great deal has been made of this in connection with the administration of the Parks—should be people who are not only concerned with the narrower local interest but who also look at things from the wider national point of view. I hope very much that the noble Lord and his friends will look closely at this point when the time comes.
As for National Park officers, it was central to the idea of the Local Government Act that each National Park should have its own officer, who would be a man of senior status. May I remind noble Lords that this was part of a compromise which the Government accepted as between the County Councils Association and the Countryside Commission. It will be remembered that what the Countryside Commission would have liked best were autonomous country parks. The County Councils Association wanted country parks which were part and parcel of their set-up. A compromise was reached. part of which meant that National Parks officers should be, as I have said, of senior status and, as far as possible, independent of the county councils. It seems to me there is now a suggestion that some county councils are going to depart, at least from the spirit, if not the letter, of this compromise because they are appointing officers who will not be whole-time independent officers dealing with a Park. I am not sure of the full facts here, but I have heard it suggested that Yorkshire may be appointing one officer to deal with two Parks. I mention that single aspect of Park administration because it does concern the Countryside Commission and it does not come within the terms of reference of the noble Lord's examination of National Parks.
Having said that, my Lords, I do not really want to discuss National Parks but rather to concentrate on the Countryside Commission. This is the Fifth Report,

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and the impression sometimes gained in (shall I say?) the amenity movement is that the Commission is being quietly strangled by the Government because they see no fuure for it. The impression is also sometimes given—and I do not think this is altogether a fault of the Commission but is a result of the situation in which it finds itself—that the Commission is compounding this felony (if that is the right word) by being afraid to take up an unequivocal position against the Government when it feels that the Government are wrong. I think that some members of the Commission probably feel that there is a constitutional position here, and that although the Commission is not a Government Department it is a para-Government Department. if it might be so described, and therefore it is not possible boldly to criticise what the Government are doing. I cannot take that view. It seems to me that in the kind of world in which we live, with bodies of this kind set up by Government Departments and paid for by them, it is the duty of such bodies to stand firm and, when they think the Government are wrong, to say so absolutely definitely. I do not think there is any constitutional difficulty about that.
What I have said amounts to a suggestion that it is necessary to clarify and strengthen the role of the Countryside Commission lest its scope be further restricted. I want to know how the Government see it, and indeed what they are going to do about it. Are they going to strengthen it? Are they going to clarify it? If they are not going to strengthen it, what are they going to do with it? Will it be turned into a mere agency for dealing with country parks? If that is what the Government intend, what will they do with their agencies when they have got it working properly? I hope it will not be like Thomas Cook and be just sold off.
My Lords, I hope the Government are going to give a satisfactory answer, not only regarding the amount of money they are going to give, but how they see the Commission acting, and also as to the two small points about National Parks.
8.30 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, first of all, I want to say that I agree with every word the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said about the Countryside Commission's Report
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and its role; every word about National Parks administration and a senior officer needed in each, and the danger of having one officer spread between two parks; and every word about the desirability of independence and courage on the part of the Countryside Commission itself. I have only one quarrel with him: he said he hoped that the Government would clarify the role of the Countryside Commission. I hope that they will do nothing of the sort. It is up to the Countryside Commission to clarify its own role. I shall return to this point.
If I may, I will first take up two or three major points in the Report before coming to the position of the Countryside Commission. In their general review, which is usually the part of the annual report of a para-Governmental body to which you must turn to find out what they really care about, they make two points on which I should like to hear what the Government have to say. The first is about afforestation on high ground in general, especially in National Parks. The Commission says that it has not proved possible to achieve the protection of landscapes from afforestation satisfactorily by voluntary agreements; and adjustment of taxation and estate duty relief to the same end would be a complicated task. The Commission goes on to say that something more must be done. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, whether he agrees with that and, if so, whether the Government will do something more and admit that voluntary agreements have failed and that planning control over afforestation is now necessary.
The second point is the closely related one about agricultural processes in general which, as the House will remember, are free of planning control. Here the Commission says that powers for local authorities to enter into agreements with farmers and landowners about this matter exist, but none is specifically related to landscape conservation. It goes on to complain that the cost to local authorities for negotiating and operating agreements is not covered by grant assistance (I am looking at page 3 of the Report), and it comes to the main point of the complaint that there are no reserve powers allowing orders to be imposed in cases of complete intransigence. This is something which we were aware of when we were in Government. I wonder whether the present

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Government have found the same thing and whether they have any plans to rectify it.
My last question to the Government on the Report is about the North Wessex Downs area of outstanding natural beauty. Is it yet designated'? I apologise for my ignorance. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, nods. It is designated and I deduce that it has been designated since the Report appeared. This is good news. I should like to point out that it is now seven years since the 1966 Election and since we in the Ministry suggested to the Countryside Commission that it should propose to us that this A.O.N.B. should be designated. Is seven years a normal time? Is it fast enough'? If the Government agree with me that it is by no means fast enough, would they consider having a look, with the Countryside Commission, at the possibility of somewhat reducing that time in the future?
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, spoke of the guidelines for priorities in work for the Countryside Commission, of which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was courteous enough to give the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and me a copy before this discussion. I know it is always difficult and perhaps wrong to discuss a document which is not before the House; but I take it that it is available to any Member of the House who wants it and so it is not out of order to talk about it. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, has described the document. It is only two pages long. Half of it is devoted to reminding the Countryside Commission of the contents of the Act under which the Commission operates. A quarter of it is devoted to praising the virtues of orderly administration and a quarter is devoted to a series of objectives—in effect a list of priorities of all the things the Countryside Commission ought to be doing with an implied order of preference: most important first, least important last. it so happens that I agree with that list of priorities; I think the things are in the right order. What does it matter whether I agree with this? What does it matter whether the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench agrees with this? It is a most extraordinary document. It is a profoundly paternalistic
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document. It assumes, in a way, that the Commission is incapable of reading the Act which governs its activities. It assumes that it needs to be told how to carry out its duties by that very Government machine which has set it up because it felt the need of something independent.
I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that I remember from the inside the setting up of the Countryside Commission. It was by no means our intention that it should be a mere offshoot of the Department; it was by no means our intention that it should be for ever in leading strings, subject to guidelines from time to time if it looked confused or was doing the wrong thing. We in the Government then—and this is not what is important—proposed to Parliament that there should be set up a statutory body under Parliament to do certain things the Government could not do, or should not do, which would be perfectly free to oppose the Government, to tick the Government off, to advise the Government what they ought to do, to criticise them publicly when in its own free judgment it judged right so to do. Parliament accepted that view—this is the point—and the Countryside Commission is the creature of Parliament, which wanted that done.
What is this document telling the Countryside Commission how to execute its functions and what relative importance to place on its different functions? Has the document been agreed to by the Countryside Commission? I hope it has not, because it seems to me that if the Countryside Commission is going round agreeing to these apron-string guidelines from the Government it might as well pack up shop and go home. I consider it an improper document in itself, and if it is accepted by the Commission I consider that an ignominious acceptance. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, can tell us that this is merely a statement of what the Government hope the Countryside Commission will do, which of course the Government are as free to send to it as to any other body that is free—the C.P.R.E. for instance—and the Countryside Commission will do no more than take it into account along with representations from all other sources that it may receive on the execution of its duties.
8.39 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I too find myself in general agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has said. I particularly like the thoughtful way in which he attempted to put the work of the Countryside Commission in perspective, against the principle, so to speak, which he suggested ought to be governing it. I am not sure that I go quite so far as he did in admiration for this Report which his Question has given us the opportunity of discussing tonight. We have not discussed one of these Reports for a long time. It is high time that we had the opportunity of doing so. Lord Silkin, who was the begetter of the National Parks Act, in a series of valuable speeches used to make a habit of calling attention to these Reports. And from time to time of course, over the last few years particularly, we have had the noble Lord, Lord Molson, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, himself, calling attention to certain matters in connection with the Countryside Commission. I hope that Lord Henley, whose developing interest in the problems of the countryside and in the protection of rural England over the last few years has been a great encouragement to what I might describe as the "old soldiers" in this campaign, will in future give us the opportunity of discussing these Reports as they come out because it is a valuable way of reviewing the work of the Countryside Commission and an opportunity which your Lordships ought to have at regular intervals.
I do not propose to attempt to discuss this Report in detail. It is a short document. When you pick it up you think it is perhaps substantial, but there are only 15 pages of Report; the rest of it is a series of appendices. I must say think it is too short considering the importance of the work which the Countryside Commission does. It shows that a good deal of useful work has in fact been done during the period with which it deals, mainly, as appears from the Report itself, advisory and promotional work—that is a quotation from the Report itself: "advisory and promotional activities"—such as the development, which again it draws attention to particularly, of information services. All this is in what is I think the longest section of the Report. Services
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of this kind are of undoubted value, but it seems to me that they should hardly be the core of the Report of the recent work of the Countryside Commission.
It is good to note that three areas of outstanding natural beauty have been declared over the period, and yet another one, apparently, more recently. I was particularly glad to find that the Commission is persisting in its work of trying to get another National Park established in Wales. And of course there is one more—a long-distance footpath; and these long-distance footpaths are, I think, one of the outstanding achievements of the Commission in the past, and I am glad to note that it is still working on them. But it does not, I think, amount to as much as one would expect and hope for. And so much attention and concentration on this side of it very largely bears out the criticism that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was making, that the Commission is not in fact showing that leadership which I think the voluntary societies to which he referred are entitled to expect from it and certainly, I say from my own knowledge, hope will be given to them. As Lord Henley has said, there are a number of them which are rather broken up, financially not too well off, but which are doing splendid work, the value of which is hardly realised by the general community. They really need the kind of leadership which the Countryside Commission can give. I regret to say that they are not feeling at the present that they are getting this leadership. In fact, they are feeling a bit disgruntled and feeling that the Countryside Commission has been rather letting them down. The Report, many of the members of these societies feel, is a rather humdrum affair: it does not show that real energy and leadership is being put into the work in the way that they would like to see.
Does this mean that there is something wrong in Regent's Park, or does it mean it has not enough money to employ the personnel it needs? I am inclined to think that that is true to some extent under both heads. I am a little worried about the situation at Cambridge Gate. It is obvious from this Report that money is lacking and that the personnel which ought to be employed by the Countryside Commission is not there—not enough of it and perhaps not sufficiently expert.

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The Report seems to me to make it clear that the Commission is in fact rather falling down in this way; that it is not prepared, as Lord Henley suggested, to stand up to the Department itself when it ought to be doing so, and that the attitude which it is taking up in many of these matters is not sufficiently stiff. I was particularly interested and rather upset by what is said in the Report about water space recreation. Over the last years water space recreation has been of developing importance, and very great developing importance, and the work of the Inland Waterways Association deserves the very highest praise. But it is all part of the general business of amenities and of the recreation which the Countryside Commission, to a large extent, at any rate, exists to develop. As I say, it mentions the discussions and negotiations about the establishment of a space amenities commission and says it is disturbed. I think the fact that it uses the word "disturbed" indicates the rather placid outlook which it has about things. It ought to be a great deal more than disturbed about such an encroachment and inroad into the work which, quite obviously, it ought to be doing. I do not like that business in the new document about its, as it were, negotiating with all these other societies in respect of the job which Parliament has given to it in the Countryside Act. In spite of the fact that I am a very old soldier in this movement—and I am afraid that this has been developing very much over recent years—it is because of reasons of this kind that I find in the voluntary societies a feeling that the Countryside Commission is rather letting them down.
How far is this due to the sort of attitude which the noble Lord, Lord Henley, mentioned. as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and which I myself have been saying something about in the earlier passages of this speech? I think to a quite substantial extent it is; but where the Countryside Commission really blotted its copybook so far as the voluntary societies were concerned was when it threw the Longland Report overboard and, in effect, gave way to the County Councils' Association. It certainly ought to have stood cut. We have had a debate about this and I do not propose to go into the pros and cons of it.
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It is dealt with in this Report in about 12 lines—one of the most important matters which have happened over the last years —without any attempt to discuss the pros and cons of it, as one would expect to find. It is true that in an appendix the agreement with the county councils is set out. There is no question at all that in the voluntary societies this has blotted the copybook of the Countryside Commission, and I hope that this kind of thing will not happen again. Of course I know that the Countryside Commission does not feel that it has let the side down. It feels that it has scored a diplomatic victory. I do not agree, but even if it had, there are diplomatic victories which can be achieved at too high a cost; and this was certainly one of them because the movement really cannot afford to forfeit the respect and confidence of the voluntary societies.
I remember having a discussion with Mr. Hookway, the energetic director of the Countryside Commission, just about the time when these negotiations with the county council were going on. One of the points that he made was that his principal offices which were to be established in the National Park regions was a very great achievement, and I can quite see that point of view. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, drew attention to this particular point, because it is very important indeed that when this scheme comes into operation next year each of the National Parks should in fact be equipped with a really first-class man. Anyone who has watched this from the beginning, before the National Parks came into existence, roust know perfectly well that the outstanding success which has been achieved in the Peak National Park, and perhaps not quite to the same extent in the Lake District, has really been a success rather of personalities than of the administrative arrangements, which obviously are much better there than they are in the other National Parks.
But administrative arrangements by themselves cannot achieve anything. The point is that the man who ran the Peak District for a long time, Mr. Foster, was an outstanding man. He was not only a fine planning officer but a very fine manager and leader, and he was supported tremendously well by the personnel of his planning board in the Peak District. I could mention several other names; and

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all the names that one could mention in this connection are always the national nominations. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, is absolutely right when he emphasises the great importance of getting good national nominations.
It is the same in the Lake District. Mr. Himsworth, who is the clerk to the Lake District planning committee, has done a first-class job of work from the very beginning. How he managed to carry it all, with his heavy burden as clerk to the county council, it is difficult to tell. But the work that they have done shows that the personal qualities of the men who are in the jobs are of the greatest importance and I hope that this evasive action on the part of the county councils will be nipped in the bud by the Department. I should like to know from the Minister when he replies what steps the Department are taking to see that good men are in fact appointed in the National Parks because this compromise, so to speak, can work satisfactorily only if first-class men are installed in these jobs. I am not only referring to planning officers, because planning is not enough; it needs leadership and competent management as well.
In the same way it is very important that the right men and women should be appointed to these committees. Some of those who were chosen in the Peak District (I suppose by the late Lord Silkin) were outstanding people who have carried the burden from that time to this, and it was to a large extent the same in the Lake District. I hope that the Minister will have this particular matter very much in mind, because it is one of outstanding importance.
The last thing I should like to refer to is in fact the Minister's own committee. It is the Aims and Purposes Committee, which is referred to in the Report in a paragraph which I should say was easily the most important paragraph in this Report. The National Parks have now been in existence for a quarter of a century. They have not really been properly looked at during the whole of this period because they had to settle down and get to work. But that all happened a long time ago, and it is high time that a really careful examination was made on the spot of what they are doing and what their aims and objects should be. The tours about the country of the noble Lord.
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Lord Sandford, have been received with warm appreciation inside the voluntary organisations. I can assure him of that. We are greatly looking forward to his Report, but I do not propose to try to forecast what he is going to say because undoubtedly it will be something which we must debate in your Lordships' House as soon as we are in a position to do so, and we are looking forward to that. This, so to speak, is just an interim discussion on some of these important matters and we hope that the noble Lord will be able to tell us that his Report will be published very soon indeed and that an opportunity, not just to ask an Unstarred Question, but for a proper full-dress debate, will be accorded to us in your Lordships' House.
8.57 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for providing us with this opportunity of discussing the valuable work undertaken by the Countryside Commission for the conservation and enhancement of the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside, and for the encouragement of the provision and improvement of facilities for recreation and enjoyment in the countryside. think those are its twin functions. In reviewing the particular aspects of its work in this last Report, the Commission very properly expressed views on action which would help to advance the work with which they are entrusted by Statute. Not only were many of the matters to which its Fifth Report refers already the subject of discussion with myself and my Department, but by now many matters have been carried quite a long way forward, and I will speak about a number of them.
I agree with both the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that it is important for the role of the Countryside Commission to be strengthened and to be clarified. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet (if this was his implication), that that is not something which my Department can impose on the Commission but something that we have to do jointly. Because of that, I agree that one of the most significant matters referred to right at the beginning of this Report is the discussions which I have been having over recent months with the chairman of the

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Commission on questions affecting its future programme. The Commission refers at the beginning of its Report to an earlier stage of these discussions. We have considered the possibility of altering the present footing on which the Commission operates, under which the Commission's expenditure is borne on the Departmental Votes, the accounting officer is within our Department, and its staff are civil servants. We have been considering that to see whether some more independent status for the Commission could be arrived at, under which it would be a grant-aided body—and I think that is what the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, would prefer. But this change would involve legislation, and earlier this year the Commission accepted that in view of the present pressures on Parliamentary time the right and best course would be to concentrate instead on streamlining the existing arrangements so as to give the Commission as much freedom of action as possible in drawing up and carrying out its programme as is consistent with the constitutional framework under which it is at present operating.
I am glad to say that agreement has now been reached, as set out in that note which describes the priorities to which the Commission will have regard within its statutory responsibilities. And I am glad to know that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, agrees broadly with it. The copies which I have made available to noble Lords are a summary only of a larger document amounting to about 14 pages going into the whole thing in rather more detail. Together they provide for the Commission to give priority to matters in which it is the main expert among the central agencies in England and Wales. These are, principally, the National Parks, with particular reference to the new provisions relating to National Parks in the Local Government Act 1972 as well as other key areas of the countryside, such as areas of outstanding natural beauty, heritage coasts, Green Belts, and other areas of special significance in relation to the conservation of landscape or informal countryside recreation.
As noble Lords who have seen this document will know, they also include the rapid provision of more facilities for informal countryside recreation such as
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country parks and picnic sites. Here we have to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to the previous Administration who provided for all this in the 1968 Countryside Act. The priorities go on to include the enhancement of the quality of existing and new recreational facilities by encouraging higher standards of management and design—I think everybody will welcome that—and also the development of countryside interpretative and information facilities and services to improve the visitors' appreciation of the countryside; to put it in a nutshell, a better understanding between townsmen and countrymen. That is important also. With the Commission, we intend to review these priorities from time to time to reflect any further changes in policy or emphasis.
We have also undertaken a complete review of the arrangements under which the Commission will enter into commitments to expenditure and on the staffing implications of a programme devised in accordance with these priorities and guidelines. I believe that this review, by facilitating the decisions by the Commission, will enable its work in future to be more purposeful and effective than it has been so far. I know that the Commission itself is unanimously of the view that what has been done represents a considerable step forward and the Chairman has expressed his appreciation and thanks to me and to my officials for the efforts we have been making to respond to this first item in its review and to get relationships with the Departments on a satisfactory footing within the present statutory framework. This of course fully recognises the fact that the Commission has an independent voice of its own which it is entirely at liberty to use and which is entirely right for it to use whenever it sees fit. Therefore, far from strangling the Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was saying, we have enabled it to increase its expenditure from £600,000 in the last year of the last Administration to £1 million in the last financial year in this Administration. I do not think, therefore, that it can be said that we are strangling the Commission in any sense.
So far as finance is concerned, and talking now about the National Parks, I have personally given an undertaking that the lion's share of the cost of administering National Parks should in future be met by the Exchequer rather than the

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ratepayer. Further legislation is still needed to give effect to this and it is not possible for me to say precisely when it will be introduced, but we intend at the earliest possible moment to introduce, alongside a newer and fairer system of rate support grant, a National Park block grant towards expenditure on National Parks. Moreover, eligible expenditure under that will include not only the cost of projects of a kind which have qualified for specific grant in the past but the full cost of administration and expenditure on such things as management agreements, surveys, and so on—all essential for the efficient administration and management of the Parks—and the exacting process of consultation which must underpin all National Park work in the future and which requires staff to do it. My Department are already in consultation with the local authority associations on the form of this proposed National Park block grant and the way in which it might be administered. It is also intended, with the demise of many specific Government grants to local authorities, to provide for the Countryside Commission to give financial assistance for countryside projects to local authorities and other public bodies, as well as those which it already gives to private interests. That, again, will extend both its influence and its effectiveness.
In response to the noble Lord's question, I should like to refer briefly to some of the other principal matters that are referred to in the Report. The Commission, with its special responsibility towards the National Parks, has of course been closely associated with the preparation of the guidance to local authorities on the implementation of the provisions relating to the National Parks in the Local Government Act 1972, and we have recently sent out, in Circular 63/73 which the noble Lord will have seen, I think, our further guidance on that matter. I absolutely agree with noble Lords who have spoken that the selection of suitable candidates to be nominated by the Secretary of State for appointment to the National Park Committees and boards is of the greatest importance and I am most impressed by the thoroughness with which the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Commission have been conducting the consultations on which they are basing their advice to us about these
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particular candidates. I spent the last weekend with the Countryside Commission and all 10 National Parks at a three-day conference in which I was at pains to stress the various things that need to be done in order to get the new National Park authorities set up with their new members and their new staff. I was at particular pains to stress the cardinal importance of the National Park officers; and if I may I will send the noble Lord, Lord Henley, a copy of my remarks dealing with that and other kindred matters.
Three members of the Commission, Sir Jack Longland, Mr. John Cousins and Dr. Margaret Davies, and the Director, all serve on my Committee reviewing National Park policies. That committee has, right from the beginning, been working on the horns of a dilemma, because, on the one hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Choriey, was saying, we are doing a job which has not been done before in respect of the National Parks. It is 25 years since they were set up. It is important, therefore, that the job, if it is done at all, should be done thoroughly. We thought it necessary to go round to ail the National Parks in turn, to consult separately with all the various interests, and hold public meetings in them. This has meant that the work has taken us nearly two years, but I think it was necessary. On the other hand, it is important that the new National Parks authorities should have our report in their hands while they are being formed and establishing their new policies. Therefore, to that extent we have had to hasten. I hope we shall manage to achieve both objectives of being thorough and still being able to give them something worth while within the course of this next year. I hope the full report will be published some time this autumn.
Turning from the National Parks to another category of countryside for which the Commission has special responsibilities, the areas of outstanding natural beauty, I would mention that three further areas—the one which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was asking about, the North Wessex Downs, together with Arnside, Silverdale and the Mendips—have been confirmed since the report was published. A further area, the Lincolnshire Wolds, has been designated by the

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Commission and the Order for that confirmed by my right honourable friend. And the Commission has more recently announced the programme for the designation of a further ten areas of outstanding natural beauty.
I turn now to the Green Belts. Approved Green Belts already comprise something slightly under 2,000 square miles. Just under 4,000 square miles are now under active consideration for addition to the approved Green Belt, 1,100 of those in the Metropolitan Green Belt, which will have the effect of doubling it. The area of land which the local authorities are asked to review in the Metropolitan Green Belt following the Government's White Paper Widening the Choice: the Next Steps in Housing, amounts to 2,000 acres, something under four square miles.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, before he leaves that point, whether the area of possible extension of the Metropolitan Green Belt, which he says would double it, is the same area which has been under consideration since the late 1950's?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, these are the Green Belts in various stages of less than full approval which we are trying to bring forward and finally firm up into approved Green Belt status. They are the ones which we announced some months ago we were considering, so that we could get them into full approved Green Belt status.
There are 730 miles of undeveloped coast at present being considered by local planning authorities in conjunction with the Countryside Commission, with a view to their being shown as heritage coasts in structure and local plans. These special areas altogether amount to 40 per cent. of the total area of England and Wales in countryside under some form of designation for protection, conservation, special management or enhancement. The fifth report also draws attention to the Commission's efforts to promote the provision of long-distance bridle paths and footpaths. It has already designated 1,500 miles. The long distance Cornwall coastpath is the next one, and that is due to be opened on May 19, later this week.
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With an eye to the future, the Department continue to give every encouragement to experimental schemes undertaken and research commissioned by the Countryside Commission, and the plans for the development of information services. We consider these activities are of great importance to allow an assessment to be made of how the requirements of the general public can best be met in the countryside, with the prospect of greater leisure opportunities, increased mobility and more cars, and to ensure that those for whom facilities are provided get the maximum benefit from them. This is the connection in which I want to mention the work of the Commission over country parks. The Commission has been particularly active in encouraging and advising local planning authorities on the creation of country parks, helping to meet the needs of town dwellers for countryside recreation. My right honourable friend and I have continued to pay grants towards the expenditure incurred by local authorities in this field. As the Commission's Report indicates, 84 country parks were being provided in England and Wales by September, 1972, six more have been approved since then, and a further 142 are under consideration by the Commission at the present time.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, asked me about forestry policy. The present position is that the Forestry Commission have been holding discussions with the forestry interests on the possible outlines of a future grants scheme. We intend shortly to open discussions on the amenity aspects with the local authority associations, and we are aiming to arrive at a solution which will ensure the continuance of a healthy forestry industry, within a framework that pays greater regard to environmental and social objectives.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, do the Government intend to bring it under planning control or not?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I prefer not to be drawn further on what I have just said. It is clearly important that forestry should have greater regard to environmental considerations, as I have stated. But what I was going to say was that coming at it, as it were, the other way, we have in the course of this year, Tree Planting Year, organised

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a couple of regional conferences, one sponsored by Gloucestershire and one by Essex, to stimulate local authorities generally to follow the lead taken by these two counties and a few others to prepare comprehensive replanting programmes on a county-wide basis, involving landowners, farmers and voluntary organisations in the planning process. By this means we seek to renew, over a period of thirty years or so, the woodland landscape in counties which have suffered either from modern agricultural processes, such as the grubbing-out of hedges and so on, or from Dutch elm disease, or from incongruous and unsightly intrusions and developments. This is a positive approach which I particularly welcome and I envisage, from what has occurred at these particular conferences, considerable progress in this field of replanting the landscape and renewing it.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, if my noble friend is discussing with the local authorities the undesirability (shall I say?) of the planting of forests on open moorland, mountains and so on, is he discussing it also with commercial interests which are planting those forests for commercial or financial reasons?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, discussions are going on, as I explained, under two headings. The first are between the forestry interests, which include the commercial interests and private woodland owners and the Forestry Commission. For our part we in the Department of the Environment are about to open discussions with the local authority associations with a view to ensuring that afforestation and forestry generally pays greater regard to amenity considerations. The point I was making was that we are approaching this subject from two points of view: first of all, to ensuring that new schemes of afforestation should have greater regard to environmental considerations; and, secondly, to building up co-operation on a county-wide basis between woodland owners, planning authorities and county councils with a view to renewing the woodland landscape, particularly in areas which have been badly affected by the Dutch elm disease.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, asked me about management agreements. I would confirm that these are very much
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favoured, both by the Commission and by my Department, as a way of ensuring that the countryside can be used for more than one purpose at a time, and for reconciling and harmonising the different interests of the visitors, the landowners, the farmers and the people living in National Parks. Existing powers permit agreements covering the growing of timber crops, the conservation of flora and fauna, the conservation of sites of special public interest, public access to the open country and to woodlands, and regulation of the development and use of land. There is a set of general omnibus powers in Section 11 of the 1949 Act enabling local planning authorities to take any such action as appears expedient for the accomplishment of the purposes specified in Section 5 of the Act; that is to say, preserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the Parks. It would appear that these powers are sufficiently wide to cover the making of agreements with landowners, though it may be that they have not been used for this purpose. But certainly management agreements are something which ought to be used more. My Committee have been giving a lot of attention to this point.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, are the Government going to allow the Countryside Commission or the planning authorities the reserve powers of compulsion to forbid upland ploughing which the Countryside Commission Report asks for?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, there will be need for compulsory powers in reserve; but, for instance, it is significant that the Peak National Park Authority have secured nearly 75 square miles of access for the public, and I think I am right in saying that they have hardly used, if they have at all used, access orders. It has ail been achieved by agreement. I have had occasion to use Section 14 in regard to a ploughing case in Exmoor in the past few months, but clearly the more one can harmonise the different interests of the farming and landowning community on the one hand, and the visitors and the recreational interests on the other, by agreement rather than by the use of compulsion or orders or recourse to public ownership, the better. This is certainly the line that we are concentrating upon.

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The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said that we had not given any help to amenity societies. I will not catalogue all the forms of grant that we have given to all amenity societies, but of those concerned with the countryside we have given a fairly substantial grant to the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers which has enabled them enormously to extend their range of activities, the great majority of which are in the countryside; and as I have mentioned in another context in another debate, we have through the Development Commission grant-aided or offered to grant-aid rural community councils in, I think, about 10 or maybe 11 counties to assist in the appointment of an officer who can promote and coordinate the work of amenity societies. I think that is proving to be useful.
My Lords, I will not further prolong the debate. I hope I have said enough to demonstrate the excellent practical progress that is being made by the Commission in the discharge of its wide responsibilities, and the steps whch we have made together with it in keeping the pattern of the partnership between Government departments and the Countryside Commission and the local authorities properly tailored and up to date, according to the policies and emphases prevailing at the present time.

ASHDOWN FOREST BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
HARWICH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's Consent signified, and Bill reported with Amendments.