Lords Sitting of 11 June 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth.
The Lord Kennet—Took the Oath.

TABLE OF THE HOUSE: APPOINTMENTS
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, it is my duty to notify your Lordships that I have received the following letter from the Clerk of the Parliaments, Sir David Stephens. It reads as follows:
"Dear Lord Chancellor,
It is my duty to request you to announce to the House that, after consultation with yourself and the Leader of the House. I have asked the Prime Minister to submit to Her Majesty the Queen my resignation from the Office of Clerk of the Parliaments with effect from the beginning of the Summer Recess; and that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to accept my resignation.
I was appointed Clerk of the Parliaments in June, 1963, and have now served almost eleven years in that Office. My appointment is due to end in any case in April, 1975, and I believe that the moment has come when I should make way for a successor.
I shall take leave of the House with sincere regret. It has been a great privilege for me to serve as Clerk of the Parliaments and I should be grateful if you would kindly convey to the House my deep sense of the kindness and friendship which I have received from all sides of the House during my period of Office.
Yours sincerely,
David Stephens".
My Lords, it is my further duty to notify your Lordships that the Queen has been pleased to appoint Mr. Peter Gordon Henderson to succeed Sir David Stephens from the beginning of the Summer Recess.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, following that announcement it will, I am sure, be your Lordships' wish in due course to pay tributes to the services of Sir David Stephens to this House. I am advised
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that the proper manner of doing that is for me to table a Motion recording the House's appreciation of Sir David Stephens's services. But since, happily, he will be with us until the House rises for the Summer Recess, I shall not table that Motion until nearer the Summer Recess when Sir David will hand over and the new Clerk will be sworn in.
I have to inform the House of the resignation of the Clerk Assistant, Mr.R. W. Perceval, who submitted his resignation to me last week and agreed that it should take immediate effect. Having regard to the fact that Mr.Perceval's appointment as Clerk Assistant had rather more than five years to run, it has been agreed with the Civil Service Department that, in addition to his pension entitlement under the Superannuation scheme, he should be offered some special compensation at least as generous as he would have received had he been a civil servant who retired five years before his time. The Offices Committee authorised this payment at its meeting yesterday afternoon.
The House would not wish to take leave of Robert Perceval without thanking him for his services to the House. He joined the staff of the House in November, 1938. He was a man of great ability and deep knowledge. He had his own concept of a Clerk's duties but he was, beyond all doubt, devoted to this House, its traditions, its history and its practice. Robert Perceval had and has many friends in the House and on their behalf, and on behalf of the House as a whole, I should like to thank him for his long service to the House and to offer him and his wife our best wishes for the future.
I come now to the immediate future. Yesterday the Lord Chancellor informed the Offices Committee that until Sir David Stephens is succeeded by Mr.Henderson he proposed, subject to the approval of the House, to appoint Mr. Henderson for the time being as Clerk Assistant and Mr. John Grey as Reading Clerk. Motions for the approval of these appointments will be tabled tonight for consideration tomorrow. Then, when Mr. Henderson takes over as Clerk of the Parliaments, Mr. Grey will become Clerk Assistant and Mr. John Sainty will become Reading Clerk.

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In conclusion, I should only like to say that I am, of course, aware of the concern which this House shows in the way in which appointments to places at the Table are made. Last year my predecessor in this Office and the then Lord Chancellor gave certain personal undertakings as to the consultations that they would undertake in making recommendations or appointments. These undertakings have been honoured on this occasion to the full. Never, in fact, has consulation been so wide and so thorough and the result so unanimous. In this connection, I should like to acknowledge the help we have received from the Sub-Committee on the Parliament Office, the so-called "three wise men"—the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, and the noble Lords, Lord Champion and Lord Mancroft—who have taken infinite trouble to familiarise themselves with the problems of the Parliament Office and have greatly assisted us with their help and advice.
2.43 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, we have listened this afternoon to two Statements of great importance to the working of the House. I believe I would be expressing the sentiments of the House as a whole if I said to the Leader of the House how grateful we are to him in particular, and to the Lord Chancellor, for the way in which they have handled a difficult and sensitive matter.
Discussions have been going on for a considerable period of time about the future of the Parliament Office. I think the noble Lord, Lord Byers, as Leader of his Party, owing to changes that have taken place elsewhere, is now the longest serving Peer who has been concerned. I know the Leader of the House and the Lord Chancellor have gone out of their way, as is indicated in the final sentences of the Statement we have just heard, to consult the widest possible range of opinion in the House. They have involved not just those who are or have been Leaders or Whips of the Parties, or who have held the Office of Lord Chancellor, but many other Peers as well, and they have been greatly assisted in this task by the Sub-Committee on the Parliament Office, to which a tribute has already been paid by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd.
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While giving due weight and the most careful consideration to the claims of various individuals in the Parliament Office, as is proper in the making of any appointment, the Lord Privy Seal and the Lord Chancellor have, quite correctly, given an over-riding priority (as they must) to how the interests of the House will be best served in the future.
I should like to endorse everything that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, about Mr. Robert Perceval, the retiring Clerk Assistant, and the service he has given to the House over a long period. Particularly on matters of history and precedent he has been our scholar and our guide. The Office Committee agreed yesterday a special payment should be made to recognise the fact he is retiring early, and it is entirely appropriate that this payment should be at the most generous level possible in the public service.
As the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, we shall have an opportunity to pay tribute to Sir David Stephens before the House goes into Recess for the summer. All I should like to do now is to welcome most warmly his successor, Mr. Peter Henderson, and to assure him, and the new appointments that will be joining him at the Table, of our full support in his new role as the Principal Officer of your Lordships' House.
2.47 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I should like sincerely to support what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has just said and particularly to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Peter Henderson when he assumes his new Office at the beginning of the Recess, and to those who are going to help him at the Table.
I want to support what has been said about Mr. Robert Perceval by both the noble Lords in regard to the help that he has always made readily available to Members of this House, and particularly those of my own Party. His knowledge of the working of the House is of the very highest order, and we wish him well in his retirement. I would also support what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has said about the handling of this whole matter by the noble Lord the Leader of the House and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I have been concerned with this matter right from the

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beginning, and in my view the House owes a deep debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for the way in which he picked up this difficult problem and dealt with it in a very satisfactory way indeed. I hope the House will have an opportunity of recording their thanks to the noble Lord for what he has been able to do.
We are of course deeply indebted to the Sub-Committee on the Parliament Office—the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, and the noble Lords, Lord Mancroft and Lord Champion. Without them in the final stages we should not have been in the position we are in now. I repeat, the House is indebted to the Leader of the House for the way in which he has handled this matter.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, as one who has been closely associated over the past quarter of a century and more in various matters with Mr. Perceval, from whom on numerous occasions I have had very great assistance, I should like to add my sincere tribute to what has been said about him. I was glad to hear mention made of his quite unusual knowledge of our Parliamentary system, its legislative aspects, its governmental aspects and particularly his wide-ranging and profound knowledge of the work of this House and of its history, which I should think has not been equalled for a long time, if ever. Many of your Lordships will miss his wise guidance and help in the work which they do here, and I am sure that all of us will very much regret his going.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I as a Back-Bencher on this side of the House say a few words in support of what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, and the tributes already paid to Mr. Robert Perceval. I think I am among those who have had the longest association with Robert Perceval in this House, and I remember on so many occasions the ready help given by him and the swift action which he would take in producing a solution to a problem which might appear at first to be difficult to understand. In referring to his knowledge of the House my memory goes back many years to my early contact with Robert Perceval, when he was in a much more junior position, and to the vigilance
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and the care with which he followed proceedings, the exceptional knowledge of the procedure of the House and Parliament (and outside it) on any question for which one sought guidance from the Table. It is with those memories that I should like to support what has been said already.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I add a word. I recall when I was first in the House and concerned with a Private Member's Bill, I went to Mr. Perceval and within a short time—and I can confirm what has been said—he drafted a short Bill and gave me the most detailed knowledge about it and how I should proceed. Subsequently, I went to him again and again on the same matter, and always received generous help from him. I think that at a time like this a man appreciates a few words from people who realise perhaps that to-day he is feeling a little unhappy. I should like it to go out from this House that some of us thank him for what he did, and will never forget it.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, one came to respect the splendid independence of Mr. Perceval. It was the quality of independence in his judgment and his indifference to pressures of any kind that one appreciated so much. I should like to join with the other tributes which have been paid to a great servant of Parliament and of this House, who stood for its independence, integrity and freedom from pressures.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, at a time when tributes are being paid to Mr. Perceval from both sides of the House, it would seem not inappropriate that the Cross-Benches should be heard in this context, for we CrossBenchers are rather friendless individuals; personally we are friendly with everyone, but we have no one to whom we can refer as our noble friends to keep us straight other than on a personal basis. It was always to Mr. Perceval that we addressed ourselves. His warm and genial personality wrapped round one when one was in procedural difficulties, and made everything easy. May I add my own personal tribute to a great Parliamentary servant and a close personal friend.
LORD MAELOR: My Lords, may I as a Welshman be allowed to pay my

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tribute. I am sure that if we do have a Parliament of Wales, we shall certainly consult Sir David Stephens when establishing that Parliament. I want to warn him that he is not going to entire retirement because we are hoping to have a Parliament in Wales within the next two or three years. Personally, I am sorry to lose the services of Sir David from the House and also of Mr. Perceval, but I should like to congratulate Mr. Henderson, whom I am sure we all love.

Continental Shelf Licensing Areas
2.54 p.m
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask Question which stands in my name on the Order paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the negotiations with France to delimit Continental Shelf licensing areas in the Celtic Sea and South-Western Approaches.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): No, my Lords. Discussions on this subject are continuing with the French Government, but must for the time being remain confidential to the two Governments.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, which was as informative as one could hope for in the circumstances. May I ask him, first, whether he would agree that these negotiations have now gone on for a very long time and are overdue for completion? Secondly, may I ask him whether he would confirm the view expressed by the previous Government about a year ago, that if agreement could not be reached, it would then be necessary to insist on the strict interpretation of the median line?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, of course these negotiations are very important, and important in implication. Therefore, the time spent in detailed negotiations with our friends across the Channel has been well spent. As to insisting on an early conclusion, we
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should be careful here because this is a very complicated matter. There are a number of aspects to it which two partners, two allies, should take time to consider with a view to reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement, which I have no doubt at all will, in fact, be reached in due course.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, is it not a fact that the trouble is that the French are still laying claim to the Channel Islands?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am answering questions in the British Parliament, not in the French Assembly.

CENTRAL TREATY ORGANISATION: MINISTERIAL MEETING
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what were the conclusions of the Ministerial meeting of the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) in Washington on May 21 and 22, 1974.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the Ministers had a thorough and constructive exchange of views on recent international developments giving special attention to matters affecting the CENTO region and reviewed the prospects for promoting further co-operation within the alliance in all its activities. A copy of the final communiqué has been placed in the Library.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he agree that this Organisation, formed several years ago, has now become rather outdated by developments? There has been the move for the settlement in the Middle East, the changes in Pakistan and, indeed, the visit of President Nixon. Will the Minister assure me that in the Defence Review the future of this Organisation will be considered?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can give the assurance for which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, asked in the latter part of his supplementary. The Defence Review will, of course, take into

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account all arrangements of this kind. As to the usefulness of CENTO and its continuing utility, I have no doubt, and Her Majesty's Government have no doubt at all, that it has served in the past, is serving in the present and will serve in the future as a peaceful and stabilising force in this region.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister, though he referred to this point only indirectly, whether this discussion included the issue of the Indian Ocean, and particularly the lease of Diego Garcia to the United States? Also, will Her Majesty's Government approach this problem from the point of view of the Asian nations which are regarding the neutralisation of the Indian Ocean?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the points considered in the meeting in Washington are adumbrated in the communiqué to which I referred, and which is available. The other questions which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, raised are somewhat wide of his present inquiry, and I would suggest that he might give consideration to raising them separately.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that there are many in other places in the House who would warmly endorse his first reply to this Question. This is a very sensitive area, and the greater the co-operation that can be undertaken with those who are interested in this area the better for a peaceful settlement in this area. It is very important that we should keep talking, rather than risk any conflict in an area which is of tremendous importance to the entire civilised world.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, has said. This is a sensitive area of great importance to peace and stability. It is also an area of importance to this country where the potential for trade, among other things, is very great indeed.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, while I appreciate the attitude of the Asian communities on neutralisation, will the Minister agree that we should be careful in our review of CENTO, because the
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Russians are now all over the Indian Ocean and we have many interests to protect in the area?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords. These are serious and important considerations. One of the uses of CENTO is to examine on the spot the implications of developments such as my noble friend Lord Blyton has mentioned. The future of the Indian Ocean as a peaceful ocean, and other matters, are of primary importance to the countries concerned. We and the United States are very glad to join with them in considering these questions.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it would have been just as appropriate for my noble friend Lord Brockway to ask that Question of the Prime Minister of India, since they have exploded their first nuclear bomb?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think we would all wish to ask certain questions of our fellow member of the Commonwealth in the light of what has happened—the exploding of the nuclear device. Of course, Her Majesty's Government take a serious view of this development. As one of the countries most concerned with the preparation and successful promulgation of the nonproliferation treaty, we have made very strongly and very clearly known to our Indian fellow member our concern about this development. We shall with other countries, of course, and hopefully with India, seek to strengthen the non-proliferation treaty to avoid happenings of this sort in the future.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that while I have no opportunity of putting a question to the Indian Prime Minister in her Legislature, I have put this question in communications to her?
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, may we take it from my noble friend's replies that this Government have no intention of withdrawing East of Suez?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, if the question is related to the Question on CENTO, we have no intention of withdrawing from CENTO.

THAMES FISHING PROSPECTS
3.2 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 state what improvements have taken place recently in the cleanliness of the river Thames; what migratory fish have returned to the river; and when Members of both Houses may expect to fish for salmon or sea trout from the Terrace.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the reply that I wish to give to the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, is one of some length, and I hope that your Lordships will be patient with me, but I thought it worth while going into some detail.
My Lords, above Teddington the Thames is now clean throughout its length, a considerable improvement since a survey in 1958. Below Teddington the 1970 River Pollution Survey showed it to be of poor quality down to Canvey Island and doubtful quality from there down to the sea. This itself was a considerable improvement again on the 1958 survey. I am happy to report that since 1971 there has been a substantial reduction in the pollution load passed to the tideway and some 71 species of fish have now returned to it. As regards migratory fish, sea trout, smelt, eels and elvers, lampreys and lamperns, shad and flounders have recently been recorded there. If noble Lords tried fishing from the Terrace during the winter and early spring during periods of high freshwater flow, they might just possibly already take a sea trout, subject to close season considerations. Present pollution control plans will result in further improvement in river quality; but, my Lords, it is too early yet to make realistic forecasts, and I would not like to venture any expectation with regard to salmon.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for so substantial an Answer, may I ask him
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whether he is aware that it would give enormous pleasure and prestige if the Thames did turn out to be one of the cleanest rivers in a great city, and if the salmon, with all his connotations of excellence, were to come back?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I fully appreciate what the noble Lord has said. To what I said earlier I should like to add that I thought it would be useful on my part to go to County Hall and have a look at the exhibition of living fish that they have in the entrance hall there. I would suggest that any noble Lord who is really interested should go along to see the fish that have been caught. I made inquiries about the fishing that is actually done, and I was told that quite recently eight young men spent four hours and caught between them during that period no less than 144 fish, which is an indication that the quality of the water is really improving apace.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us what steps have been taken to publicise this very happy story he has been telling us? Is he aware that the results achieved in the Thames were cited at a meeting of the North Atlantic Assembly last week in Washington as an example to the rest of Europe of which this country might reasonably be proud?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I will say briefly that I was delighted to take a delegation from Poland to County Hall, again on my visit there, to show them the fish. I hope the statement I have made this afternoon will do something to give publicity. I am grateful to the Port of London Authority for the information that they have published from time to time, which I am sure would be available to any noble Lord who requires it.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, will the noble Lord also agree that industry has played a considerable part in bringing about this happy situation, by investing large sums to improve the environment?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think the total involved is about £30 million, and it has been money very well spent.

Business
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I should like to inform the House, and I am sure your Lordships will be glad to know, that dinners will be available to-night.

SOLICITORS BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I hope this may be a convenient moment for me to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Solicitors Acts 1957 to 1974 and certain other enactments relating to solicitors. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

LAND TENURE REFORM (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 5 [Redemption by law of feuduty ground annual, etc. on transfer of land for valuable consideration]:
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 6, line 24, at end insert—
("(13) This section shall not apply in any case specified in subsection (1) of section (Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers) of this Act except to the extent (and subject to the modifications) specified in that section.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 1 is one of a group of four Amendments, Nos. 1,2,4 and 5, the purpose of which is to apply the Bill's provisions for the redemption of feuduty to cases where land is acquired by a body having compulsory purchase powers. Amendment No. 1 (Clause 5, page 6, line
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24) is merely a paving Amendment for the proposed new clause after Clause 5. As it stands, Clause 5 would govern redemption of feuduty in all cases where land is acquired for a valuable consideration, including acquisitions for value by authorities possessing compulsory purchase powers. The purpose of the Amendment is simply to exclude such transactions from the effect of Clause 5 so that they can be governed instead by the provisions of the proposed new clause.
The substantive Amendment in this group is contained in the proposed new clause itself, subsection (1) of which defines the type of transaction to which the clause is intended to apply. There are basically two forms of compulsory purchase procedure, one provided by the Land Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 and the other provided by Section 278 of and Schedule 24 to the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972, the latter being known as the "general vesting declaration" procedure. A fundamental difference between these two procedures in relation to feuduties is that under Section 107 of the 1845 Act an acquiring authority need not redeem the feuduty provided that the superior does not demand redemption. On the other hand, the effect of a "general vesting declaration" is to extinguish the feuduty payable in respect of the land being acquired. Subsection (1), therefore, disapplies Section 107 of the 1845 Act, so that redemption of feuduty under the new clause will apply to transactions under the 1845 Act—this is achieved by the words, "notwithstanding the provisions of section 107 of the" 1845 Act. Conversely, since the effect of a "general vesting declaration" is already to extinguish the feuduty, there is no need to interfere with established procedure in that case.
Subsection (1) contains also an important extension of the circumstances in which a feuduty is to be redeemed in cases involving acquiring authorities. Under Clause 5, redemption is to take place only where land is transferred for valuable consideration—that is, on a sale. This is to avoid inequity where, for example, a widow simply inherits a house from her late husband or where land is given for charitable purposes without any consideration being received for it. No

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such question of inequity can arise, however, under this clause, which puts the onus of redemption on the acquiring authority. Therefore, the new clause takes the opportunity to speed up the total abolition of feuduties by requiring redemption in all cases where an authority acquires property and not just in those cases where a valuable consideration is paid. This is achieved by the words, "whether or not there is an obligation to pay valuable consideration therefor".
There is one further important point in subsection (1) to which I should draw attention. Redemption of feuduty is to occur when entry to land is taken "by an authority possessing compulsory purchase powers". In other words, redemption is required not just in those transactions in which the acquiring authority uses its compulsory purchase powers, but also in transactions where the acquisition is by agreement or by way of gift. This again is perfectly equitable in a situation in which the redemption money will be paid by the acquiring authority; and indeed to limit the requirement to cases of compulsory acquisition could give rise to anomalies.
Subsection (2) of the new clause applies those provisions of Clause 5 which are appropriate to redemption by acquiring authorities, as defined in subsection (1): paragraph (a) of the subsection is a straightforward application of subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 5, subject to the omission of the reference to "valuable consideration" and to the extension of the meaning of the words "obligation to grant a conveyance" to include notices and deemed notices to treat under Section 17 of the 1845 Act. Paragraph (b) applies subsection (3) of Clause 5, which makes it clear that no feuduty will be paid after the date of its redemption, but that any feudal conditions will remain in force. This is, however, modified to the extent that the feuing conditions will continue only insomuch as they are not discharged under the procedures provided for in the Lands Clauses Acts or the Railway Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845.
Paragraph (c), by applying subsection (4) of Clause 5, ensures that in transactions by acquiring authorities the redemption money will be calculated
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under the same 2½ per cent. Consols formula as will be used in transactions among private individuals. It is necessary at the same time to disapply Section 20 of the Lands Compensation (Scotland) Act 1963, which provides a rather cumbersome and slow method of arriving at the compensation for extinguishment of feuduties in compulsory purchase transactions; this will bring about a considerable saving in the time and trouble involved in assessing the compensation. Paragraph (c) also effects the major change which has already been touched upon; namely, that the redemption money is to be paid by the acquiring authority instead of by the proprietor from whom the ground is acquired. This is a very desirable simplification which makes it unnecessary to import into the new clause the provisions of subsections (5) to (9) of Clause 5. Paragraph (d) simply applies subsections (10) and (11) of Clause 5 in an absolutely straightforward way.
Subsection (3) of the new clause deals with the situation where the land which is being acquired is part of a larger area of land in respect of which a feuduty is payable. Sections 109 and 111 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 provide a procedure for the apportioning of the feuduty in such cases, between the land acquired and the land remaining in ownership of the proprietor; and the effect of subsection (3) is to make that procedure available in cases of redemption under the new clause.
As I have mentioned, the effect of a general vesting declaration is to extinguish feuduties, and for that reason subsection (4) provides that the new clause will not, in general, apply to acquisitions by the general vesting declaration procedure. However, the present method of calculating the compensation for the extinguishment of feuduties under that procedure is the cumbersome and slow method provided by Section 20 of the 1963 Lands Compensation (Scotland) Act; and so subsection (4) goes on to provide that, instead, Clause 5(4) (that is, the 2½ per cent. Consols formula) will apply in this case also. The concluding words of the subsection make it clear that redemption of feuduty is to take place on the date of vesting of the land.
Subsection (5) of the new clause simply provides that the acquiring authority

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must give the superior a notice of redemption (in the form prescribed in the proposed new Schedule), and that interest is payable from the date of redemption until the redemption money is paid. Subsection (6) of the new clause exactly parallels corresponding provisions in Clauses 4 and 5. Subsection (7) contains the necessary definitions of "authority possessing compulsory purchase powers" and of "feu-duty". The proposed new Schedule after Schedule 2 prescribes the form of notice of redemption to be served by an acquiring authority. It follows very closely the style of the normal Clause 5 notice of redemption, prescribed in Schedule 2.
Finally, there is a purely consequential Amendment to the Title, line 6. As drafted, the title refers to "the redemption … of feuduties … on transfer of land for valuable consideration" The proposed new clause, however, provides for redemption of feuduties by acquiring authorities even although there is no valuable consideration given for the land. As a consequence, the words "for valuable consideration" must be dropped from the Title. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 5 insert the following new clause:
Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers
".—(1) Subject to subsection (4) below, and notwithstanding the provisions of section 107 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845, this section shall have effect in relation to the case of the redemption of the feuduty exigible in respect of a feu to which entry is taken (whether or not there is an obligation to pay valuable consideration therefor) by an authority possessing compulsory purchase powers (hereinafter in this section referred to as "the acquiring authority"); and the enactments relating to the acquisition of land by such an authority shall for the purposes of this section apply accordingly as they apply in relation to acquisition by purchase.
(2) The following provisions of section 5 of this Act shall apply for the purposes of this section as they apply for the purposes of that section:

(a) section 5(1) and (2) shall apply, with the omission in the said subsection (1) of the reference to valuable consideration; and for the purposes of such application the references in the said subsections to an obligation to grant a conveyance shall include references
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to a notice to treat or deemed notice to treat under section 17 of the said Act of 1845 or under any other enactment having similar effect;

(b) section 5(3) shall apply, subject to any of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts or of the Railway Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 which apply to the case;

(c) notwithstanding the provisions of section 20 of the Land Compensation (Scotland) Act 1963, section 5(4) shall apply, with the substitution, for the reference to the person who was the proprietor of the feu immediately before the date of the obligation or (as the case may be) the execution of the deed there referred to and to his representatives, of a reference to the acquiring authority;

(d) section 5(10) and (11) shall apply.

(3) Sections 109 and 111 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 (which relate to the discharge of land from feuduty, etc., and the apportionment and continuance of the charge for such payments on land not taken) shall apply in relation to the redemption of feuduty under this section (whether the land subject to the feuduty is acquired compulsorily or by agreement) as they apply in relation to the discharge of charges under that Act.
(4) The foregoing provisions of this section shall not apply in relation to the acquisition of land by means of a general vesting declaration within the meaning of Schedule 24 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972; but section 5(4) of this Act shall, notwithstanding the provisions of section 20 of the Land Compensation (Scotland) Act 1963, apply in relation to such acquisition as it applies in relation to the acquisition of land to which the said section 5 applies, with the substitution, for the reference to the person who was the proprietor of the feu immediately before the date of the obligation or (as the case may be) the execution of the deed there referred to and to his representative, of a reference to the acquiring authority; and in such a case the date of redemption means the date of vesting of the land in the acquiring authority under paragraph 7 of the said Schedule.
(5) In every case to which, by virtue of subsection (1) or (4) above, this section applies, the acquiring authority shall—

(a) not later than the date of redemption, give to the superior or his agent a notice of redemption in or as nearly as may be in the form contained in Schedule (Form of notice prescribed under section (Redemption of feuduty etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers)) to this Act; and

(b) be liable to pay to the superior interest on the redemption money from the date of redemption until payment at such rate or rates as may be determined.

(6) Where the interest of the superior in a feuduty which is redeemed in terms of this section to any trust, liferent or entail, the redemption money shall be treated for all purposes as capital money.
(7) In this section,
"authority possessing compulsory purchase powers" has the same meaning as is conferred by section 275(1) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972.
"feuduty", in any case where part only of a feu subject to a cumulo feuduty is acquired, means such portion of the feuduty (if any) as may be settled thereon under section 109 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 as applied by this section or, in the case specified in subsection (4) above, by paragraph 32 of the said Schedule 24; and includes any payment (or any such portion thereof, as the case may be) of ground annual, standard charge, skat or any other perpetual periodical payment in respect of the tenure, occupancy or use of land or under a land obligation, not being a payment of teind or stipend, or in defrayal of or contribution towards some continuing cost related to the land, or under a heritable security; and this section, in its application to any payment to which it is extended under this subsection shall have effect subject to any necessary modifications."—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE THE EARL OF DUNDEE moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 5 insert the following new clause:
Amendment of Conveyancing (Scotland) Act 1924
".Section 12 of the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act 1924 insofar as it excludes provision for symbolic heritable conditions for tenure of land shall cease to have effect."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I do not think that it is necessary to say anything more on this Amendment than has already been said on this subject on Second Reading, except to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his kindness in forwarding views to the Lord Advocate, and particularly to thank the Lord Advocate for giving up his time to interview the noble Earl, Lord Perth. and myself and one or two other people who know a great deal more about this subject than I do. As a result of this discussion, I have put down this Amendment, which I think enables some symbolic condition to be attached to the tenure of land particularly for the benefit of people of Scottish descent who may live in the Commonwealth, the United States, or any other part of the world and who may wish to acquire some legal interest in some spot or locality in Scotland to which they are historically and sentimentally attached, and which may perhaps induce them to
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come over here a little more often than they otherwise would.
I must be careful to add that the Lord Advocate has not committed himself and his colleagues to this Amendment or to its wording because it is always possible that subsequent examination might discover some unforeseen difficulty, but I should like to thank him very much for his help and I hope that the Government will see their way to accept it.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend in what he has said. He referred to this matter at Second Reading and if the Minister can find a way to solve this problem, which is a matter mainly of sentiment, he would earn a debt of gratitude not only in Scotland but also within the Commonwealth and the rest of Great Britain.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am certain that it will be a great disappointment to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, when I say that the word at the top of my brief is "resist". I learned only yesterday of the nature of the noble Earl's Amendment and I should like to tell your Lordships what I said in the first instance about it. I said that the first question that has to be answered is whether this in any way conflicts with the purposes of the Bill. If it does not, does it do something which would not be done if the Amendment were not there? I will not be content with the argument which is so frequently brought forward on these occasions, that "It is not really necessary to do it; it can, in fact, be done in other ways under the Bill"
Thirdly, the other possible objection to it is whether the Amendment is technically defective and whether the defect can be cured by another Amendment gone into more fully. The answer which I arrived at ultimately was that the Amendment fell at the first hurdle because it runs contrary to the provisions of the Bill. The Bill is the second stage in a procedure designed to bring the feudal system of land tenure in Scotland to an end. The first stage was the Act passed some year ago. This is the second stage, doing away with the monetary side of feudal transactions but keeping the rest in existence. The third and final stage is the one which lies ahead of us, and perhaps the most complicated part of all,

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which is the reason why it has been necessary to take so many steps to arrive at this ultimate destination.
May I first say something about Section 12 of the 1924 Act which the Amendment would evade. The primary purpose of that Act was that in feus granted on or after January 1, 1925, the feuduty must be stipulated in sterling money. Secondly, in the case of feus granted before January 1, 1925, where the feuduty was paid in grain or other fungible (you get some lovely words in these legal Bills) the parties could enter into a binding agreement commuting the feuduty into an annual money payment and, thirdly, that in the case of any such existing feu where the payment had not been commuted into a monetary feuduty by December 31, 1932, the feuduty thereafter was to become an annual sum of money representing the average annual value of the feuduty over the previous ten years. The section contained provision also for the extension of these arrangements to dry multures calculated by reference to the price of grain. In addition, Section 12 provided that ten years from the commencement of the Act:
"… carriages and services such as are referred to in Sections 20 and 21 of the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act 1874, and which shall not have been commuted in terms of those sections shall cease to be exigible".
It may be of interest to your Lordships to note that "carriages" were payments of feuduty in kind, usually agricultural produce or some other fruit of the land such as timber. The term "carriages" refers to the obligation to carry the goods to the seat of the superior—fortunately for the vassal he was not expected to carry the goods to the superior personally wherever he happened to be. "Services" on the other hand, were personal services to be performed by the vassal for the superior. In ancient times the primary service was military and in fact one of the categories of feudal tenure was "ward holding", under which the land was held by the vassal under an obligation to perform military service whenever called upon to do so. Ward holding was finally abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act of 1746, but that Act did not prevent the imposition of services of a non-military nature, and such services were frequently made a condition of feudal grants both before and after 1746. An example quoted
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in the textbooks is that of an obligation on one of the Duke of Argyll's vassals to provide a boat, six oarsmen and a steersman for the use of the superior's family and to keep the mansion house wind and watertight. This was in the courts in 1762.
To sum up, therefore, the overall effect of Section 12 was to ensure that all future feuduties were expressed in monetary terms; that all the then existing non-monetary feuduties were commuted to monetary terms by December, 1932, at the latest, and that any carriages and services which had not been so commuted by December 31, 1934, at the latest were then extinguished.
My Lords, the position we have reached is that the non-monetary side of the feudal system started to be abolished some 250 years ago and the abolition of that was completed some 50 years ago. While I appreciate what the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, wishes to do, the effect of his Amendment—and this has only been discovered, in fairness to him, after much closer examination than was possible at the time of his meeting with the Lord Advocate—is to re-introduce or to make possible the re-introduction of the carriages and services parts which have now been out of existence for some 50 years. However, I do not think that the noble Earl need be unduly worried because as a result of finding that the Amendment was not acceptable we have gone even more fully than we have done hitherto into the effects of the Bill on the purposes which the noble Earl had in mind.
First, may I refer to the feudal link which a clan may have with a particular piece of land. The noble Earl on Second Reading mentioned the case of a Scot (or perhaps a group of Scots) who went abroad and was no longer even a citizen of the United Kingdom but who bought an old clan stronghold and then proposed to give it in feu to some representative of the clan, or to a clan society, thus providing a clan centre to which members of the clan from all over the world can come. There is nothing in the Bill which will prevent the continuance of such arrangements. It will still be perfectly possible for the wealthy overseas Scot to purchase, say, a piece of the old clanlands and then grant it in feu to, for example, a clan society. He can still have

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this satisfaction and still give his fellow clansmen this satisfaction and in this way establish a link between himself and the country of his forebears. The only difference is that in future he will not be entitled to impose a feuduty. My Lords, I cannot for one moment imagine that the lack of a feuduty is likely to prevent anyone who wished to enter into this sort of arrangement from doing so.
The other point which the noble Earl raised on Second Reading was the possible effect which the abolition of feuduties might have on certain heraldic rights—in particular, rights affecting the Baronage of Scotland. Once again I can reassure the noble Earl. There is nothing in this Bill which will detract in any way from the position or rights of the Baronage. I should perhaps explain, for the benefit of any of your Lordships who may not be entirely familiar with these matters, that the Barons of Scotland who hold their lands by grant from the Crown in perpetuity, are not Barons entitled to membership of your Lordships' House, but they are entitled to style themselves as being "of" the land in question.
Where a Baron still owns the actual land as a direct vassal of the Crown, clearly no difficulty arises; the Bill will not affect the position at all. I understand, however, that in some cases the Barony lands may have been subfeud and the possessor of the Barony title may no longer himself hold any of the actual lands from which the title derives, although he can at present still use the Barony title by virtue of having retained the superiority of the land in question. The Bill does not alter this position. As I have explained, the superiority title will still remain in being, even although the feuduty may have been redeemed. Thus, if a Barony title has been kept in being by reason of a superiority title alone, the position will remain as it is. The noble Earl need have no fear that this Bill is interfering in any way with the Baronage of Scotland. I hope therefore that, with these very clear assurances which I give on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, the noble Earl will find it possible not to press this Amendment.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I can only say another brief word by leave of the House. I should like to thank the noble Lord for the great trouble
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he has evidently taken in this matter. It would of course be absurd in the circumstances for me to press this Amendment. The noble Lord will understand that I had not been informed of these further examinations which he has mentioned. Therefore, would it be possible for us to reassure ourselves by looking into the subject between now and Third Reading, so that if we find anything which could improve the situation we might have another opportunity of perhaps moving an agreed Amendment then?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would certainly gladly give that assurance. I tried to find the noble Earl before the House met in order to let him know what was happening. It is surprising that so large a man as the noble Earl could not be found, but I did not find him.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords. I appreciate the difficulty. I only heard from the Lord Advocate on Friday evening, so there has been very little time. In the circumstances, my Lords, I would ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.33 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
After Schedule 2 insert the following new Schedule:
"SCHEDULE
FORM OF NOTICE PRESCRIBED UNDER SECTION
(Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers
"Notice of Redemption
under section (Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers) of the Land Tenure Reform (Scotland) Act 1974 (redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers).
[Name and address of authority sending notice, and Date]
To [name and address of superior, etc. or his agent]
Take notice that, in terms of section (Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers) of the Land Tenure Reform (Scotland) Act 1974, the [feuduty] [ground annual] [or otherwise] of [amount] per annum

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exigible in respect of [give sufficient identification of the land in respect of which the feuduty, etc. was exigible] as at [give date of redemption] will be deemed to be redeemed at that date [to such extent (if any) as may be settled under section 109 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 as applied by virtue of section (Redemption of feuduty, etc. on acquisition of land by authority possessing compulsory purchase powers) of the said Act of 1974].
[To be signed on behalf of the acquiring authority]"").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
In the Title.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
Line 6, leave out ("for valuable consideration").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Lord High Commissioner (Church Of Scotland) Bill
3.34 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this short Bill is to enable the Secretary of State for Scotland, with approval of Parliament, to pay, in this and future years, an allowance to the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland—an appointment held with distinction by more than one of your Lordships—sufficient to enable him to carry out his duties in the manner appropriate to his historic Office. The Bill would replace existing legislation dating from 1959 which provides for the allowance to be paid directly from the Consolidated Fund and to be subject to a limit of £7,500 annually. The Bill proposes that in future the maximum will be determined in any year by an entry in the Estimates of the Scottish Home and Health Department; and consequently the amount to be advanced for the allowance will be subject to annual approval by Parliament. At this point I ought to emphasise that the allowance is in no sense a salary. It is used only to defray the expenses necessarily incurred by the Lord High Commissioner in the performance of his duties. It was defined over eighty years ago as being
"not remuneration for active duties, but an allowance for the purpose of discharging with dignity the hospitable rights of an office of honour".
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I do not propose to describe at length the history of the Office, but your Lordships, especially those not from Scotland who are present, may find it helpful if I mention that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Lord High Commissioner was at the centre of the bitter disputes between Church and Monarch in Scotland. These unhappy and controversial days are long past: the General Assembly has met annually since 1694, and at all but one of its meetings during these 280 years the Sovereign has been represented by a Commissioner who has assured the Assembly of the Sovereign's good will and intention to uphold the Presbyterian form of Church government. The exception, my Lords, was in 1969, when Her Majesty the Queen decided to be present in person during the General Assembly of that year. It was an occasion which was greeted with enthusiasm by all connected with the Church in Scotland, and I would say by many outside it as well.
As the Queen's representative during the Assembly, the Lord High Commissioner occupies the Palace of Holyroodhouse and there offers hospitality to a number of guests, including ministers and office-bearers of the Church and representatives from all walks of life in Scotland—industry, commerce, central and local government, the Arts, the trades and professions. Visitors from countries overseas in which the Church has a special interest are also invited and made particularly welcome. This hospitality is greatly appreciated by Scots people of many religious and political persuasions. This is perhaps the more so since, in recent years, Commissioners have moved towards greater informality and simplicity. This year the Commissioner entertained more than 5,000 people, young and old, from all walks of life in the course of the Assembly.
The proposed change from Consolidated Fund to Departmental Vote has two advantages. It will allow the changing value of money to be taken into account in the fixing of the allowance annually by the Secretary of State for Scotland in consultation with the Treasury. Secondly, Parliament will be provided with an annual opportunity to scrutinise the size of past payments and the estimates of future ones. In this way, the allowance will keep abreast of

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changing money values but at the same time will still be confined to meeting only those expenses of Commissioners which are absolutely essential. I am confident your Lordships will readily give this Bill, which has passed through another place, a Second Reading. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hughes.)
3.39 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I should like briefly from these Benches to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his few words explaining the Bill, and thoroughly to endorse what he has said. In these days of high taxation, it is absurd to expect people of suitable calibre to have to dig into their pockets on the one hand, or alternatively, as Her Majesty's representative, to act in a niggardly fasion. This is certainly not what is appreciated in Scotland. As someone belonging to another religion who will never be able to be a High Commissioner, and also as one of another religion who thoroughly appreciates the other Christian religions in Scotland, I would endorse this great annual meeting of the Church assembled in Edinburgh as a very important annual event in Scotland. England and Scotland do not like their Sovereign's representatives having to dig into their pockets, as has happened in the past. However, my Lords, those days are passing.
We have always enjoyed a very high standard of representation. I think the Church of Scotland and the people in Scotland, whether of that Church, or of no Church, or of other Churches, generally look upon this Assembly as a most important event in Scotland's year. I would therefore endorse what the noble Lord has said, and recommend the passing of this Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
3.40 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): 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 Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON moved Amendment No. 1:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause:
Traffic regulation
".—(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make such provision as he thinks fit for prohibiting the stopping of vehicles on any part of a highway—

(a) which lies within such distance of an urban junction as may be specified in the regulations, being a distance of not more than 30 and not less than 5 yards measured from such point as may be determined in accordance with the regulations; and

(b) which is marked by means of a traffic sign in accordance with subsection (3) below.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, regulations under this section—

(a) may make different provision in relation to different classes of urban junctions and may define any such class by reference to any characteristics of the junction or to any other circumstances whatsoever;

(b) may exclude from the application of the regulations any part of a highway which is marked in accordance with, and is subject to any provision of, regulations made under section 23 of the 1967 Act (pedestrian crossings) and, where it is necessary in consequence of any such exclusion may reduce the minimum distance specified in subsection (1)(a) above accordingly;

(c) may provide that, in relation to vehicles of such classes as may be specified in the regulations, such provisions of the regulations as may be so specified shall not apply, or shall apply subject to such modifications as may be so specified;

(d) may provide that, subject to such conditions, and in relation to an urban junction of such class, as may be so specified, the appropriate authority for any highway, in relation to the whole or any part of which

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the regulations apply, may in such manner and to such extent as may be provided in the regulations exclude the application of any provision of the regulations in relation to that highway;

(e) may provide that, subject to such conditions as may be so specified, in any case where—

(i) apart from any provision made by virtue of this paragraph, the part of any highway in relation to which the regulations apply does not extend for the maximum distance referred to in subsection (1)(a) above, and

(ii) the appropriate authority for that highway determine that, having regard to the characteristics of the urban junction in question, it is desirable in the interests of road safety to extend the part of that highway to which the regulations apply by substituting for the distance specified in relation to that highway under subsection (1)(a) above such greater distance, not exceeding 30 yards, as may be specified by the authority,

the regulations shall apply in relation to that highway as if the distance specified by the appropriate authority were the distance specified in the regulations; and

(f) may extend to any vehicle which is stopped in such circumstances that part only of the vehicle is on or projects over a part of a highway falling within paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) above.

(3) Regulations under this section shall make provision for identifying any part of a highway to which any provision of the regulations is for the time being to apply by means of a traffic sign of a type or character specified in the regulations (being a type prescribed or character authorised under section 54 of the 1967 Act) and for the time being lawfully in place; and for the purposes of any such regulations any such traffic sign placed on or near a highway shall be deemed to be lawfully in place unless the contrary is proved.
(4) Nothing in regulations under this section shall prohibit the stopping of a vehicle if and so long as it is stopped in accordance with—

(a) the indication given by a traffic sign, or

(b) any direction or permission given by a constable in uniform, or

(c) any direction or permission given by any other person exercising a power conferred by or under any enactment to control, stop or otherwise regulate traffic, or

(d) any requirement imposed by regulations under section 23 of the 1967 Act, or

(e) any requirement arising under section 25 of the 1967 Act (stopping at school crossings),

or for the purpose of making a left or right turn, or in any other case where the driver is prevented from proceeding by circumstances beyond his control or it is either necessary for him to stop in order to avoid an accident or reasonable for him to do so in order to give way to other persons using the road.
(5) A person who causes or permits a vehicle to stop in contravention of regulations under
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this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100; and at the end of paragraph (g) of subsection (4) of section 69 of the Transport Act 1968 (conviction on numerous occasions of certain offences to be a ground for revoking, suspending or curtailing an operator's licence) there shall be added the words "or in regulations made under section 6 of the Road Traffic Act 1974"
(6) In so far as regulations under this section prohibit the stopping of a vehicle on any part of a highway,—

(a) the prohibition shall have effect notwithstanding any provision made under any enactment, other than section 23 of the 1967 Act, before the coming into operation of the regulations, being a provision designating as a parking place, or prohibiting or restricting the waiting or stopping of vehicles on, any portion of that part of the highway, and

(b) to the extent that it conflicts with regulations under this section any such provision as is referred to in paragraph (a) above shall cease to have effect (but without prejudice to its continued operation with respect to things done or omitted to be done before the regulations came into force), and the highway authority shall, as soon as practicable, take such steps as are requisite for removing any traffic sign indicating that any such provision is in force with respect to the portion of the highway concerned.

(7) For the purpose of this section "urban junction" means a junction of two or more roads, at least one of which is a highway which—

(a) is a restricted road for the purposes of section 71 of the 1967 Act (30 m.p.h. speed limit); or

(b) is subject to an order under section 74 of that Act imposing a speed limit not exceeding 40 m.p.h.; or

(c) is subject to a speed limit not exceeding 40 m.p.h. which is imposed by or under any focal Act.

(8) In this section—
"appropriate authority", in relation to any highway, means the authority having power, otherwise than by virtue of section 84A (reserve powers) of the 1967 Act, to make an order under section 1 or section 6 of that Act, in relation to that highway,
"road" means any length of road,
and subsections (1) and (2) of section 104 of the 1967 Act (interpretation) and section 107 of that Act (exercise of regulation-making powers and parliamentary control thercover) shall apply as if this section were included in that Act.
The noble Lord said: In moving the Amendment we are in effect putting back into the Road Traffic Bill what was in it before this Government came to power, in other words into the foster father! When we had our Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading on the old Bill this old Clause 6, as it then was.

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dealing with the traffic regulations, met with no opposition except on detail. In his introduction of the new Bill the other day the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich said only that although it was intended to reduce the number of accidents which occur at junctions when pedestrians are hidden by parked vehicles, his right honourable friend had come to the conclusion that the ban would have given rise to the most serious practical problems. I find this somewhat hard to understand. His noble friend who answered for the Opposition, as they then were in the last Parliament, said on Second Reading in this House that he found it was a reasonable power to invest in the Secretary of State. He qualified that remark by suggesting that, of course, the way that the Secretary of State handled the power would have to he examined, and that was understood.
All through our debates in Committee we had all the people who are most expert in road and motor affairs dealing with points. Nobody ever questioned that the general principle was not good. We had many Amendments as to whether 30 yards was too long or five yards too short, but as I pointed out, and as my noble friend Lord Aberdare also explained, this was a flexible and an enabling Bill. It enabled the Secretary of State to bring in regulations. It was never intended to be, and there was no need for it to be—it it was allowed to come to light again—an inflexible Bill for the Secretary of State to have to dictate. In this clause as in the last one, there is power for the local authorities to interpret the 30 yards to five yards in the way that they wish.
In the last Committee stage I explained that in 1972, at such urban junctions as there are in the country, we had 6,270 casualties directly attributable to this kind of offence—which it would be if the clause were approved. One may say that that is not very much, but perhaps 6,270 people could have been spared such injuries. Certainly many people could be saved. Bearing in mind the distances involved, we envisaged that the normal Class A and B roads stopping-distance ban would be 15 yards. I think I am right in saying that. It would normally be envisaged that the ban would run 15 yards from the corner of Class A and B roads and for 10 yards on other roads. There was nothing dictatorial about it. It
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was a matter to be left to the local authorities to deal with themselves.
Your Lordships, headed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, who I am happy to see here, raised the point about vehicles having sufficient stopping power. We had an interesting debate in Committee in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, the noble Lords, Lord Airedale, Lord Foot, the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and others took part. We introduced a new Amendment, which is incorporated in Amendment No. 1 in page 3, which says:
"an accident or reasonable for him"
to stop. That word "reasonable" reassured your Lordships and the clause went through without any further objections. I should like to hear what the noble Lord the Minister who will answer has to say about that point.
I do not think there is any necessity for me to explain further. Your Lordships are perfectly well aware of the subject, having heard all our previous discussions, and the few words I have said, bearing in mind that this is a provision to avoid accidents, underlines that it is a flexible provision. However, I should be glad to hear why the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, should find it so impractical. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The Committee will appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, has spoken with moderation but also with feeling. It is not difficult to understand his reason for speaking in such terms. In the interval of time that has passed since the last Bill was before the House there has been an opportunity to give further thought to the matter. As the noble Lord has explained so clearly, the purpose of the Amendment is to provide enabling powers for the Secretary of State to impose by regulation a national ban on vehicles stopping at urban junctions, so that the Amendment would restore to the Bill the junction-stopping ban clause which was contained in the previous Road Traffic Bill. It has been omitted from the present Bill because it was considered that to apply a national ban on all urban junctions, which are infinitely varied in shape and layout and in attendant circumstances, would give

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rise to quite considerable practical problems, for example, when there is no alternative provision for people to park at corners outside their homes or for deliveries to be effected at junction sites,
Nevertheless, we fully accept that there is a need to tackle the problem of accidents at junctions and rather than a blanket provision, as is proposed in the Amendment, it is thought, after full consideration, that powers for local authorities to designate no stopping distances at junctions is the best answer. This would be in keeping with the provisions of Clause 9, which places a duty on authorities to carry out road safety measures, and would enable site conditions at individual junctions to he taken fully into account. The compulsory national ban proposed in the Amendment provides limited opportunities to do this. It is thought that existing local authority powers to make traffic regulation orders (Sections 1 and 6 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967) may need to be strengthened to enable the authorities to implement stopping-bans at junctions, and the question of the right type of sign or road marking, we acknowledge, also needs to be considered. If some Amendment to the present powers is needed, it is the Government's intention to introduce it in another place as an Amendment to this Bill.
In other words, we are prepared to continue to look at this. Leaving it out at this stage does not reflect the fact that the Government are satisfied, but if there is a problem here that needs to be dealt with then we think it ought to be dealt with in a different way. Greater reliance ought to be placed, and essentially placed, on local authorities, and they could do it in an even more flexible fashion than the noble Lord feels could be done by way of his Amendment—and certainly in a more flexible fashion than could be done by way of a national ban. If the powers of local authorities need the strengthening that I have mentioned, then there is no great difficulty about that; I understand that existing regulations could be amended without difficulty. I hope that that explanation will satisfy the noble Lord that we have not dropped this clause for any other reason than that we think the matter can be better dealt with it we rely on the powers that local authori-
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ties already possess, strengthened if necessary by way of amendment of the regulations, as I have indicated.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My noble friend Lord Mowbray has raised the question of vehicles stopping in the proximity of an urban crossing place, and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has explained clearly, I think, why the provision that was in the last Bill has not been repeated on this occasion. The question I should like to ask is this. I gather by implication from what he said that that would apply to parking as well as to merely stopping. If he would be kind enough to say whether that is so, in which case I would take it that the question of parking within the proximity of a crossing place would fall to be dealt with within the existing powers of local authorities, then that is a situation with which I would certainly not quarrel.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: If the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, will study what I have said—and the relevant part of what I said was very deliberately set out; I took very great care there to rely on the advice I had received—I think he will find that he has reason to be satisfied that where there is a real difficulty, the parking question can be dealt with by local authorities.
LORD FOOT: I wonder whether I might add a word, not perhaps of alarm —that would be putting it too high—but of a little concern at the attitude which has been expressed by the noble Lord opposite about this Amendment. As I understand the situation, when we had the previous Bill before us back in December of last year the provision which is incorporated in this Amendment was the thinking of the Home Office or of the Department of the Environment, as the case may be, and they thought that it was satisfactory. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, has said, it attracted no criticism except a small Amendment in order, we hoped, to improve it. It is rather astonishing, is it not, that some six months later the Government should come along and say that the whole of their thinking upon this matter has been revised and that they now think it is inadvisable to have any national practice and any general national rule to govern this sort of situation, but rather that it should be left to the discretion of local authorities.

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There are, as it seems to me, evident objections which occur to one at once against leaving this matter in the hands of local authorities. One of them, I would suggest, is that unless you have some universal practice, so that a driver driving throughout the country can recognise at every road junction what his obligations are, it may be very difficult for him, in moving from the area of one local authority to another, to distinguish whether he is permitted to stop within 50 yards of a particular junction or not; and all the time, presumably, he has got to be looking out to see whether a particular junction is governed by some special notice erected by the local authority showing that the restriction applies to that junction.
I should have thought there were manifest objections to having a different type of traffic sign and a different type of traffic behaviour in different parts of the country depending entirely upon the discretion of the local authority. Of course, I recognise that, since the Government are taking this view, and since they are saying that they will introduce some suitable Amendment at a later stage, perhaps in another place, we shall then have another opportunity to look at the matter, but I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, whether between now and the next stage of this Bill he would again consider this matter, and also consider whether there are not evident advantages in having traffic rules, traffic regulations and traffic signs which are of universal application.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Again I should like to say that I appreciate the force of the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has used. I think the one point I should like to make in reply to his argument in regard to uniform regulations is that here we are dealing with a tremendously wide variety of local circumstances. If there has been further thinking on this matter, that indeed does not preclude even further thought, and I am happy to give the Committee an assurance that we will look at this matter again in the light of what has been said, in case we may have missed something, although at the moment I have no reason to think that we have; but certainly there is no reason why we should say that our minds are finally made up. We can look at it, and
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indeed we will continue to look at it, to see whether we are at fault in the line we are taking at the present time.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, very much for the way he has explained the omission of this clause from the Bill. It is somewhat ironic how the mind seems to change as one crosses the Floor of the House. Not so long ago I was preaching from the noble Lord's side and from his position the merits of what local authorities could do in relation to parking motor cars on footpaths, and at that time your Lordships' House told me and the Government in no mean terms what your Lordships thought of leaving it to local authorities. Your Lordships were not having it; and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London led a determined attack, saying it was not good enough to leave these things to local authorities. He wanted it in black and white in the Statute, and your Lordships insisted on it. That Amendment was won, and the Government bowed to the superior wisdom of your Lordships' House. I notice that the present Government have kept that Amendment in the present Bill, and I do not quarrel with that: but I do not see why what is sauce for that particular goose should not be sauce for this particular gander.
I was not too happy at one of the points that the noble Lord the Minister made, concerning parking outside one's home because it happened to be on a corner. I hope that will not he taken as an encouragement to park by car owners who have houses on corners. It strikes me as being a particularly good example of what we were trying to avoid —unless it is a complete cul-de-sac or something like that. The very powerful support of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, so much more lucidly put than I can put these points, strikingly bears out the truth of what he was saying, that when it is known that there is a general rule about something people expect to have to look to see whether it will be five yards, ten yards, fifteen yards or whatever it may be. This universality of expectation is a good point. I am grateful to the noble Lord. He has said that he will look again, and I hope he will look very closely at this point. I also hope he will be able to give us an assurance

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that the looking will be sooner rather than later, and that we might be able, if necessary, to have by Report stage an indication of whether the Government are able to help us on this point. With those words and with the consent of your Lordships, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Before the noble Lord withdraws the Amendment I should like, in addition to the undertaking I gave, to give a further undertaking that we shall definitely consider standardised markings at junctions where stopping is prohibited by local authorities. That might go a long way towards meeting the point that has been made.
LORD FOOT: Since it appears that the noble Lord was looking at me, if not addressing me, may I say that I appreciate that point. The distinction which I should like to make to the noble Lord is this. I can quite understand that it is very appropriate to allow local authorities to decide, for example, where a pedestrian crossing should be and that sort of thing. But the markings at the approach to a pedestrian crossing, and what a pedestrian crossing should consist of, ought surely to be a matter of national policy. It is the location of a pedestrian crossing or any traffic sign which are matters for the local authority. So long as that distinction is borne in mind, and so long as the noble Lord produces to us something that will ensure that where a local authority imposes a restriction of this sort it uses signs and indications which are universal throughout the country, that will go a long way to meet my difficulty.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: What the noble Lord, Lord Foot, was saying is very true, and it leads me to say that I was going to point out to the noble Lord, with great respect, that I did not think Clause 9 had sufficient powers. However, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has made that point for me. I take it that the noble Lord and the Government will be looking at this point. With those few words, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 [Traffic surveys]:
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DE CLIFFORD: Before we move on past Clause 6, may I say that I get slightly alarmed at this statement: "If a traffic survey of any description is carried out" The question which at once rises to mind is: who can decide what traffic survey is to be carried out, and when it has been decided can the police automatically be called upon to come to direct traffic? I can envisage something being called a "traffic survey" by, shall we say, an affronted village which has a lot of juggernaut lorries going through, and which wishes to make a survey of what the loads are and of other connected matters. Would the police be bound to come and direct the traffic? Who would give them permission?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I understand that the police would come and do the job only when the appropriate authority had called on them to do it. It would not be any insignificant authority; it would be the appropriate authority. I should like to check the matter further and write to the noble Lord on it. Oft the cuff, I cannot go further than I have done.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: I thank the noble Lord.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Compulsory wearing of seat belts]:
4.4 p.m.
EARL HOWE EARL HOWE moved Amendment No. 2
Page 11, line 21, at end insert—
("(c) may be made in relation to seat belts capable of fitting and adjustment by automatic means.").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth and myself. In, I think, the Report stage of the Bill at the time of the last Government this matter was referred to, and there was a somewhat heated and emotional discussion, so I shall say no more about that. But it now looks as if we are to be forced to wear seat belts, and

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if that is so we should concern ourselves very much with the design and fitting of these belts. This clause which, to a certain extent, embraces the design and fitting deserves considerable thought. Great care must be taken in its drafting, bearing in mind that, for one reason or another, a number of motorists may not be able to wear seat belts.
I am fully aware of the position in Australia whereby the seat belt is mandatory, but my friends tell me—I know Australia pretty well and I know the Australians—that the belt is worn so slackly that one can almost wrap it around the neck of the driver. That is a state of affairs that should not exist. If we are to have a sensible law for the wearing of seat belts, they should be of such a design and fitting that they can be worn successfully and can carry out the purpose for which they are designed; that is, to save severe injury. It is a fact that in many vehicles the present seat belts are not entirely satisfactory, and I am hoping that if the Amendment is treated kindly the inclusion of paragraph (c) will deal with the point of the design and fitting. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: It is recognised that this Amendment is intended to be helpful and, as the noble Earl has indicated, it might be a good thing if we made a statement of policy on the idea of making automatic seat belts mandatory. I should like to make quite clear that the clause as it stands does not deal with the design and fitting of seat belts. Those matters are dealt with in Construction and Use Regulations. As I understand it, the Amendment refers to inertia reel belts—often known as automatic belts—which allow the wearer to move freely until the car makes a rapid deceleration, when they automatically lock. I am advised that if this is the purpose that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, have in mind, it is not a necessary change to the Bill since the compulsory wearing regulations would relate to "seat belts of such description as may be so specified" The wording of the clause is thought to be quite wide enough to cover any design. I have dealt with the question of design and fitting coming under Construction and Use Regulations. The intention is that the Regulations will refer to the seat belts which are required
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to be fitted by the Construction and Use Regulations. These are amended from time to time when new British Standards are introduced, and at some time they may conceivably make automatic belts mandatory in new cars.
Perhaps I might say a few words on the Government's intentions regarding automatic belts. Technical development and international discussions on seat belt standards are still proceeding, and it would be premature to limit the range of types which could be fitted more than at present. I think I may have gone a little wider than the noble Earl went in his questions, but I thought that might be useful. Certainly, we have tried to anticipate what he had in mind in drafting his Amendment, and in what I have said have tried to set out the thinking behind this clause. I hope that the noble Earl will be satisfied with what I have said, and that he will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Before my noble friend Lord Howe speaks again, it might be helpful if I said that in drafting the Amendment we were not particularly concerned with what is called the "inertia reel belt", because that is a belt which has to be fixed by the individual wearer. We were more concerned with a belt device that is fixed automatically as one gets into the car and shuts the door, or makes a move towards driving off. That is what we meant by an "automatic" seat belt. We felt that any belt of a manually adjusted type could not be said to be fitted. It could be said to be worn and that might even mean that it could be draped loosely around one's person, serving no useful purpose whatsoever. It seemed to us that there was no point in having Construction and Use Regulations prescribing the type of belt to be fitted, which is what those Regulations do, when the Regulations provided for in this Bill are concerned with the wearing of such a fitment. Surely, if a fitment cannot be worn effectively there is little point in having Regulations demanding the wearing. That is the real purpose of this Amendment.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: There is one other point which strikes me. The vast majority of cars in this country are old ones which will not have these new automatic belts fitted. If the

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Secretary of State did as my noble friends are suggesting, would it not cost every motorist quite a considerable sum of money to put in new belts? This is a point which I think my noble friends and the Government ought to think about.
LORD ST. JUST: If I might intervene, we seem to have got into a little muddle over this problem. I am not in any way blaming the Government or anyone else, such as my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth who is an expert on these problems. I am far from being an expert, but I have asked Questions in this Chamber over a number of years concerning seat belts. I have been down to what used to be known as the Road Research Laboratory several times and have seen films showing seat belts connected to dummies, and so on. I remember once asking a supplementary question concerning taut seat belts. Now we have automatic seat belts—a term for the non-expert like myself. Surely the basic problem—and I am sure it could be sorted out with little difficulty—is to get people to wear seat belts. A taut seat belt is more comfortable than a normal seat belt, if I may use that term. It is freer, it takes the strain at the last moment, I believe—though I can say no more than that—that it has normally been installed in a number of continental cars, a great many of which have been marketed in this country, and it has been tested, though I have not heard the result, by the Road Research Laboratory. Now we have the term "automatic" and this is fine. But I feel it would be most helpful if all these types could be blended together so that the best designed belt, whether of the taut or the automatic variety, might be worn by all motorists.
LORD CHESHAM: I have made it very clear to your Lordships in the past that I am entirely in favour of this measure, and I believe that the wearing of seat belts should be made compulsory. But I should like to say, despite the slight doubt regarding the Australian experience, that the reduction in casualty figures for Australia is scarcely borne out by the allegation that they wear them loosely draped around their necks. However, if my noble friends have picked on something which could leave a little gap the noble Lord ought to consider including what they have suggested, in order to
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get totality in the Regulations and so that the compulsion can be applied to the wearing of any form of belt.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I think our discussion has shown once again that this Chamber is never short of experts. The debate has been extremely useful in that we have heard from a number of speakers, and we will certainly be pleased to examine all that has been said, in order to see whether anything has been missed. I should like to say, as did the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, that it would be very expensive to require automatic belts to be fitted in all existing cars, and this is not intended. Nearly 90 per cent. of existing cars have belts which give very valuable protection. The point about Australia was well made and well taken. We shall consider very carefully what has been said. The advice I have had is that the clause as it stands is adequate. But what has been said this afternoon provides an opportunity for further thought.
EARL HOWE: I should like to thank the noble Lord for his very careful and considered remarks. It is quite obvious that we must make certain that seat belts are worn securely by the individual motorist. I have not referred to the passenger. I suppose he is not included at all here, although I should have thought his chances of being injured were greater than those of the driver, since he has nothing in front of him except the windscreen. However, that is a different matter which is perhaps slightly irrelevant to this Amendment. But I hope that the noble Lord will take back this point and consider what has been said this afternoon by my noble friends. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.19 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 11, line 28, leave out ("£50") and insert ("£100").
The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment I should perhaps make it clear to the noble Lord opposite that I do so purely and simply in order to make an inquiry. Even in view of what has just been said regarding the wearing of a seat belt, I should like to know just how the authorities who will have the job of

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determining whether a prosecution shall take place for failing to wear a seat belt are in fact going to determine whether it is worn or not worn.
The exact terms of the Amendment are immaterial. For example, the motorcar that I use has some rather old-fashioned seat belts. I am told by belt manufacturers that I cannot have an automatic or inertia reel type of belt. It is garlanded with various buckles and snap-on clips which I get in a tangle. The adjustment is of a complex nature. Under the terms of this Bill, if I put on my seat belt and clip up the clips, I should be wearing the seat belt, but in fact it would be ineffective in securing me in the event of an accident. I imagine the policeman or some other authorised person will stop me to see whether or not I am wearing it properly. I should like to know exactly how the authorities can bring to bear a law which is so patently full of holes that any penalty is rather futile. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has raised a point which I hope he will forgive me for saying I could not have anticipated would have been raised on this particular Amendment. The Amendment is to leave out "£50" and insert "£100" I cannot, off the cuff, give an authoritative answer here. I will look at the point and write to him. Should the noble Lord want to raise it again on Report I hope then to be in a position to deal with it. I cannot usefully add to that this afternoon.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am very sorry that the noble Lord was taken a little unawares. When I put down the Amendment I was tempted to add another nought after "£100", so to illustrate the futility of the penalty in relation to the offence, which cannot be proved one way or the other. However, I thought that might have been a little insulting to the Committee.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I would think that proof as to whether the belt was being worn properly would need to be determined in much the same manner as the wearing of a safety helmet by a motorcyclist at the present time. It occurs to me that after an accident one can never be sure that the safety helmet
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had been properly fastened. It may well be that consideration along those lines would apply regarding safety belts.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I had anticipated that he might have produced that answer to which, as a motorcyclist, I would say that if you do not fit a helmet properly it just falls off; the bouncing about of the motorcycle bounces the helmet off a motorcyclist. You need to have it fitted properly. We are obviously not going to get very far; but I take it that I have an assurance that the noble Lord will look at this and let me know his answer in good time, so that if I do not like his reply I can formulate another, and more appropriate, Amendment. On that understanding, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
4.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: I must first apologise to the Committee for my absence on Second Reading when I would have given some notice of my intention to seek to delete this clause from the Bill, because it gives me great cause for concern. I am glad to know that I have a supporter in the noble Lord, Lord Monson; but I am surprised at the evident support for this provision in that this House accepted a similar clause in a previous Bill, to say nothing of the remarks on Second Reading of my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton. Despite the apparent support, I ask that we should very seriously think again of the merits and consequences of retaining this clause in the Bill. I should like to emphasise that it is not the obvious good intentions behind this clause with which I am concerned, but the unseen principles which may have been overlooked and I believe ought to be considered.
The first point, which has been lightly touched upon this afternoon, concerns the administration of the law. I believe that it is generally accepted that laws which pass through Parliament and which cannot effectively be enforced are regarded as had laws. I do not see how this law can be effectively enforced. I do not think that it is in our interests to see to it that we pass bad laws. The police are already very fully committed in their

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numerous duties. Apart from the occasional look by a policeman on the beat at the occupants of a passing motorcar, can any check be made, unless the police who are already on speed control or road traffic control are equipped with some form of geiger counter which will hiss, whistle or flash lights every time a car passes in which the occupants have not secured their seat belts?
There is a far better and far more effective way to achieve the desired result that this clause seeks to attain without actually making it a law. I have in mind that the courts, when deciding on injury claims, or any other claims fot damages in connection with accidents involving motor vehicles or passengers, might well take into account whether seat belts were being worn at the time of the accident. In the event of belts not being so worn, the courts might well consider awarding substantially reduced damages If this were to become public knowledge it may well help to encourage a more extensive use of seat belts. I suggest that this would be more preferable to having a law which in itself is bad, if only because of the difficulties of administering it.
I then must turn to the exemptions which will raise their ugly heads if this clause becomes law. People are going to say, "What about me? I am only going down to the shops", or "I am only driving in an urban town", or something of that nature. Van drivers, local delivery drivers, travelling salesmen. who have to travel short distances, will all complain bitterly if they have to strap themselves in and then unstrap themselves each time they get in or out of a motor vehicle. And what about Land Rovers? The noble Lord mentioned something about having belts which were taut. That is fine. But how do you start a Land Rover when wearing such a belt? You cannot reach the starter. If a Land Rover stalled at traffic lights the driver would have to unstrap himself in order to operate the starter. That seems to me a very cumbersome operation.
One might then say, "All right; the law will not cover the wearing of seat belts for short trips" But such a proposition would be wrong in principle, because four or five years ago there was a great publicity campaign quite rightly encour-
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aging people to wear seat belts, and it referred in particular to the housewife who just waves goodbye to her husband and says, "I am just going down to the shops to get a packet of soap flakes", then, 200 yards down the road, she crashes. This illustrates the point that it is just as important to wear seat belts over short distances as over a long distance.
I was going on to say that we ought to look at the design of seat belts, but this has been fairly extensively touched on this afternoon and I will not go into it any further. But I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to a report in The Times of Wednesday, June 5. There it states:
"Seat belts' effect on head injuries questioned.
"The number of car drivers receiving fatal or severe head injuries in crashes is not reduced by wearing seat belts, Mr. E. Grattan and Mr. J. A. Hobbs, of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, stated in an analysis of crash injuries released yesterday."
This is something which should give us all very grave concern. What would be the effect on us all if we pass a law which could of itself create injury or create a death which would otherwise not happen? Take, for instance, an open sports car without a hard top. I know from my personal knowledge of one person who has had an accident by turning his car over and, not being strapped in—it was either before seat belts came into being, or a belt was not used—he was thrown clear. If you are strapped in you have not a hope of getting out; the car comes on top of you. Therefore, if we pass a law to say that everybody will wear seat belts in whatever vehicle is used, and someone has an accident, then if it were proved that because the person concerned was wearing a seat belt injury or even death occurred, we should all have a heavy responsibility to bear. And it needs only one accident.
I go on to my fourth and last point. How far is it right and proper for Government to suppress by law the freedom of choice of an individual? I believe there could easily be a tendency for Government—I say Government, not "the" Government—to go too far in making laws protecting people from themselves, when in fact laws should go only so far as to protect the third party. For instance,

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it is obviously correct and highly desirable to enforce the laws relating to third party insurance for motoring. There is and should be no law concerning enforced insurance for the individual himself or his property. This is left to his own judgment. Similarly in licensing laws, quite rightly because it is considered undesirable to allow public drinking to take place at all times of the day and night, there are appropriate times when a licensee is required by law to cease from serving any further alcohol to people. But there is nothing to stop anybody, if he so chooses, from drinking himself silly all the time in his own home, however regrettable to any of us that particular choice might be. While, therefore, it is entirely right that belts should be fitted in motor vehicles—and indeed I would go so far as to say into all vehicles if that is possible—and it is right and proper that publicity to the greatest extent should be given to the obvious advantages of using belts, I consider it is only right that the individual must be allowed freedom to choose whether or not to avail himself of their use. In other words, let us by all means make laws to ensure that the actions of one party are not injurious to a third party, but let us try to avoid laws which may be interpreted as defending people from themselves.
I should like to make myself quite clear. I support seat belts. Their advantages are quite unquestionable. I believe that this is widely accepted in the country as well. But, for the difficulties of administration, the endless exemptions that would be demanded, the appalling consequences that could occur by causing an accident on any occasion, and, above all, the denial to the individual of the right to exercise his freedom of judgment —which is his right—and infringement in this matter may lead to the same type of directives in other matters, the situation overwhelmingly dictates that the Committee must not allow this clause to stand part of the Bill.
4.34 p.m.
LORD MONSON: I have great pleasure in supporting this Amendment. I must ask the Committee's indulgence if I speak at some length, so vitally important are the principles involved, particularly the fourth point raised by my noble friend Lord Mountgarret—the freedom of the individual. First, it may be both helpful
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and reassuring if I reiterate just what the Amendment, if it were agreed to, would not do. It would not, quite clearly, forbid motorists from wearing seat belts. It would not, equally, discourage or hinder them from doing so. It would not prevent motorists from exercising their considered judgment in deciding to wear belts in certain circumstances only, for instance, when riding as front-seat passengers, or when driving on motorways or dual carriageways. It would not retard the gradual and progressive reduction in the number of fatalities and injuries per vehicle mile over the past few decades as a result of better roads, the elimination of black spots, improvements in vehicle and tyre design, and, above all, the acquisition by motorists generally of greater skills and a greater sense of responsibility.
Your Lordships may have seen an advertisement recently which begins: "What happened on the day of your birth?" For about £1 it is possible to send off to obtain a facsimile of the front page of the Daily Express of almost any day during the past seventy years or so. I was given such a facsimile for my last birthday, and by a pure coincidence the front page of the Daily Express of May 3, 1932, 42 years ago, bears the headlines:
"Startling increase in road casualties. More killed and injured than ever."
It goes on to report that in 1931 6,691 people were killed on the roads. Since 1931 the number of vehicles on the road must certainly have multiplied at least tenfold, if not more. Yet the number of fatalities is up by somewhat less than 10 per cent.
In anticipating the objections that may be raised to this Amendment, I have tried tentatively to categorise the proponents of compulsory seat belts. The first category, a very small one, is those who believe that individual freedom should be subordinated to the interests of the State. The State has spent money in educating and bringing people up; it has paid family allowances, paid for higher education, vocational training, or whatever it may be, and premature death would mean a financial loss to the State. It is a view commonly held in totalitarian countries of both Right and Left, but fortunately it is not represented at all in your Lordships' House, and I think it is scarcely represented in the country as a whole.

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Much the same can be said of the second category of those who do not care really much one way or the other. They think much fuss is made about phrases such as, "freedom of the individual" Again. I do not think these people are actually represented either in this House or in another place, but perhaps they may be more prevalent in the country as a whole than we think. An Englishman will fight to the last to defend his home cm his "castle", but when abstract concepts of freedom are introduced he tends to become rather embarrassed and turns his back and gets on with cultivating his garden, whether in a Voltairean or literal sense.
The third category presents rather more of a challenge because it is based on a genuine ethical case. It includes people who take literally John Donne's declaration that:
"No man is an island, entire of itself."
They believe that in so far as possible it is the State's duty to prevent premature bereavement of widows, the orphaning of children, the distress of relations, loss and hardship to employers, employees, partners or whoever it may be. I do not underestimate the strength of this argument. They believe (in a nutshell) that in so far as possible it is the State's duty to ensure that everybody lives his allotted three score years and ten. The difficulty with this argument is that if taken to its logical conclusion you will have to go much further than making seat belts compulsory. You will have to ban boxing, mountaineering, pot-holing. steeplechasing and possibly Rugby football. You will have to restrict the speed limit on all types of road to as low a level as is consistent with the country's economy not grinding to a total halt. It would not be as high as 70 miles an hour; probably it would not be as high as 50; it might be as low as 40. Almost certainly you would have to ban motor cycles altogether, because the fatality rate for motor cyclists is at least six times that for motorists.
This applies to some extent to the fourth category—those who take a more hard-headed and less idealistic view—and I have met a great number of people who take the view in question. They say, "Yes, you are perfectly right. It is an infringement of freedom. Your argument would have been perfectly valid
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before the war when people were responsible for looking after their own health, but now that we have a National Health Service the burden of these extra deaths and severe injuries falls upon the Health Service. Therefore the taxpayer has to pay".
It is not entirely easy to refute this view, but I can only say that one does pay National Insurance. We know that to some extent this is fraudulent because the weekly stamp does not cover the benefits provided, most of which are provided by general taxation. None the less, it should be possible actuarially to calculate the additional cost to the Health Service of injuries received as a direct result of not wearing seat belts and for those who object to wearing them on practical or idealistic grounds to pay an additional tax —or perhaps to be given a sticker to put on their windscreen testifying to their exemption. This would cover that particular objection. The fifth category, which straddles most of the others, embraces those who for one reason or another want compulsory seat belts, but not until such time as seat belts are made safer, more effective and more easily operated. In one sense they are allies of my noble friend Lord Mountgarret and myself. In another sense they are opponents, given that their objections are only provisional and temporary.
To strike a personal note, in 24 years of driving, during which I have covered well over a quarter of a million miles, I have been fortunate enough to have had only one accident involving anything worse than a dented bumper. It occurred about 17 years ago when a car shot out of a minor road and hit my car broadside on. My wife and baby son were beside me in the car. The car was knocked round in a complete circle. We were shaken but not hurt. I believe to this day that had we been wearing seat belts (which were not, I think, invented at the time) my wife and I might well still have scars across our necks due to our necks having been driven against the diagonal seat belts by the force of the sideways' impact. That is not to say that we do not wear seat belts when we feel that it is right to do so, and normally I do so when I am a front-seat passenger and when I am on long drives. But we must not forget that there are people who have very serious objections to wearing them

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either because they feel hemmed in—they find them claustrophobic—or because they find, and this is a perfectly valid argument, that the wearing of seat belts makes them complacent. They feel too relaxed and secure, and their attention can be taken off the road. They know themselves that they are not driving as skilfully and as alertly as they otherwise would.
There is also the practical objection concerning people who are exceptionally short or exceptionally tall. Exceptionally tall people often find that seat belts slip off their shoulders, particularly in a pillarless coupé. Exceptionally short people find that seat belts cut them across the neck and I do not really see, however much seat belt design is improved and to whatever extent automatic belts are introduced, that much can be done about this. I should interject at this point that if a man is mature enough to vote in a General Election he is also mature enough to form his own judgment about when and in what circumstances he should wear seat belts, and how to look after his own safety and health.
I sincerely believe that if we wish to avoid moving gradually, if unconsiously, towards even a pale, benevolent and well-intentioned version of the form of society depicted by George Orwell in 1984, we must in 1974 make a stand against the encroaching collectivism and paternalism—the concept that the gentlemen in Whitehall or even the gentlemen in the Road Research Laboratory know best—and against the insidious erosion of individual freedom and responsibility.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I should like to support the Amendment my noble friend Lord Mountgarret moved so ably and I will do so on two grounds: first, on general grounds, and, secondly, on the particular grounds of the proposals in the clause. On the general grounds, the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, asked how far is it the duty of the State to prevent somebody doing something which the majority may consider foolish but which a minority may sincerely believe is a sound course to follow? How far is it the duty of the State to prevent a man from hurting himself by his own foolishness? There comes a limit to the individual inter-
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ference by the Government in the lives of citizens and this, I believe, is a particular instance of that interference. There are people who have conscientious objections to the wearing of seat belts. We have just heard from the noble Lord of the instance when he and his family were saved by not wearing seat belts. Do the Government propose that somebody who has conscientious objections to wearing a seat belt should be forbidden to drive his car unless he conforms to a law which he disagrees with conscientiously?
I have seen as an awful warning lurid pictures of the blood-stained and cut faces of those who have not worn seat belts. I have not seen—because there has been no propaganda in that direction—the awful internal injuries that may have been caused by the wearing of seat belts and which would have been avoided had seat belts not been used. I speak with some feeling as one whose life was saved by not wearing a seat belt. I must say at once that it was not in a motor car. It was in an aeroplane. But had I been strapped in at the moment of crash I should certainly have been killed. By the Grace of God I was thrown out and was all right. I believe that the majority of people want to wear seat belts. I usually wear one, but I object to the element of compulsion in this clause.
I have dealt very briefly with the general point because it has been so adequately dealt with by the mover of the Amendment and the noble Lord who followed him. On the particular point, I am very alarmed at the tremendously wide powers given to the Executive in this Bill. The Secretary of State may make regulations as wide as he likes. He can then make exceptions as wide as he likes. This does not seem to me to be very good Governmental administration. He can prescribe regulations
"requiring, subject to such exceptions as may be prescribed, persons driving or riding in motor vehicles to wear seat belts of such description as may be so specified."
Does he intend that all the passengers in a motor car shall be forced to wear seat belts? There is nothing about the driver and the person beside him. Under this power the Secretary of State could say, if he so wished, that no motor cars should be without seat belts in the back,

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and that the law would be broken if they did not have such seat belts.
Of course, he could make an exception and no doubt we shall be told that he would not make such a regulation. But there is no excuse for the Executive taking such powers and then saying, "But we will be awfully good boys. We will not use them". The Bill says,
"Any person who drives or rides in a motor vehicle … without wearing seat belts"
shall be guilty of an offence." If a noble Lord going from your Lordships' House his home a mile away was kind enough to give me a lift, would he be liable to a fine of £50 if I did not strap myself in? If I am going, say, to Lord North Street, am I liable to a fine of £50 if I do not wear a seat belt? No doubt the Government will say," Of course that is silly. It would not be so. "But let us have some information about what these regulations will cover. We have spoken about the type of seat belts, but let us have some information about the regulations under which they would have to be worn. For what sort of journeys must they be worn? Is it a journey of two miles or over two miles? Is it a journey of only half-a-mile, or is it if you go outside the city?
I presume that these regulations will come forward under the Negative Resolution procedure, and we are therefore really giving the Executive enormously wide powers without any safeguards at all for the ordinary citizen. It is because we ought to ask the Government to be more detailed in their proposals in Clause 7, as well as in the general grounds, that I personally support the Motion to leave out Clause 7.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: I should very much like to support this Motion, but before doing so I should like to apologise to the Committee for being so late. I had a meeting in Nottingham which lasted until lunch time and I could not get back earlier. I wish to support this Motion on two main grounds. First, as a magistrate I do not think this law could possibly be implemented. Unless he actually stopped a car, I do not see how a policeman could tell whether or not the driver was wearing a seat belt. I know from experience that it is perfectly easy to put a seat belt around one's arm, so that it looks to all intents and
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purposes as though that seat belt is being worn when it is not. In my view, it is bad to make a law that cannot be implemented.
Secondly, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that there are so many rules and regulations that we should not be forced against our will to have yet one more added, when we should have a freedom of choice to do whichever we like. As my noble friend said, in these days very few people on the roads are absolute fools—indeed, I rarely find any fools at all— and I think one should still be allowed to do as one likes in this matter. With regard to paragraph (b), I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that the words,
"may make any prescribed exceptions subject to such conditions as may be prescribed"
really carries it too far. This is too wide for any of us to agree to. Perhaps we can have some help as to what is really intended by that part of the clause when the noble Lord replies, when perhaps we may be able to agree. I certainly could not agree now.
On my way down from Nottingham I probably did the wrong thing, but I picked up a long-distance lorry driver because I have a very high regard and respect for the way in which normally they drive. He had his trade plates under his arm. I picked him up and I said: "I am going to the House of Lords, where they want to make seat belts compulsory for all drivers" He said: "Over my dead body they do that. I have no intention of ever wearing one and I do not think any of my mates will, either". Not only that, but his wife apparently drives a fairly small family car and they have three children. He said: "You should not wear a seat belt, but whenever you are in an accident throw yourself across to the nearside of the car if the offside is the part that is being hit. If you do that you will probably save yourself from a great deal of harm" If you are wearing a seat belt, then, of course, you will be unable to move and, as noble Lords know perfectly well, a great many accidents and fatalities have been prevented by people not wearing seat belts. am well aware that there are enormous numbers of statistics put out by the authorities, but I for one would be very sorry to see this country and all the motorists in it forced to conform to this rule.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: I should like to support my noble friend in this matter. I have one absolute main objection to this clause, which is that it is unenforceable. We have far too many traffic rules on the Statute Book at the moment which are flouted. The only people who get picked up for offending against them are the people who say, "Oh, bad luck!". We are here producing another rule to exactly that same standard.
Another aspect of this matter is that in my view it is going to be a lawyers' paradise. Clause 33A(3) says:
"Any person who drives or rides in a motor vehicle in contravention of regulations under this section shall be guilty of an offence."
Supposing some well-meaning son takes his mother out in his car and the mother says, "Don't you expect me to wear a seat belt", and refuses to do so. If there is an accident and it is proved that she was not wearing her seat belt, is he aiding and abetting her? Is he committing any offence? Does he make himself liable for any penalties? I think this a really ridiculous performance and I trust that the noble Lord will press his Motion to a Division.
LORD BROCK: I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, something about subsection (2)(a) of Section 33 of the 1972 Act, which allows exception to be permitted. I can understand that it may be decided not to insist upon seat belts being worn in buses, but what is the position in regard to taxis? Has any decision been made about this? I suggest that seat belts should be made available for those in taxis who wish to wear them. We have heard about the rights of the individual not being contravened, but I suggest we should consider that the individual should not be deprived of any extra safety measures which he may wish to use. The back of a taxi may he a very dangerous place in which to ride, and I hope that full consideration will be given to the provision of seat belts in taxis for the use of passengers, at any rate for those who may wish to use them.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I am loath to add to the hard task of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, in answering so many questions. This has been a most remarkable turn round for
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the book. We have had five noble Lords who have come out completely against this clause, or the principle of seat belts, whereas when we took this same clause in the last Bill, with the exception of about two noble Lords all the rest of the noble Lords who spoke (there was a very strong team) spoke in favour of the ability of the Secretary of State to have these powers. It would be churlish of me not to say that in principle, although I am loath to hurt the feelings of the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, we as a Government approved of this potential power in the Bill, and would still support in principle Clause 7.
However, I should like to ask one or two questions. I appreciate the feelings of some of my noble friends about freedom of judgment; how much it is right for the State to nanny the individual for his or her good? I appreciate that point I thought my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, with his freedom of conscience over seat belts, was going a little far—I have yet to meet that religion. I also wonder what a person with such a conscience would do if he went into an aeroplane, because I cannot imagine that the aeroplane would take off if the pilot were told by a steward that there were passengers who refused to wear seat belts. So as a matter of principle—
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: It I may interrupt the noble Lord, I can tell him that the aeroplane would not be allowed to take off, but the motor car is still allowed to go.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I was thinking about the point of conscience. Another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, was that of the powers to the Executive. This brings me to my main question. Let us go back and take first things first. My noble friend Lord Aberdare, when we discussed this matter last repeatedly said —and I think I did also—that we were carrying out an exercise to find out the views expressed in Parliament. To-day we have had totally different views expressed from those we had last time. I should like to ask the Government whether it is still an exercise in that direction, or have the Government in fact made up their minds? Supposing this is still an exercise (or they may have made up their minds), and supposing they

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will one day put it into effect, under this Bill would the Secretary of State, when he makes these regulations, do so under the Affirmative/Negative procedure, or not? I think many of the objections of my noble friend to this blanket clause —on the point of whether or not the backseat passengers in a taxi would have to wear belts—if this were to be done in Parliament by Affirmative/Negative procedure, would disappear and people would be far happier probably with this clause. I should like to know the answer to that point.
My only other point is that I imagine the noble Lord, Lord Platt, and others who know about medicine, would agree there would have to be allowance made in these regulations for people who genuinely did suffer from claustrophobia, if they felt enveloped. I suppose that doctors would have power to exempt people. Would the Secretary of State be envisaging these sorts of exceptions? I imagine I am asking for details not yet thought out, but this is all the more reason why I should like to hear that these regulations would be subject to Affirmative/Negative procedure.
5.4 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I am in some difficulty in replying, because a number of points have been raised. I have tried to make a note of them in the hope that I can do justice to those noble Lords who have asked very definite questions on this matter. I must confess that I am tempted very strongly to enter the philosophical sphere of what we really mean by freedom, but I am sure your Lordships would not want me to do so. although I personally would greatly enjoy it.
"Freedom" is a much hackneyed expression. We have to bear in mind that there can be no freedom at all in any society unless there are laws, unless there are restrictions. We have to impose laws and restrictions so that each of us can in fact be free. Freedom means being able to pursue a course of conduct which is not going to have adverse effects upon other people. May I say that I regard Parliament (as your Lordships regard Parliament) as being the place where we consider what is best for the community as a whole. We frequently pass laws that restrict the freedom of the individual. It
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the individual were not restricted, it would not be safe to walk our streets. Some of your Lordships may say that it is not safe now; but it is reasonably safe. Not one of us here really has two minds about going out into the streets. We should not be, shall I say, safe in our own homes. I think one has to bear in mind that it is necessary in the interests of real freedom to impose restrictions and to have laws which do place upon the individual a responsibility which, some people will argue (and have argued this afternoon) does in fact restrict the freedom of the individual from expressing his own personal views.
LORD SLATER: Would the noble Lord forgive me for one moment? He has emphasised what freedom is with regard to this particular clause. But has the noble Lord given any thought to comparing the word "freedom" with the attitude of Her Majesty's Government in the course of the introduction of this Bill in taking into consideration what is known as the liberty of the subject? I think he has to bear that in mind when he is talking about freedom.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Are we having a discussion of a philosophical nature about freedom, or are we discussing seat belts?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: It is quite obvious that I must resist the temptation to pursue this question. Perhaps one of these days we could have a debate on what we really mean by personal liberty, and what we mean by freedom. But I do not accept the point that, because there may well be difficulty in enforcing a law, it is unwise therefore to make the law. Many of the laws which we have put on the Statute Book over the years have occasioned some difficulty in their enforcement; nevertheless, is is desirable I think for the wellbeing of the community as a whole that these laws should have been put on the Statute Book.
Perhaps I may try to answer some of the questions which have been put. The noble Lord, Lord Brock, raised the question about seat belts in taxis; and the question of exemptions for certain individuals was raised by other noble Lords. Quite clearly, these matters have not yet been decided. If this clause remains in the Bill then there is an obligation on

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the Government to consult various sections of the community as to what is desirable, and what really is effective. Taxis will certainly be one of the sections involved; but it would be quite wrong for me to go beyond that point. This is a matter for consultation, in just the same way as one has to take a realistic view about delivery journeys—people who are delivering milk, or bread, or something like that. One has to take into account the fact that they are constantly stopping. It may well be that some kind of exemption has to be granted in that sphere.
I recognise that the question of what results from the wearing of seat belts is an emotive matter. I can produce statistics, just as other noble Lords can produce statistics to prove other matters. I accept that as a fact. But this is always the case: there is always another point of view. But I would suggest that there is ample evidence that loss of about £40 million a year, including lost production by those killed and in health service costs, is experienced by the community. Seat belts represent an investment of about £50 million in road safety, of which two-thirds is not used because only 30 per cent. of the motorists, I acknowledge, wear them regularly. Again statistics are available, and I know they will not be accepted by some noble Lords, that use of seat belts roughly halves the risk of dealth or serious injury. It has been stated time and time again that there are about 1,000 people saved annually from death by the wearing of seat belts, and some 10,000 serious injuries are avoided annually by the wearing of seat belts.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: I am sorry to intervene, but has the noble Lord forgotten the Report of the Road Research Laboratory which I quoted. which seems to be in direct contradiction? Somebody must be right.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: That is precisely what I have said, that one does get contradicting reports. But there is no evidence that the wearing of a seat belt is in itself a greater disaster than not wearing a seat belt. One noble Lord— I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Monson—referred to open sports cars. I can produce a piece of research which shows that it is more dangerous to be thrown out of a car than to be secured until the vehicle comes to rest. I am sure the noble
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Lord will not agree, but there is this evidence.
LORD MONSON: If I may briefly interrupt the noble Lord, I referred to a coupé, a fixed head or open coupé, where the seat belt was mounted below a tall passenger's shoulders and therefore slipped off. I did not in fact mention sports cars.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I think again, in reply to the noble Lord, that one would say that the number of motorists driving about in such vehicles is infinitesimal compared with the larger number of motorists who drive what I would call a more conventional car.
I do not think there is very much more I can say about this, which is a matter of personal opinion. But I would ask your Lordships to bear in mind that there is a responsibility on Parliament—and that is not just the Government, but Members of both Houses of Parliament—to do what is considered best in the interests of the community as a whole. Some people have to be saved from themselves. I would remind your Lordships that a similar clause in a previous Bill was debated, as the noble Lord. Lord Mowbray, has just said, at some considerable length, and this clause was agreed to without a Division. I would ask your Lordships to resist this Motion. The Government feel, as the previous Government felt, and they have been to some considerable difficulty to get the best possible opinion about this matter; and, as I say, both sides of this House came to the same conclusion, that this is really desirable as far as the vast army of motorists in this country is concerned.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Before the noble Lord sits down, is it possible for him to answer my question; namely, whether the Regulations the Secretary of State may make under this clause would be subject to the Affirmative or the Negative Resolution procedure in Parliament?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I understand it will be the Negative Resolution procedure, which will provide the House with the opportunity for a very full discussion, if it wants it.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: I had no idea when I started this afternoon's discussion that I would generate such an

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apparently controversial subject. I was speaking rather personally. I am very glad to find such a wide degree of support. I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for his exhortation not to fall into the trap of carrying things too far and to have regard to what we did when we were in Government and to what the Government are now trying to do. We all live and learn. Whereas earlier we may well have felt—I was not present at the time—that it was right and proper to protect the individual and make the wearing of seat belts compulsory, I believe there is a very strong feeling in this country that we are going too far in insisting on looking after the individual and spoonfeeding him. I do not think that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell; perhaps I may get my words wrong if I say we do not have a responsibility to look after the citizens. That is not exactly true; we have; but the point is as to where you draw the line. I think this is a matter of opinion, and I am sure we do not want to enter into a debate on that at the moment.
I am not really satisfied that the question of the administration of the law has been answered. Nobody has said anything, so far as I am aware—I hope I will be corrected if I am wrong—as to how this law is going to be administered; there is no indication given. It comes back to what I said in the first place. It will be a bad law, and we are here to pass good laws, not bad laws. Lawyers up and down the country, as I am sure all your Lordships are aware, complain bitterly that some laws that are passed through Parliament have not been well enough thought out and drafted. This clause is, or could become, as I think
the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, said, a lawyers' paradise. On the one hand, he wants to support me in deleting this clause; on the other hand, he is picking holes in the very drafting of it, as indeed the noble Baroness did. Well, I agree with them both; I think it is appallingly badly drafted, but I am not going to get misled into the way it is drafted. I want to see the clause out altogether, because of the freedom of the individual. My noble friend Lord Mowbray said that maybe those people who suffer from claustrophobia can apply to someone to be exempted from wearing seat belts. All I can say is that if this clause goes on the Statute Book we had all better apply as suffering from claustrophobia, and then we can decide for ourselves whether to put seat belts on or not.
I think I have talked long enough this afternoon. I very much regret that I may not be able to attend the Report stage of this Bill; I do not know what the programme is, and my business commitments may prevent me from coming. I am not certain whether my noble friends who supported me this afternoon will indeed be available themselves. With the greatest respect to your Lordships, and being a comparatively new boy in that this is the first time I have ever had occasion to query the experts on the drafting of their Bills, I really must ask your Lordships to give a decision on this matter this afternoon, because I should like to know where I stand. As I say, I consider that this clause ought not to stand part of the Bill.
5.19 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 55.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Hacking, L.

Allerton, L.

Elgin and Kincardine, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Annan, L.

Energlyn, L.

Hale, L.

Archibald, L

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Hanworth, V.

Arwyn, L.

Ferrier, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Auckland, L.

Fortescue, E.

Hayter, L.

Blyton, L.

Gainford, L.

Henderson, L.

Brock, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Hertford, M.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Gardiner, L.

Hoy, L.

Crook, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Hughes, L.

Davidson, V.

Geoffrey-Lloyd, L.

Jacques, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Gisborough, L.

Janner, L.

Diamond, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Leatherland, L.

Phillips, B.

Summerskill, B.

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

Popplewell, L.

Swansea, L.

Rochester, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Sandford, L.

Walston, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Shinwell, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Longford, E.

Somers, L.

White, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Wigoder, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Windlesham, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NON-CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Goschen, V.

Merrivale, L.

Alport, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Meston, L.

Amulree, L.

Grenfell, L.

Monck, V.

Balerno, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Monson, L. [Teller.]

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Howe, E.

Mountgarret, V. [Teller.]

Boothby, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Northchurch, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Inglewood, L.

Platt, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Ironside, L.

Poltimore, L.

Caccia, L.

Kindersley, L.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Cathcart, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Rankeillour, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Leconfield and Egremont, L.

St. Just, L.

Clwyd, L.

Loudoun, C.

Sempill, Ly.

Courtown, E.

Lovat, L.

Sharples, B.

Daventry, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Strathclyde, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lytton, E.

Teviot, L.

Dundee, E.

Mackie of Benshie. L.

Vernon, L.

Dundonald, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vivian, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mancroft, L.

Wade, L.

Feversham, L.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 7 agreed to accordingly.
Clause 8 [Prohibition of parking of vehicles on verges and footways]:
On Question, Whether Clause 8 shall stand part of the Bill?
5.28 p.m.
LORD PLATT: Your Lordships will remember that Clause 8 of the Bill is the clause which would prohibit the parking of motor vehicles on verges and footways. I must remind your Lordships of the history of this clause just to make sure that you vote in the right direction, if indeed it comes to a vote. The clause was not incorporated in the original Road Traffic Bill which was before your Lordships' House in December last. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London put down an Amendment at the Committee stage on December 3 last to prohibit the parking of motor vehicles on verges and footways. After a fairly full discussion, his Amendment was defeated by 54 votes to 52—a very close thing. I stress the fact that it was defeated because the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, very kindly showed me a note from his Department which stated that the right reverend Prelate had in fact won the day and the clause had been accepted, and that was not the case. I also want to
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stress the fact that to me this is in no way a Party matter. I stand here on the Cross-Benches. The Bill was introduced by the then Conservative Government, and most of those voting against the right reverend Prelate's Amendment were supporters of that Government. I therefore hope that they will to-day support an Amendment which seeks to remove the clause, which will have the effect of accepting the right reverend Prelate's Amendment. I hope I have made this rather complicated situation clear. If it is not clear, let me repeat that this clause would forbid the parking of motor cars on verges and footways.
At first sight this sounds a very sensible thing to do, and I am sure that in a perfect world with a benign dictator (who might be the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London) no vehicles should ever park on footways. I would not contest that for a moment if we lived in a perfect world, or even in a perfect urban area. Having mentioned urban areas, I am reminded that this clause is not quite in the words of the right reverend Prelate's Amendment. He was for forbidding parking anywhere. This urban roads where there is a speed limit Amendment forbids it only on certain of 40 miles an hour or less. In a perfect society it would obviously be right that

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motorists should not use the footway, but we are not in a perfect society and it would be extremely difficult to enforce such a ban. Furthermore, there are very many circumstances in which parking on the footway is positively desirable.
This clause favours the most affluent people who have one, two or three garages, or at least a driveway, a car port or room in the front garden to put a car. I do not think it sufficiently takes into account the very large number of urban town dwellers who live in narrow back streets, but who in the present state of society are quite able to afford to keep a motor car. There would have to be so many exceptions made—and the clause, of course, allows for exceptions to be made by the correct authority—there would be a mushroom-like growth of all kinds of signs, new signs would have to be designed, and it would be unenforceable and unnecessary legislation.
There are two other points which are of very great importance. The clause makes an exception for states of emergency, but is so badly drafted that it reads as if you have to be putting out a fire or saving life to plead a defence in a case of emergency. It could, of course, quite easily be re-drafted, but as it reads it is rather absurd. There is another absurdity in the clause. An exception can be made for people loading or unloading vehicles, provided they are at no time left unattended. How does a single man driving, let us say, for the parcel post deliver parcels without leaving his vehicle unattended at any time? For all these reasons I ask your Lordships not to accept this clause, even though we all realise that its intentions are highly desirable.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: The noble Lord, Lord Platt, is well-known for his sympathy with disabled persons. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, is not in his place, because I have heard him speak very eloquently about the danger to blind people from cars parked on the footway.
LORD ABERDARE: I hesitate to interrupt the noble Baroness, but has she been promoted to the Episcopal Bench?
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: May I suggest that an imaginary Bishop
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has paid a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Platt, for his sympathy with disabled persons, and regret the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Fraser? I should like to suggest that there is a serious difference between parking on footways and parking on grass verges in rural areas. Footways are intended for foot passengers; grass verges have a number of purposes but are not primarily for the walking of pedestrians. I should hope that this clause might stand, so that we could put a stop to parking on footways in urban areas and perhaps make some alterations at a later stage to exempt, or make different regulations about, grass verges.
LORD FERRIER: One cannot help but admire the determination of the noble Lord, Lord Platt, in this matter. I shall not go over the ground we covered in previous debates on the question of parking on footpaths. I support what the noble Baroness has just said about the blind, the handicapped—even sighted ones—and people pushing prams with children at hand and so on. There is one other point which I do not think has been mentioned in any debate and which I think is worth mentioning; that is, the damage which heavy vehicles can cause when they are parked on the pavement, displacing stones, and when you get your toe against a stone which has been moved it is a very serious matter. In the ordinary way, when vehicles are parked on a footway, in terms of the Act, properly supervised and left attended, people see to it that damage is not done to the pathway. I personally feel inclined to suggest that the clause should remain part of the Bill.
5.37 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: As has been stated Clause 8 provides for a ban on parking, either wholly or partly on footways or verges in urban areas, to be inserted as Section 36B of the Road Traffic Aot 1972. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, is worried lest that is too inflexible. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for the two points they have made. They were two very effective points, probably in themselves sufficient to persuade many of your Lordships that this clause is properly included in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, is, I think, over-worried, because he

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acknowledges that the driver of a vehicle parked with the permission of a policeman or for meeting an emergency, such as saving life or extinguishing a fire, has a sufficient defence. But if someone pulled off the highway in the event of a breakdown, in order to avoid causing danger to moving vehicles by parking wholly on a narrow road, this might very well be construed as taking action to avoid an emergency.
I do not think I can add anything to what I said at Second Reading, because the noble Lord, Lord Platt, raised this point then, and I think I have covered the matter today even more fully than I did at Second Reading. I also wrote a letter to the noble Lord in which I gave a very full explanation of the reasons why we thought this clause should be included. It is quite correct that I told him that the Bishop of London had carried the day. The noble Lord has now chosen to remind the Committee that the Bishop of London was, in fact, defeated. What I think he has overlooked is the fact that whereas the Bishop of London was defeated in Committee, he won the day when it came to Report stage. Clearly, it was the wish of the House as a whole that the case made by the Bishop of London should be recognised. We have tried to meet the point of the Bishop of London in the wording of this Bill. It is not exactly all that the Bishop had hoped for, but I think I can say that, by and large, he has accepted that we have met the point he raised.
I think that what the men and women in the street want, beyond any question, is that it shall be established that the pavement is for pedestrians and the carriageway is for vehicles. As I appreciated the arguments on the occasion when the Amendment of the Bishop of London was considered at Report stage, that was the basis of his case; that is what it amounted to. I very much hope that the Committee will see the great value of this clause. But I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Platt, that it could well be that we have missed the point that he has raised for the first time this afternoon and we will certainly have a look at it. But I must say that I give that undertaking without any commitment, because a great deal of thought has been given to the matter and we feel we now have it roughly
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right, as we appreciate the mood and the wish of the House when the last Bill was at Report stage.
VISCOUNT AMORY: I think we all sympathise with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has made very well. I feel that there is a good deal to be said for the point that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has just made to us, that we want to do what we can to protect the rights of motorists but we must not forget the rights of the pedestrians. Between the two, in the overcrowded conditions in many towns to-day, the rights of the pedestrians are perhaps the more important. There are a number of provisions made for exceptional cases, which I should have thought roughly met the point. I think the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has offered to look at them carefully and to see whether they can be at all improved, but they seem to deal with the more important cases. Between the two views in this case, I think it wiser to keep the clause in the Bill.
LORD PLATT: I must first thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for reminding me of what is perfectly true; that the Bishop lost the Amendment but it was brought back in the Report stage and agreed to then. I am very sorry that I misled the Committee. It was certainly not intentional in any way. I was just so surprised to read about it.
The Committee knows very well my interest in the disabled, which includes the blind. I had this interest in mind when I was bold enough to suggest that this clause should not stay in the Bill. Blind people have a lot to put up with and one might very well ask, "Why give them something else?" Of course, they meet obstructions. For example, they meet two women with a pram. They carry sticks and they are very skilled at looking after themselves. I do not think there is very much likelihood that they will run into a stationary car. But I will not pursue that point if your Lordships do not think it is of importance. With regard to the point of Lord Ferrier about the damage done by heavy vehicles, there is of course a provision in the Road Traffic Act 1972 which I think forbids heavy vehicles—
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Heavy commercial vehicles.
LORD PLATT: Heavy commercial vehicles. I think that point is already looked after. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, also said that if a person went on to the verge or the pathway to avoid an accident and so on, that would be looked upon as an emergency, I would remind him that the subsection which deals with that point does not have words to that effect. But he has promised to look at it again, and I am sure he will do so, to see whether those words could be improved. There was one other point that I left out. I thought this would lead to a lot of petty litigation. It would give the police, who are already overstretched, more and more to do with petty offences and would also give the magistrates more and more to do. Nevertheless, I do not feel that I have sufficient support in the Committee to press my Motion.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Duty of local authorities to promote road safety.]:
5.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCK VISCOUNT MONCK moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 14, line 12, after ("roads") insert ("including the provision and maintenance of sufficient and correct traffic signs and signals.")
The noble Viscount said: This is a very short Amendment consisting of only 13 words. Therefore, its inclusion would not dislocate the Bill to any great extent—in fact, it would dislocate it to a far lesser extent than would the eradication of whole clauses and a Schedule or two, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Platt, is proposing; or indeed the inclusion of new clauses. There is one yet to come which amounts, according to my computer, to 370 words. Of course, the point it not whether a 13-word Amendment is better or worse, but whether a 13-word Amendment or a 370-word Amendment is necessary. I hope to show to your Lordships that my little Amendment is necessary.
These road traffic signs and signals are made for the convenience, the guidance and the warning of road users. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that they are correct and not misleading. That, I fear, is not the situation today in many parts of the country. I shall give only three illustrations.
We all know the double white line system. My first illustration is where one white line is broken and the other one is continuous. When the broken white line is on your side of the road, you may overtake something in front of you if it is safe to do so. The obligation is put, quite rightly, on you. But this does not excuse any broken white line being on a road where it would never be safe to overtake a vehicle in front of you. I remember extending invitations to noble Lords in the last Government to come and visit my humble home, and I extend a similar invitation to noble Lords in this Government. After a slight fortification, I can take noble Lords out and in half-an-hour show them at least three or four places where the existence of the broken white line is nothing less than suicidal.
The second illustration is warning signs where there are road works taking place. The warning signs may be put up very properly, but when the roadworks are finished they are often not taken down, or at least they are turned around so that they are not visible to traffic. One sees a succession of these warning signs and, in the end, one comes to nothing in the way of a warning which puts these signs into contempt, and that is bad.
The third point is that there are cases where signs are not visible, either by a overhanging branch or some obstruction of that type. They are just three short illustrations; all I say is that, as local authorities have to take over these obligations for road safety, mention of road signs and traffic signals, should be made in the Bill. I beg to move.
LORD SOMERS: I should like to confirm what the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, said about the misplacing of road signs. I remember when I lived in Wiltshire there was a stretch on the A4 where the double white line was placed so that on a lefthand bend, where you could not possibly see ahead, the broken white line was on your side. On the righthand bend, whore you could see ahead, the continuous white line was there. It seems to me that these local authorities really should learn something about road problems before they start erecting signs. I cannot see that it is right for local authorities to erect a proliferation of signs without having the faintest idea whether they are necessary, misleading or even dangerous.
LORD ALLERTON: I should like to say a few words in support of the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Monck. It is of the utmost importance that there must be a complete uniformity of type of road signs. If you travel the country sufficiently widely it will be seen that some of the signs vary considerably in their meaning. I had an instance of that motoring down to Scotland last weekend. On the main A9 road in Perth there is what appears to be a completely normal electric traffic light and when it turns green one expects to continue in a Southerly direction. However, much to one's surprise one suddenly finds that a filter has appeared and traffic starts coming the other way across one when one expects it to turn right. No doubt if one lives in Perth one becomes accustomed to it and takes it as perhaps a normal sequence of events. But if you do not you can be seriously misled and get into a great deal of trouble.
The other point I wish to make is about warning signs. I think that my noble friend stressed the importance of having warning signs at a considerable distance from the hazard of which they are giving warning. In various places there is a great difference in the proximity to the hazard. I think it is completely wrong that merely because one has a comparatively slow road a warning sign should be placed right on top of the obstruction. It often seems to me that the signs are not necessarily placed by a motorist, but rather by a man on his feet who has no idea of the speed at which traffic is moving. If they are placed too close the unfortunate motorist finds himself on top of the hazard long before he expects, which again can produce unfortunate results.
LORD FERRIER: I wish to support my noble friend's Amendment. In reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Allerton, said, I have motored a great deal in recent years and in the last two days drove from Scotland and some distance in Suffolk. I believe that although a number of signs are poorly sited, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, suggested, my experience is that they are gradually being better placed. I put that down to the fact that men employed on the road to-day are nearly all motorists themselves, whereas 10 or 20 years ago they were
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not. They understand the distances from obstructions for which signs must be placed and proper warning given to motorists handling the car of to-day. One point raised by my noble friend Lord Monck which I should like to emphasise, which derives from my experience of the last two days, is that I would suggest the addition of two words in the Amendment, that "Men Working" signs should be there only if they are working. So often one notices such signs when men are not in attendance. It brings a most important sign into contempt if it is not taken down when work is not going on and when, in fact, the road is perfectly clear. Therefore, I suggest that if the noble Viscount redrafts his Amendment he should add the words "and use" after the words "maintenance" in line 5.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: We have had an interesting discussion. I do not know how firm was the invitation of the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, to pay him a visit, but I think he will have to make it a little more attractive than it sounded to me before I—
VISCOUNT MONCK: I did say "after suitable fortification".
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I had an idea that there would be some clarification about it. However, the effect of this Amendment is to secure a specific reference to traffic signs and signals in the measures which local authorities shall take as they think appropriate to prevent road accidents. The purpose of Clause 9 is not to add to the powers of local authorities but to ensure that road safety and highway powers are directed to reducing accidents, an aim with which I think everybody who has spoken will be in complete agreement. The powers to which the clause already directs attention include,
"powers for controlling, protecting or assisting the movement of traffic on roads".
Therefore, with the greatest respect to the noble Viscount it would appear that his Amendment adds nothing to what is already in the Bill. Local authority powers to erect traffic signs of all kinds including road markings, to which the noble Viscount referred, stem from Sections 54 and 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967. All these must be

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to a design either prescribed by regulations under the Act or individually authorised by the Secretary of State.
Local authorities' discretion about the number of signs and markings to display in particular circumstances varies. There is a distinction between signs which warn or advise and those which control the movement of traffic. It may be helpful if I remind your Lordships of what I am sure your Lordships already know, that warning and advisory signs include direction signs and white lines on the road showing the edge of the road or the division between carriageways; and your Lordships will appreciate that local authorities do not have to meet statutory requirements in regard to these because what is needed in any one case depends on the judgment of traffic and road conditions. Instead, authorities work within a framework of guidance laid down by the Secretary of State and backed up by day-to-day contacts between authorities and the regional controllers of the Department of the Environment.
However, it will be appreciated that the position is different with signs which control the movement of traffic, such as speed-limit signs and signs controlling access and directing the flow of traffic in one-way streets. Here there are specific statutory requirements for signs either in Acts or in regulations and orders made under the Acts. In the case of speed limits, for example, authorities have a duty under Section 75 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 to:
"…erect and maintain prescribed traffic signs in such positions as may be requisite",
and these requirements are developed in detail in regulations. Most road traffic schemes depend on orders made under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967. Regulations made under that Act require that authorities shall erect:
"such traffic signs in such positions as the authority may consider requisite"
to give effect to a traffic scheme. I appreciate the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, that probably many of these could be more advantageously sited.
Whatever the requirements, local authorities must have a measure of discretion to place signs sensibly in relation to precise local circumstances. I am advised that powers to erect signs are
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adequate, and I am assured that authorities have a clear duty to do so where appropriate. In all these activities they work closely with the Department of the Environment. It is acknowledged that the performance of local authorities inevitably varies, but again I am advised that the Amendment would do nothing to overcome that problem. Administrative action and continuing local interest will do more: and I feel that if the kind of comments that noble Lords have made this afternoon were made locally, some notice would indeed be taken of them.
I have noted the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and I have taken note of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Allerton. I would say to them both, as I would say to the noble Viscount, that I give the assurance that when circulars about this clause are issued to local authorites, or when revised road traffic regulations are made, in those circular letters we will attempt to meet their points and to include the advice that has been called for on those points this afternoon. I hope that with that assurance, and with the knowledge that the discussion on this Amendment has had some effect, in that we will attempt to make absolutely clear to local authorities what they ought to do, the noble Viscount will feel that he can withdraw his Amendment.
VISCOUNT MONCK: I am grateful to those noble Lords who have so kindly supported me, and I am also most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. I think I can practically give him 100 out of 100–99½, perhaps. It is clear that I must do much reading up of these Road Traffic Acts and those kind of matters, and I will not guarantee not to raise this matter again on Report. But having already informed the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that if a circular was issued to local authorities at the time I would be satisfied, though I would rather have seen it in the Bill, I must keep to my word. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Extension of construction and use regulations to lights]:
On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DE CLIFFORD: If I may intervene for a moment, the basic part of this Bill always refers back to the Road Traffic Act 1972, which at times makes it extremely difficult to follow it. But this new Bill is reasonably good until you get to Clause 10, when you find some remarkable sentences put into it. They confuse me completely, and I do not know what they mean. I am sure they are right; but from the Benches on which my noble friends sit now I have previously heard protests about the drafting of Bills. I should like to make a mild protest and to ask whether we could not have some simpler drafting in, for instance, subsection (4)(b). That says:
"(b) subject to subsection (5) below, any provision contained in an enactment or instrument which is not repealed by this Act and in which any expression is given the same meaning as in, or is otherwise to be construed by reference to, any provision of the said sections 68 to 82 which is repealed by this Act shall continue to be construed as if that provision had not been so repealed."
It leaves me breathless. I am sure it is good, but would it not be possible to draft matters somewhat more clearly?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: It is beyond me to draft in a more satisfactory way than the draftsman does. Nobody would be happier than myself if legislation could be more simply drafted. I think that any of your Lordships who has had any experience of dealing with legislation in this House or indeed in the other place will appreciate that it cannot be dealt with as simply as we should like. But I would say to the noble Lord that I appreciate his difficulty in regard to this particular clause, and I will ensure that he receives notes on this clause so that he has the opportunity to understand it better between now and Report stage. I fully appreciate that that will not satisfy him, in that other people will have as much difficulty as he has had, but if we had legislation as simple as he and I would want it, there would he little for the legal profession to do.
LORD AMULREE: Would not that desirable aim be attained if the Ministers were to say to the Parliamentary draftsmen, "Take this away and put it in simpler language"?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I think we should probably then get little legisla-
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tion because they should want such a very long time to draft it.
LORD AMULREE: That, I think, would probably be excellent because everybody, on all sides of the House and in all Parties, complains there is far too much legislation.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am not sure that we could accept that, and I am not sure that even the noble Lord's Party would accept it.
Clause 10 agreed to.
6.10 p.m.
LORD ELTON LORD ELTON moved Amendment No. 4A:
After Clause 10, insert the following new clause:
Amendment relating to noise
—(1) In section 43 of the 1972 Act (tests of satisfactory condition of vehicles other than goods vehicles to which s. 45 applies) at the end of subsection (5) there shall be inserted the words "and from 1st January 1976 such stations and apparatus shall be so provided for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not vehicles satisfy the Minister's regulations for the time being in force concerning the emission of noise".
(2) In section 45 of the 1972 Act (tests of satisfactory condition of certain classes of goods vehicles and determination of plated weights and other particulars therefor) at the end of subsection (9) there shall he inserted the words" And from 1st January 1976 the Secretary of State shall provide and maintain such stations and apparatus for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not such vehicles satisfy regulations for the time being in force concerning the emission of noise".
The noble Lord said: On July 10, 1934, a noble Lord moved the insertion into the Road Traffic Bill then before the House a new clause—Clause 33—the effect of which was to make it illegal to sell or supply for use in the United Kingdom a motor vehicle of a design which it was already unlawful to use on the roads. He did so with enthusiasm because its particular intention was to prevent the sale to intending drivers of vehicles with inefficient silencers. It was already illegal to drive vehicles without effective silencers, but the difficulty of monitoring the noise made by defective silencers meant that prosecutions were not brought and the law was flouted. The Amendment was accepted without a Division.
The noble Lord who moved the Amendment was my father, and it is almost exactly 40 years to the day since

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that Amendment was accepted and passed into law. It is therefore in something of an anniversary spirit that I occupy these Benches to move a Motion with the same intention as my father did in 1934. Forty years, all but a month, have passed since that day and still the law is flouted. The vehicles are just as noisy and far more numerous. Immeasurable discomfort and much actual pain and even injury have been inflicted upon the British public simply because Statutes already in existence are not enforced.
It cannot be good for the standing of Parliament that its laws should be thus set aside. It cannot be good for the citizens of this country to be exposed to an intensity of noise which can do actual medical harm as well as merely annoy. It cannot be argued by the motor manufacturers and importers that they would between them sell one individual vehicle less if all of them were required under the type approval certificate scheme already operated by the Ministry, to limit the amount of noise generated by the machines that they sell if these limitations were actually enforced upon all of them. It cannot even be argued by the drivers and the riders of motor cycles that any but the smallest of their machines would go perceptibly slower if their exhaust emissions were effectively silenced. Only in aircraft and in racing cars is performance so critical as to be significantly altered by effective silencing.
Who, then, stands to lose by making our laws effective? Not the Government; they will be doing their job better and earn the grateful thanks of 90 per cent. of the electorate—surely a consideration that must bear some appreciable weight with them at this particular juncture. Not the manufacturer; because efficient silencers are no more difficult to make than inefficient ones. Not the motorist, the haulier or the motor cyclist; they will get to their destinations as swiftly as before. Not the nation at large; it will be better tempered and less hard of hearing. Who then? Perhaps a handful of exhibitionists who wish to impress the whole world by making a hideous roar very often at a hideous speed. A handful, and otherwise nobody.
The problem, therefore, is not: Do we want to make this law work; but, how do we make it work? It is a difficult
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problem. The Minister already has power to regulate in some detail the design and effectiveness of all motor vehicles manufactured in or imported into this country. It is already a simple matter for the Secretary of State to alter specifications without which a type approval certificate will not be available, and without that no vehicle can be sold. There is already in Schedule 9 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1973 a complete list of acceptable limits of noise for all types of vehicles. I doubt whether many of your Lordships are aware of that, for the simple reason that it is never referred to. The Minister already has powers, and they are in use, for seeing that vehicles are roadworthy, These powers are exercised under Sections 43 and 45 of the Road Traffic Act 1972; yet still, vehicles that make a noise that amounts to a nuisance in the open country, and in narrow roads an actual assault, are openly driven upon our roads.
Of course, anyone can buy a vehicle with an effective silencer and modify it or simply take it off so that his vehicle makes more noise. And let us accept that most—not all, but most—private vehicles are fitted with efficient silencers before they are sold. But, since this silencing can be interfered with, it is not enough to have enforceable regulations about how much noise a vehicle will make before it is sold. We already have those regulations, but they are not at present enforced. The odd thing is that the machinery for enforcing them already exists. It exists in the form of Regulations 29 and 108 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1973, and in Schedule 9 and 10 annexed thereto. Regulation 29 says that no one shall make a vehicle that will make more noise than a certain permitted maximum and sets out the apparatus needed physically to test it. Schedule 9 lists the permitted maxima of noise for different vehicles. Schedule 10 elaborates the description of the test equipment and area in which testing is to take place. Finally, British Standards 3425 of 1966 and another one of 1962 are cited as the ultimate authorities for this purpose. It is all there. The machinery is to hand.
That is exactly where into this very Chamber my late father came in in 1934, quite possibly in the company of one or two of your Lordships and of rather more

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of your Lordships' late fathers. As the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, has already said, "Law which cannot be enforced is bad law" The difference here is that it is not the case that this law cannot be enforced, but that it is not being enforced. What has gone wrong is that the means of testing defaulting vehicles, although legislated for, are not provided. The Secretary of State already has powers under Clauses 43 and 45 of the 1972 Act to provide them specifically to control the nuisance of noise. The purpose of my Amendment is to see that he uses those powers.
I hope I can persuade noble Lords opposite that I am in earnest in this matter. I readily accept that a better means can be found, more elegant, more efficient and more easily managed than by my Amendment, but I must say that if a better means cannot be presented while legislation is still with us, then at a later stage I shall have to ask your Lordships to insist upon this Amendment.
LORD SOMERS: I should like to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, but with qualifications. There is no doubt that he is quite right in saying that there are many cars on the road to-day which are insufficiently silenced. There are a good many people, young people in particular, who like to drive sports cars which have very loud exhaust, in order to convince themselves that they have plenty of power under their bonnet. But there are certain difficulties. For one thing, it is the law at present that every internal combustion engine shall be silenced; but no law is laid down as to what form that silencer shall take. In the case of a smaller engine, a motor cycle engine for instance, the most rudimentary expansion chamber counts as a silencer and that does not do very much. Again, the smaller the engine the more difficult it is to silence it, because its revolutions per minute are much higher. But there is also another question. As we all know, sound is measured in decibels; but I do not think there is anything in the law as it stands at present to say at what distance a car shall not emit more than so many decibels. Is it to be from right next-door to it, or is it to be at a distance of 20 yards or so?
LORD ELTON: May I inform the noble Lord that these specifications exist
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in the legislation and Regulations that I have cited, and also in the British Standards Institute Regulations.
LORD SOMERS: In that case, I withdraw that qualification. But none the less there are difficulties and I sincerely hope that something will be done to make it obligatory to enforce this legislation. As the noble Lord has said, it is not impossible to enforce it; it is just not being enforced.
LORD SANDYS: I too would support this Amendment. I entirely agree with what my noble friend Lord Elton has said in moving the Amendment, and also with what the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has just said on the details of enforcement. He is perfectly right in that the means whereby what used to be known as the M.O.T. noise test was carried out was a difficult and cumbersome one. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord, Lord Somers, of what these regulations were, in a specific instance. There are specifics over the type of vehicle and horsepower. In the case of a specific vehicle, at a range of 25 feet travelling at 30 miles an hour, the maximum amount of noise it is allowed to emit is 80 decibels. This is a most difficult thing to enforce because it would need perfect conditions: it has to be in the open air; it cannot be in an enclosed street with high buildings. It cannot be surrounded by woodland and, really, it has to be in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
Clearly this is a highly impractical situation, and I should like to suggest to your Lordships that as we are in the complicated mathematical field of acoustics, where frequency and level of noise have to be taken as combined factors, we should take practical measures first to equip the Ministry of Transport inspectors and the police with the "noise torch", which we have previously discussed in your Lordships' House and which is well known as an instrument for measuring noise in a rudimentary way up to a quite reasonable standard of efficiency.
Secondly, I suggest that we should establish a static vehicle test. I believe we discussed this at some length on March 7 last year in a debate on road transport and the problems of the railways. At that time I suggested to your Lordships that testing bays should be

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established by the Ministry in a way rather similar to that in which premises are licensed to test vehicles. Testing bays should be established to carry out a static vehicle test on heavy goods vehicles, private cars and other vehicles. The practical aspect here has been dealt with at some length, and the Noise Advisory Council in their Report (published earlier this year) had a great deal to say about this subject. They particularly referred to the menace of noise as it will be in the next ten years. I should like to quote very briefly from paragraph 12 on page 3 of that Report. It reads:
"The vehicles which generate the highest noise levels are heavy commercial vehicles although these only comprise some 5 per cent. of the total vehicle population."
We are advised that if we do nothing about it, the noise of traffic is likely to increase by over 50 per cent. in the next ten years and twice the number of people at present exposed to a high level of noise can expect to be involved in what is termed "the noise nuisance net". I feel that a very important point has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell—it is a pity that he is not in the Chamber at the present moment. The noble Lord raised this point during the same debate I have already mentioned, in col. 1210 last year, when he said this—and I quote his exact words:
"Secondly, as regards the increased volume of traffic carried by heavy lorries, is it not correct to say there has been an increase of 817 per cent. in the number of lorries … in the last six years?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7/3/73, col. 1210.]
That alone, I feel, is a very important factor in determining the degree of urgency with which we should examine this Amendment, which I support most heartily.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I hope my noble friend Lord Sandys will forgive me for saying that if he is going to quote the speech which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, when we discussed road transport and railways, I think he ought to be quite fair and quote the other side of the coin, because the figure of 817 per cent.—and I speak absolutely from memory—was contested by me and it was agreed by the noble Lord. Lord Popplewell, that the percentage mentioned was in respect of one particular class of heavy goods vehicles. I
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think perhaps it is just a little wrong of my noble friend to suggest that the noise is going to grow at that kind of level.
LORD SANDYS: I entirely accept what my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth has just said. The figure does indeed refer to a category. Nevertheless, it does give a degree of urgency to the matter.
LORD LEATHERLAND: On this question of noise, my heart beats in unison with that of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but my head tells me that probably he is going the wrong way about this. I do not think we shall solve this question by talking about mathematics and decibels. Most motor vehicles in this country, when they leave the factory, are tuned in such a way that the noise is acceptable to the general population. I do not like this bureaucratic attitude of setting up what are called testing stations and apparatus where these vehicles are to undergo tests. I think the whole matter is much more simple than that: it is for the police to pounce upon noisy vehicles when they encounter them and to take them before a properly constituted court.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has been very persuasive. and I quite sincerely wish that we could in some way meet him over this. He referred to his noble father, and I can remember that many years ago my first introduction to what the Commonwealth really meant was effected by reading a book written by the noble Lord's father, which became in certain fields quite a classic—indeed I think I still have it to this day. If I may say so, I was a little bothered to see the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Sandys, on the Back Bench and I hurried across to the Front Bench to inquire whether they had been demoted, because clearly it would be a great loss to the Opposition Benches if they had been; but I am assured that the noble Lords are sitting there for a specific purpose.
We are in some difficulty about this. We recognise the force of the case put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and it has—if he does not think I am being patronising in saying so—a great deal of merit. But I hope he will allow me to state the position as we see it at

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the present moment. At present the Regulations laying down maximum permissible noise levels for different classes of vehicles are not prescribed for either the Ministry of Transport or the heavy goods vehicle test. Some of the heavy goods vehicle testing stations have the necessary equipment, and this provision is being gradually extended to other stations. That is our first difficulty.
The reason for this lies in the problem of defining adequately what we mean by "noise". This is not trying to beg the question at all: there is a very real difficulty in ascertaining what we mean by "noise" The level at which a vehicle noise limit is set depends on the conditions laid down for testing the vehicle. The British Standard method of test is used for defining the noise limits for newly constructed vehicles: this requires very precise conditions for the test, and is consequently not suitable for large-scale testing. The Motor Vehicle (Construction and Use) Regulations lay down a less restrictive test method for vehicles in use (with consequently less stringent levels for the noise limits), but even this is not suited for use in the periodic compulsory tests since it requires the vehicle to be driven past the noise meter: sites of sufficient size which meet the acoustic requirements of the Regulations are not available at many testing stations. This presents another very real difficulty. The situation is thus that the present Regulations are difficult to enforce, though not impossible because, as the noble Lord will know, there were a number (albeit a small number) of successful prosecutions in 1972, the year for which I have the latest figures.
Effective enforcement therefore requires an improved test method. The Department of the Environment has produced proposals for a stationary method of testing the noise from vehicles with diesel engines, and a draft regulation implementing this has been circulated for comment: comments from interested organisations are at this moment being considered. The Department has announced its intention of making this method available for the heavy goods vehicle periodic test in due course. The speed at which this can be done will depend on finding test sites which meet the requirement at the heavy goods vehicle testing stations and in training the staff in the test method
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which the noble Lord will appreciate is rather complicated.
No method of testing noise levels can be simple, and one of the factors which is important is to ensure that only vehicles which seem likely to be exceeding the noise limits are put through the full test: otherwise a lot of time and effort will be wasted in proving what is readily apparent. For this reason, as things are at the moment spot checks on vehicles may prove a more effective use of resources than the screening of the whole vehicle population at the annual test. A defective silencer is a frequent cause of excessive noise in vehicles. A check on this is therefore already included in the heavy goods vehicle test, and the Minister of Transport has announced in another place (reported in Hansard for May 8, 1974) that he is considering including this aspect of vehicles in the Ministry of Transport test. The Government are therefore making full use of their existing powers in this field, to the extent that present techniques permit, and the proposed new clause would be difficult for the Government to implement if it were accepted.
There are two further points which I should like to make to the noble Lord. Methods of testing vehicle noise—I hope he will agree—are still in an experimental stage, and the Government do not yet know whether they really require new powers in addition to what they have already. There is a further difficulty: the E.E.C. countries at the present moment are examining this, and that means that we are involved. We do not really know what the outcome will be, whether it will measure reasonably equally to what we have at the moment or whether our own regulations will be too severe or not severe enough. It is because of that and the other difficulty which I described, that testing is still at an experimental stage, that I wonder whether the noble Lord will feel able in the circumstances to leave the matter and not press it at this stage.
LORD ELTON: I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for the lengthy and illuminating answer he gave and, more particularly, for the flattering remarks and anxiety which he expressed about myself and my noble friend Lord Sandys's temporary retreat to

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the Back-Benches. I will bow to his greater wisdom and more thorough brief regarding the gaps in the regulations of which I am not aware. I shall read what he said with great interest. This Amendment does not press for new powers; it presses only for the exercise of very old powers. The reason they are not being used is because the places to use them are few and far between and not properly understood. This goes against the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland. I welcome the support of his heart, and I think I can have the support of his head as well, because his policemen may pounce but they have to have somewhere to take the vehicle. At the moment it may well be on Bodmin or Ilkley Moor, or some other inaccessible place, and therefore they do not pounce.
My noble friend Lord Sandys advanced the merits of a spot check which I heartily endorse, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, gave a favourable but glancing view, which I was glad to see. Coupled with a stationary testing system which could be evolved either before or after we get knowledge of the E.E.C. system, this would answer all problems. My purpose is simply to see that the means should be available to use the powers at present to hand. The news which the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, brings from another place is glad tidings and I was not aware of it. I shall also read that with interest.
I will not press the Amendment at this point, but I wish to place it on the Record that I reserve my position regarding the Report stage and some possible Amendment until the moment when I have read the noble Lord's reply more closely and, if it is permitted, possibly discussed it with him. In conclusion, I would remind the Committee that my noble friend Lord Sandys for certain and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and possibly other noble Lords, prayed in this Chamber earlier to-day for the public peace and tranquillity of the Realm. This is something which is appropriate to the occasion and which I ask the Committee to remember. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that so far as the Government are concerned they are alive to the situation, and we will take
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note of what he has said to see what can be done to ensure that his prayers in this matter are answered.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Amendments relating to licensing drivers of vehicles]:
6.36 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 19, line 22, at end insert—
("(2) In section 126 of the 1972 Act (instruction for payment to be given only by registered or licensed persons) in subsection (1) after the word "car" there shall be inserted the words "and commercial vehicles".)
The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment, I should make two declarations to the Committee. First, I am currently President of the Heavy Goods Vehicle Driving Instructors—although such a position can only be of help in what I have to say. Secondly, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, who invited me at the time of the Second Reading to visit him and his officials at the Department to discuss this and other matters which I mentioned at Second Reading. We had such a meeting and although we could not agree on a number of things, we certainly were able to set aside a number of other matters for which I am grateful.
I am sure that the Committee will be conversant with what lies behind this Amendment: it is purely and simply to regularise the position of men and/or women who give instruction in heavy goods vehicle driving for reward. It is to bring that class of person into the same situation as applies to those instructors engaged in motor car driving instruction. On previous occasions I have established without quarrel and question that there are no regulations whatsoever to prevent any man or woman holding a heavy goods vehicle driving licence from giving instruction. It is my contention that this is not only unfair to the public at large; it is unfair to those people who pay money for such instruction. It is also unfair to those who seek to earn a living by giving heavy goods vehicle instruction.
Until a short while ago the Road Transport Industry Training Board ran courses

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for heavy goods vehicle instructors. But at that time the Board were reluctant to accept any responsibility for offering a "fail" or "pass" verdict upon the attender. It was sufficient that he received a certificate of attendance. In many instances these people gave instruction for reward; some set up in business and have loosely been called "qualified". Attendance at the course did not give any recommendation as to the fitness to instruct. Nevertheless, it was generally accepted that people having attended that course would have reached a certain standard.
During the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, in replying to me regarding the instruction of drivers of heavy lorries, said at columns 1598 and 1599:
"The situation has however changed since he raised the matter during debates on the previous Road Traffic Bill. The Road Transport Industry Training Board has now introduced the revised system of assessment of candidates attending courses … Instructors will now have to pass the course before they can claim to be qualified. This is a significant step which will I10 doubt help to relieve the concern of the noble Lord."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23/5/74.]
Of course, I am grateful for that, but in fact the qualification, such as it is, is not recognised by anybody at all. It is merely an assessment by the Industry Training Board that a man has passed their examination. But it is not these people about whom I am concerned; I am concerned about all the other people. I understand that in 1973 some 71,500 heavy goods vehicle tests were carried out, and the pass rate was 55 per cent. If one breaks down the total of applicants, one finds that 14,600 were trained under the Road Transport Industry Training Board grant scheme; that is, with teachers who have passed through their course. The pass rate there is 80 per cent. I infer from that that the people who have not received instruction from (and I shall now use inverted commas) "a qualified instructor" have a high failure rate.
I have evidence, a number of letters, from up and down the country which supports the contention that there are people who have not undertaken this training course and who are therefore not qualified, in the new terminology, to give instruction for reward. I have a letter in which the secretary of a group writes to
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tell me that a driving school used car instructors for their heavy goods vehicle training. He knows this because a man asked whether he could be sent to the Multi-Occupational Training and Educational Centre, run by the I.T.B., to have his heavy goods vehicle instructor training. This was refused, but he still gives instruction in heavy goods vehicle driving. There is another instance where a man was rejected from heavy goods vehicle driver training instruction by the Group Training Association. I have letters quoting instances of men who have no formal training in the instruction of heavy goods vehicle driving, from every corner of the United Kingdom.
The argument that it is not necessary that these people should be treated the same as the car instructors because two factors are involved there, one being road safety and the other the protection of the consumer in monetary terms, does not hold water. It is even more vitally important that the drivers of heavy goods vehicles should be properly instructed in all matters pertaining to their craft, which can be done only by those people who know how to instruct as distinct from how to pilot a large motor vehicle. I believe that, because of the market demand for heavy goods vehicle drivers, there are some commercial schools charging the most fantastic rates for instruction. I have a letter quoting £25 a day, where a man spent five days with an unqualified instructor and failed the test. Surely not only the potential drivers need help; the public at large also need help, and the addition to this Bill of this Amendment will provide that there is a form of registration and formal approval of those who seek to give instruction in heavy goods vehicle driving for reward. I beg to move.
6.46 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has, as he has stated, raised this matter on a number of occasions. He was good enough to refer to the meeting we had in the Department on June 6. He has again this evening given a number of reasons for concern that a high standard should be maintained for instructors in the driving of heavy goods vehicles. We accept the theoretical force of his arguments and the concern of those for whom he speaks. He has put it to me in discussing this

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matter that there should be a reserve power to impose minimum qualifications for these people. The Government share his concern for standards of instruction, but I have to say that they are not aware of any cause of anxiety on this score, or any pressure by employers or professional instructors for a registration scheme. I am not suggesting that the noble Lord has said that all the professional instructors so want that. This is probably because the Road Transport Industry Training Board has made considerable progress in providing a recognised qualification on which the noble Lord has given the Committee information. The qualification relates to a pass or fail mark at the end of its course for instructors.
This ought to be said. From the standpoint of road safety the present stringent heavy goods vehicle driving test ensures the driving competence of newcomers to the driving of these vehicles. While the Government are in no sense complacent about the position, the rate of involvement of goods vehicles over 1½ tons unladen in injury accidents has fallen steadily from 259 per 100 million miles travelled in 1969 to 188 in 1972. It will be appreciated that I am quoting those figures only to show that progress is being made in regard to injury accidents. I will give a firm undertaking to bring all the points the noble Lord has raised to the attention of the Minister of Transport, but I have to say that the Government's present attitude is one of reluctance to introduce a further statutory control for which we feel at the moment the need has not been demonstrated.
If in due course the need for control is firmly established, the Government will probably wish to do it in a different way from that here proposed; that is, they might require professional instructors to have passed a departmentally approved training course, rather than extend the register of approved driving instructors. I want to make it clear that the Government's mind is not firmly made up about this matter. My right honourable friend will be pleased to give full consideration to all the points that have been made. I hope that with that assurance the noble Lord will feel that he has achieved his purpose in having set out as fully as he has done this evening the concern that he feels and the reasons for that concern,
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and that he will feel that he has been able to get on the Record further points which have been brought to his attention by those who have written to him. If he cares to let us have copies of those letters, we shall be very glad to have them. Everything will be taken into account.
LORD SANDYS: Despite the assurances given by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, I feel that my noble friend had some cause for dissatisfaction because nothing that the noble Lord has said can give us any cause for complacency or comfort. The pirates operating in this field will be taken outside the law.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for that very full answer. I should say here and now that the professional instructors are pressing for some kind of divisive regulation which sets them apart from all those other people who hold driving licences for heavy goods vehicles and give instruction. I believe that it is quite wrong that anybody can give instruction for reward. I believe that it is a responsibility of Government to see that they do not do this unless they are approved by some body or another.
I noted what the noble Lord had to say with regard to the standard of the test. When only 55 per cent. of applicants can pass the first time, it is a condemnation of the system of instruction that produces an applicant at that time. From all points of view I am delighted to have heard from him the figures relating to injury accidents in which heavy goods vehicles have been involved. This is indeed encouraging.
In all honesty I cannot say that I am satisfied. I believe that what I have said and what I am suggesting is needed in one form or another and is right, but with the exception of my noble friend Lord Sandys I do not seem to have evoked overmuch support this evening. I am very reluctant to test the opinion of your Lordships when so many noble Lords have not heard the two sides of the argument. It is only this consideration which leads me, very reluctantly, on this occasion to beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 13 shall stand part of the Bill?
6.53 p.m.
LORD PLATT: Clause 13 deals with a large number of things, some of which I support and some of which I am sure that the Government will wish to preserve in the Bill. However, it seemed to me so difficult to draw an Amendment which would leave out parts of it which I felt were wholly unacceptable and leave in others, that it seemed, to my somewhat untutored mind, that the easiest thing was to argue the case on "Leave out Clause 13", implying that some of it could be brought back in a re-drawn clause.
This is an extraordinary example of Parliamentary drafting. It has to do with the licensing of drivers, and after the first sentence or so in subsection (1)(a) it says that these are amendments—
"providing for the grant of a driving licence expiring, except in certain cases, on the seventieth birthday of the holder".
That is something quite new and it would need to be thought about. In subsection (1)(b) there is the apparently innocent sentence—
"modifying the requirements, and requiring the disclosure of further information, relating to the physical fitness of drivers".
Nothing whatever is said about the entirely new concept of the prospective disability until one comes to the very end of Clause 13 where it says, in small print:
"Failure to notify Secretary of State of onset of, or deterioration in, relevant or prospective disability"
will result in a fine of up to £100. You have to turn to Schedule 3 to find out what all this is about.
If you really want to have driving licences which you may apply for at the age of 17 or 18 and which will last until you are 70, it is reasonable that there should be some consideration of what is happening to your health during that time. Of course, that is acceptable. However, the first thing I would question about licences to the age of 70 is, what will be the state of the licence? I have had a licence for 51 years, and if I had my original licence in my pocket I think it would be completely illegible and not absolutely flat. That is a small but a practical point.
In order to discover whether somebody's health really is deteriorating during the 50 or so years that he is
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holding his licence, the Secretary of State now has to be notified not only of a relevant disability, which means something that makes it dangerous for that person to drive, which his doctor no doubt would warn him about and advise him about, but of a prospective disability. As examples of a prospective disability, when previously this clause has been briefly mentioned and discussed we have heard about cataract, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Imagine a doctor confronted with a young woman who has some early signs of multiple sclerosis. What advice is he going to give her? One thing which he wants to conceal from her at that stage is that this condition may progress and that she may he completely paralysed by the age of 30. But if he does not advise her to tell the Secretary of State that she has got a prospective disability, she may be in for a fine of £100.
I cannot understand how a clause in this shape could have got into the Bill. So many people dread the word "arthritis". To a doctor "arthritis" means so many things that one has to define what kind of arthritis it is and where it is before one knows anything about it, but to a patient it means something rather sinister; and, indeed, it may be so. Again, if confronted with a young woman with pain in both wrists and you have a suspicion that this is going to develop into rheumatoid arthritis, do you want to tell her that at that time? Do you want to advise her to notify the Secretary of State that she has got a progressive disability or else she will be in for a fine of up to £100?
I am amazed that such legislation could creep in at all. The Secretary of State may have reason to believe that a person has a prospective disability but I do not quite know how he would have reason to believe this, unless it was somebody with whom he had lunched or unless the person himself, in conformity with the law (which would no doubt be printed on his driving licence) informed the Secretary of State that he had some condition which he felt might be a prospective disability. The Secretary of State may then tell him to authorise his doctor, or any registered practitioner who may at any time have given medical advice or attention to the applicant, to release to the Secretary of State any information

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which he may have or which may be available to him with respect to the question whether and to what extent the applicant may be suffering from, or have suffered from, a relevant or prospective disability.
So the result of telling the Secretary of State that you think you have a prospective disability is that you then have to authorise your doctor to give the Secretary of State all the information that your doctor has relevant to this disability, and I think the question of confidentiality, which we were discussing yesterday in relation to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, on the records of social workers, comes into the question in a big way in this clause. I therefore beg to move that Clause 13 be left out of the Bill.
7.3 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: I should like in a few words to support completely what the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has just said about this clause. I share his complete surprise and wonderment as to why the age of 70 was chosen as the appropriate age for one to think about driving again. There appears to be no biological or statistical reason for that at all. The only people who would benefit from it would be the local authorities who would not have to employ staff to issue driving licences every third year. It used to be every year, but I think now it is every third year, and that seems to me to be quite sensible.
However, suppose one were given a driving licence for life, with the suggestion that one should support this curious phrase "progressive disability" which I do not think means a great deal, because in addition to the cases quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Platt, what would occur in the case of somebody who had a cataract developing? When one has an early cataract one can drive with reasonable safety, but the cataract develops and there comes a time when one cannot drive safely. I should have thought it was far better when the licence came up for renewal to say that one would have to get medical opinion on it. I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has said and I hope the Government will look favourably upon this.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Lord Platt is unhappy with the proposal to issue
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driving licences which would in normal cases remain valid until the holder reaches the age of 70. By dispensing with the triennial declaration of fitness, this would, he argues, be detrimental to road safety. He also, at Second Reading, objected to the provision for the Secretary of State to make inquiries into relevant and prospective disabilities.
LORD PLATT: May I get this straight. I do not really object to having a driving licence from the ages of 18 to 70 if anybody can prove to me that it is a good thing to do, but you must accept that this concept of progressible disability is notified to the Secretary of State.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: If the noble Lord will be a little patient I will come to that and will try to deal with it. In applying for the renewal of his licence under the present system—and this is the point which the noble Lord has been speaking about—the driver must declare that he does not suffer from certain disabilities, and it is true that this regular declaration will be lost as a result of the changes in the Bill. But in fact the Bill tightens up the medical requirements laid on drivers in other ways. It lays on drivers a duty to report to the Secretary of State if at any time they become aware of a relevant disability or a prospective disability.
The Bill allows the Secretary of State, if he has grounds for believing that a driver may be suffering from a relevant or prospective disability to allow his doctor to make available information about that disability and to require him to submit to an independent medical examination. From the age of 70 onwards licences will be renewed every three years, as at present. The age of 70 was chosen because the accident risk rises at this point. Accidents per 100 million vehicle miles in the 60 to 69 age group average 18 a year; in the age group 70 and above they average 43 a year. We believe that these arrangements will be at least as effective in denying driving licences to people with dangerous medical conditions as the present arrangements. They were thoroughly discussed and agreed with representatives of the medical profession. Research results suggest that less than one accident in 1,000 is caused by sudden unconsciousness or other medical emergency striking the driver.

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The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has joined with the noble Lord, Lord Platt, in this question of abolishing three-yearly renewal of licences until the age of 70. I think the Committee will be interested to know that there will be a considerable saving of money and manpower. I should not like to be too precise, but I think I am reasonably accurate in saying that it is expected that there will be a possible saving of 350 people a year engaged in this work, at a saving of about £1 million. If these figures are anywhere near accurate these are economies that are well worth making.
The medical profession sought specific assurances that the Bill will neither require doctors to report details of their patients' conditions to the Secretary of State without the patients' permission, nor require them to reveal to their patients facts about the likely development of their condition which they would not otherwise reveal. These assurances can be unreservedly given. The driver's duty to notify relevant and prospective disability to the Secretary of State only arises, and can only arise, when he himself becomes aware of it.
The doctor's discretion as to the point at which he informs the patient of his condition remains complete. The doctor who forms the opinion that his patient is not capable of driving safely will, of course, wish to warn him of this and to advise him to warn the Secretary of State. The doctor who forms the opinion that his patient is likely to develop a disability which will make him unfit to drive continues to have complete discretion as to the stage at which he warns the patient. The Bill secures that as soon as the patient is warned, he must inform the Secretary of State.
The licensing authority, the Driver and Vehicle Centre at Swansea, has made special arrangements to handle medical information. Medical information supplied by applicants and doctors is handled by a separate branch at Swansea headed by a senior medical adviser and a team of four doctors. The information is used only to provide a medical recommendation for the licensing authority to decide whether or not to issue a licence. I should like to emphasise that that information is not —I repeat "not"—recorded on the Swansea computer. The applicant or licence holder is not told anything of what his
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doctor or doctors have told the licensing authority. The arrangements for handling medical information at Swansea have been discussed, and have also been agreed with the medical associations.
I hope that I have said enough to indicate the reasons why this clause is included in the Bill. I hope I have done something, if only a little, to satisfy the noble Lords, Lord Platt and Lord Amulree that very considerable thought has been given to the matters they have raised.
LORD PLATT: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for his long reply. Of course, a large amount of it was taken up with telling us what we all know, and in convincing us that this would be just as effective in preventing accidents, or even more effective, than a three-year licence, and that an advantage would be the saving of clerical work by having a licence until one is 70. These are not things that worry me in the least. The point is that by having a licence until one is 70, one has to introduce this very undesirable concept of progressive disability. I do not think that any doctor, although he may not like the task, would shrink from the task of advising a patient, "Your sight has deteriorated; I really do think you should give up driving a motor car". If the patient does not like the advice, he can get a second opinion. That, I concede, is a doctor's duty.
My point was that it is now a doctor's duty to tell a patient that he has a prospective disability. This is defined in Clause 3 as something which does not prevent him driving now, which does not make it dangerous for him to drive now, but may do so in a few years' time, and therefore he should not have a long-lease licence. This is perfectly logical. The only thing is that it cuts across the ethics of medical practice of what we tell our patients. That is the only thing. If it saves the time of a clerk it may be worth while, but it is not too important.
Clause 13 agreed to.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: In order that the House may now proceed with the next item of business; namely, the Lord Chancellor (Tenure of Office and Discharge of Ecclesiastical Functions) Bill, I beg to move that the House be now resumed. I should like to make it clear in moving

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this Motion that the Committee stage on the Road Traffic Bill will be resumed as soon as the Second Reading of the Lord Chancellor (Tenure of Office and Discharge of Ecclesiastical Functions) Bill has been disposed of, or at 8.15 p.m., if the Second Reading should finish sooner. I beg to move.
House resumed.

LORD CHANCELLOR (TENURE OF OFFICE AND DISCHARGE OF ECCLESIASTICAL FUNCTIONS) BILL [H.L.]
7.15 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Lord Chancellor (Tenure of Office and Discharge of Ecclesiastical Functions) Bill, has consented to place Her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Bill which I introduced earlier in the Session. I am speaking from the Dispatch Box by courtesy of my noble friends, but I should like to make it plain to the House that I speak in my own capacity. I have made no attempt to solicit or obtain the support of my Party but I hope, none the less, to command the support of all quarters of the House. The purpose of the Bill is to remove a doubt which has long troubled constitutional lawyers as to the capacity of Roman Catholics to hold the office of Lord Chancellor, and there are certain consequential provisions.
First of all, let me make it plain what the Bill cannot do. The question whether any given Prime Minister might, politically or constitutionally, find it desirable to recommend Her Majesty to appoint a Roman Catholic as Lord Chancellor is not within the scope of this Bill. I hasten to express a view which I hold, having held that office for four years, and my father having held it twice in the earlier reign, that there is nothing to bar anyone
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of any religious persuasion from conscientiously discharging the duties of Lord Chancellor, providing he has the necessary standing in politics and the law and the necessary quality in both lines of activity. But this Bill is not concerned with that. That is a question of politics, a question for the Prime Minister of the day subject to his responsibility to Parliament and the electorate.
This is a Bill which deals with the question of capacity to hold the office. For reasons that I shall give, I happen to hold the view that there is, in fact, no bar at this moment to a Roman Catholic holding the office of Lord Chancellor. But very respectable authorities have, from time to time, expressed a contrary view. One can see it, for instance, expressed in the Second and, I think, the Third Editions of Halsbury's Laws of England. There are plenty of others who would hold the contrary view. This Bill is therefore cast in a form to remove a doubt. I feel that I am entitled to ask for the support of the House for this reason. Of course, if we wish to impose a legal incapacity for Roman Catholics or adherents of any other faith to hold particular office, then let us say so openly and candidly. I do not wish to do so. I can see no justification for it. What is not tolerable is that a candidate for any public office, including that of Lord Chancellor, should be debarred as a practice from holding that office, not because there is any legal bar to his holding it, but because it is thought that there might be.
It so happens that the last time the question was debated at any length in your Lordships' House—that is to say, I think in 1943—the late Lord Simon, who was then Lord Chancellor, expressed the view that the doubt was sufficiently real as effectively to stop a Prime Minister, in practice, from recommending the appointment of an otherwise suitable candidate. The consequences of recommending and purporting to appoint a candidate who was incapable of holding the office would, of course, be very serious. The Lord Chancellor's acts would become invalid because he would not be the Lord Chancellor, and among those acts would be every writ, even in the High Court, on which his name has to appear, until they change the rather foolish form in which the writ is now held.

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I have been asked why this Bill does not deal with other religions: why it deals with Roman Catholics specifically and not with Jews, Moslems, Christian Scientists, Buddhists or atheists. The reason is that there is no doubt about those other categories, so far as I know, I have no doubt the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, whom I am sure the House is very glad to see occupying his customary place in this debate, will wish to confirm that, if it is correct. The position of Jews is dealt with by the Jews Relief Act 1858, according to the best view that I can form, and no question has been raised ever with regard to any other faith. It is, of course, within my knowledge—I do not want to name names—that more than one Lord Chancellor has been a devoutly practising atheist and has discharged his functions, notwithstanding his incapacity, to the satisfaction of the community at large. It would be improper for me to canvass the possibility of a Congregationalist holding the office of Lord Chancellor, since I understand the noble and learned Lord now sitting on the Woolsack is in fact a member of that religious community.
The reason why I have only dealt with Roman Catholics is that it is only with regard to Roman Catholics that a bar is alleged to exist, and if there is a bar, a legal incapacity, I must tell your Lordships that it is almost certainly due not to any conscious act of policy but to inadvertence on the part of the 19th century draftsman who drafted the Act of 1867 in that particular way.
I will, therefore, give my reasons for saying this, in as short a compass as I can. There was, of course, at Common law no bar to any Christian holding the office of Lord Chancellor, and at Common law there is no difference between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant. The bar came to exist, if it did, or when it did, in the aftermath of the Reformation, and in particular after the attempt by James II to infiltrate the Church of England by appointing open or covert Roman Catholics to high office in the Church and State.
But, my Lords, our ancestors knew what they were about when they imposed tests. They did not, save in the case of one or two offices, notably the Crown itself, create an incapacity to hold the office.
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It is in fact very difficult to know what you mean by a Roman Catholic or by an adherent of any religion. So our ancestors imposed tests; they did not create an incapacity. In particular they imposed a sacramental test, and a series of Oaths and Declarations which a conscientious Roman Catholic could not take, against the Pope, the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, the Doctrine of the Invocation of Saints and so on. But if a Roman Catholic, contrary to his religion, took the sacrament and made the affirmations, I do not believe there was anything at any time to stop him being Lord Chancellor. Incidentally, our ancestors were a little illogical because they put in the Declaration an affirmation that there was no mental reservation, and, of course, this involves a logical fantasy which I am sure the noble and learned Lord, and the right reverend Prelate present, would be the first to recognise.
The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 removed any bar from Roman Catholics holding office by way of incapacity, other than a few named offices, the Crown, for instance, the Regent, or the Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland. But it expressly declared that the Act should not enable any person to hold the office of Lord Chancellor "otherwise than he is now by law enabled", that is, by taking the tests, which at this time included the three Oaths and two Declarations which effectively debarred conscientious Jews and conscientious Roman Catholics from taking the office.
I need not detail to the House the rather complicated history of the matter, but the objectionable Oaths and Declarations were successively abolished by a series of Victorian Acts, and my opinion is that from 1871 onwards there ought to be no doubt that Roman Catholics have been capable of holding the office. I am fortified in this view by the fact that it was held by Sir John Coleridge when he was Attorney General in 1872, which was immediately after the Act in question, and his opinion to this effect is published in the Hansard of that date. I also managed while I was Lord Chancellor to dig up, by a piece of independent research into this subject with the aid of my officials, the fact that the late Lord Haldane, when he was in private practice in 1900, had actually advised a client that there was no legal incapacity

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in a Roman Catholic from holding the office of Lord Chancellor; and I obtained, by identifying the firm of solicitors involved, an actual copy of that Opinion which was signed by the late Lord Haldane and the late Lord Davey, both of them known at the Bar, and by two other barristers. Incidentally, it rather indicates the degree of inflation in legal fees since that date that the Opinion of all four cost in all 65 guineas. Thus, if I err in my opinion, I err in very good company.
But it is not the only view. As I say, there is another view expressed. The other view expressed is that the peculiar wording of the Act of 1867 imposed a new disability which had not previously existed. If so, I am satisfied myself that it was by inadvertence and not as a result of policy. I think both in the strictly pedantic legal sense and in the political context such a view is highly improbable. Therefore, I have introduced Clause 1 in a declaratory form. I hope that, on the whole, the House will agree both that I have made out my case and that the direction in which I have declared the law is the one which we ought to take.
Now I must say just a word about Clause 2. The reason for Clause 2 is that, quite apart from the position of the Lord Chancellor, there is a general statutory bar to the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage by a Roman Catholic, and a positive provision in the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 that where ecclesiastical patronage is exercised by somebody who is a Roman Catholic it should be exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury; in other words, it should lapse from the holder of the diocese to the Archbishop. That is contained in Section 17 of the Act of 1829.
The implications of either repealing the provision of the lapsing of gift to the Archbishop or leaving it unrepealed would, I think, fall outside the scope of this comparatively modest Bill, and might affect the prerogatives of the Crown, the relations between Church and State, the right to present the various livings throughout the country and other matters in which I do not desire at this stage to meddle. I do, however, respectfully record my own opinion that the ecclesiastical patronage at present exercised by the Lord Chancellor could be effectively exer-
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cised by anybody of any religion with the aid of the existing patronage office
It would be very inconvenient as a matter of fact to separate the ecclesiastical patronage from the Lord Chancellor unless it was transferred to the Prime Minister, because—following, I think, the activities of Lord Dilhorne and of Lord Gardiner—the two offices of patronage, the Prime Minister's and the Lord Chancellor's, were amalgamated. They have a common list of persons who desire to be presented to Crown livings. This is a very convenient arrangement, and it would be highly inconvenient to divert part of it to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
So that I have taken what is admittedly an exercise in judgment in saying that it should either remain where it is, which is possible under Clause 2, or that it should be transferred to another Minister, who would be in effect the Prime Minister. I am aware that I am taking a temporary provision while the Churches and the States are agonising over their respective relations. I hope that the Bill will not be held up while this necessary reappraisal takes place.
There remain three small details. I have been asked why I have done this by Private Member's Bill and did not attempt it by Government legislation when, until compartively recently, I was in Office. The answer is that I tried that one out, but I do not feel at liberty to disclose what actually happened to the attempt. At any rate, I would not advise any other Lord Chancellor to make the attempt for some time. I hope that the Government will embrace the opportunity I am giving them of a purely private enterprise activity, despite their preference for nationalisation.
The second minor detail is that I informed the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury of my intention and got his blessing to what I proposed, which I hope will be repeated by the right reverend Prelate. It would have been a discourtesy not to approach the most reverend Primate, but I had such a warm response that I was encouraged to go on.
Thirdly, I do not know whether the Bill actually impinges on the Royal Prerogative, since it is really an enabling Bill and not one restricting the Crown in any way, but I was very grateful to the noble

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and learned Lord ex abundanti cautela for having removed that doubt. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylehone.)
7.31 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, having had the honour of occupying the Woolsack for nearly six years I thought that perhaps the House might expect me to say something on this Bill. As time is short, I apologise to the Hansard staff in advance if I talk rather fast. We live in days when we are told that we must declare an interest, so may I say that nearly all my father's family back to Queen Elizabeth I were very minor country clergy in the Church of England. I am a member of the Church of England, and it has for some time been my private opinion that the Church of England would be strengthened rather than weakened if it was disestablished. When I was an adolescent my mother became a Catholic convert, so I have many Catholic friends as well as Protestant friends, and I think I am generally familiar with the Catholic views on most points.
The first question is whether there is a substantial doubt that a Catholic can be Lord Chancellor. I have read most of the learned opinions referred to by the noble and learned Lord, including Lord Simon's opinion, and I am of the opinion that there is a substantial doubt. The second question is whether, if so, it should be resolved. It obviously ought to be resolved, in part because of the appalling consequences mentioned by the noble and learned Lord if a Lord Chancellor was illegally appointed. The third question is whether it should be resolved in favour of allowing a Catholic to be Lord Chancellor. My Lords, I have no doubt at all that it should.
There is no qualification for being Lord Chancellor. As your Lordships know, the first Chancellor was appointed in 605, nearly 1400 years ago. His name was Augmundus, and he was a monk who came here with St. Augustine from Rome to convert the English barbarians to Christianity. St. Augustine, like St. Paul, always went for the top man. They arrived here in 595, and it took them ten
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years to convert a King. He was our first Christian King who, after appointing an Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed Augmundus Chancellor, and we have gone on from there. There has never been any qualification for the office. You do not have to be a Bishop or a lawyer. You do not have to be able to read. You do not need to be a man, because we have already had one woman Lord Chancellor. There is no disqualification except this doubt as to whether a Catholic could be Chancellor. That is obviously wrong and ought to be altered.
Ought this to be done by a Private Member's Bill in this Session? If I may say so, I think that is quite right. I remember when the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, who was held in affectionate regard in all quarters of this House, came to see me about this matter when I was Lord Chancellor. I said, "Why don't you introduce a Private Member's Bill to remove the doubt? I should think it would go through very easily". He went away saying he would consider it. He never introduced such a Bill, and I never learned why. It would be invidious to have to consider this question with a named person in mind, and that is why I think that it is a good plan to do it in this Session by a Private Member's Bill. I therefore fully support Clause 1 of the Bill.
My difficulty arises over Clause 2; that is, the exercise of the ecclesiastical functions. These functions consist of the appointment to about 500 very small livings, and being the visitor to St. George's Chapel, Windsor. What happens in practice—and I think that this is of some importance—is that the main work falls into the hands of two members, who used to be in the Lord Chancellor's staff and are now in the General Patronage staff, a Brigadier and a Colonel, both of whom are devout members of the Church of England and are extremely conscientious. They interview everybody on the register, and obtain such references or other information about them as they desire. When a living falls vacant they take an enormous amount of trouble to go through the register and find the best possible man, taking care not to appoint a High Churchman to a Low Church parish, or vice versa. If it is a modern housing estate with many young people, they find some young

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curate who is known to be good at dealing with young people, and so forth. It is very rare for any difficulty to arise. If it does they discuss it with the Lord Chancellor. They make the recommendations, and it is his responsibility. It works extremely well, and I am certain that if I had been a Catholic I should have made exactly the same appointments as I did.
As to being visitor to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, this means going there once or twice during a Lord Chancellorship to attend a service. We have one judge who is a Buddhist, if not more. No doubt we have agnostic judges, and for all I know atheists. So far as I know none of them feels any difficulty in attending service at the opening of Assizes. I do not know about now, but I suppose it is almost inevitable that some day one of the minor members of the Royal Family will be an agnostic. I hope that that will not affect in any way their public duties. I do not know of any agnostic who minds going to a church service. Therefore, I should have thought that these duties could be performed by any Lord Chancellor. What this Bill provides is that that cannot be so in the case of a Catholic.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, it can be so in the case of a Catholic, but there is power to make it not so.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, I am obliged. That would seem to me to be peculiar. As the noble and learned Lord has said, one Lord Chancellor certainly was an atheist. I believe that others have been agnostics. It seems peculiar if, as is the position, the ecclesiastical functions of the Lord Chancellor can be performed by a Buddhist, an agnostic, or an atheist, and, apart from the Jewish Relief Act, the only person from whom that may be taken away is a Catholic. I venture to raise this point because I am not happy about Clause 2. I see no reason whatever why a Catholic Lord Chancellor should not be a proper Lord Chancellor able to fulfil all the duties of a Lord Chancellor. I hope that this point may be given consideration.
I have promised to be brief, and I only add that I do not propose at the Committee stage of the Bill to put down an
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Amendment of any kind. My reason for this is, I hope, a sensible one, that while I think that Clause 2 will lead to a good deal of trouble in another place, if not here, I am at one with the noble and learned Lord in wishing the Bill well. I hope that it will succeed in reaching the Statute Book this Session. Where we differ is on how to deal with the ecclesiastical functions of the Lord Chancellor from the point of view of getting the Bill through. The noble and learned Lord has the great advantage, which I have not, of having had long experience in the House of Commons as well as a longer period in this House. It is his Bill, and I should not venture to cross swords with him in any way in the Committee stage of the Bill. We both want the same thing, but one has to bear in mind that it is possible for a reasonable man to take one of several views. It is a possible view, which any reasonable man might take, that only a Lord Chancellor who is a member of the Church of England should be appointing clergy or should discharge the ecclesiastical functions of the Lord Chancellor.
It is a second reasonable view that any Christian Lord Chancellor should be able to perform these functions but not a Buddhist or an agnostic or an atheist. But the view with which this Bill will end up if it is left as drafted (that a Catholic Lord Chancellor alone, and a Jewish Lord Chancellor under the Jewish Relief Act, which I should like to see this Bill repeal so that all Lord Chancellors could perform this ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such as it is) is that only a Catholic will be under the penalty that he may have part of the Lord Chancellor's ordinary functions taken away from him. I feel that while that cannot happen in the case of an atheist or a member of a non-Christian religion this is illogical and very difficult to defend. The Bill is the noble and learned Lord's Bill, and I am as anxious as he is to see it reach the Statute Book. The difference of view which I venture to express is simply a difference as to what form it would be easiest for this Bill to reach the Statute Book.
7.41 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, my first duty is to apologise on behalf of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of

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House to-day. The switch of day unfortunately made it impossible for him to attend as he has an engagement in Lincoln and he especially asked me to express to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, his apologies for not being here. He then went on to ask me to say how very warmly, as the noble and learned Lord has already said, he supports this Bill and hopes very much that the House will give it a Second Reading and that it will reach the Statute Book. I think I can say that that view would have unanimous support from these Benches and we should want to give it every blessing of which we are capable.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has raised the question of Clause 2. I think the feeling on our side is one of very real regret that it has been or is necessary to make rules affecting Roman Catholics which are not applied to members of any other Christian community. I entirely support what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, said about the working of the Patronage Office and the care and concern which the officers of that office show, and I think all of us within the Church have been very conscious of the fact that any Lord Chancellor is very much dependent on the advice he gets from the servants of the office. It would therefore seem to be unfortunate that a Roman Catholic should be singled out in particular as being unable to fulfil the ecclesiastical duties of the office. Here I am showing complete ignorance—whether this is a result of the general law and whether it is possible that this kind of rule might be omitted one needs to he advised about. We feel quite strongly a deep sense of regret that it is necessary to do it in this way. Apart from that I can only say on behalf of the Prelates in the House that we very warmly support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, in his Bill.
7.44 p.m.
LORD HACKING: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming this Bill, and as other noble Lords have said if there is any doubt whether the Lord Chancellor's high office can be held by a person professing the Roman Catholic faith then it is right that the doubt should be cleared away. In reference to some
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of the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in reference to Clause 2, it is interesting to note that so far as I know there has been no bar on a Prime Minister being a Roman Catholic since, I think, the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, some 145 years ago. He also holds in the name of the Crown gifts of patronage to a number of livings.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, the noble Lord is wrong about that. The Prime Minister's patronage is Crown patronage. The Lord Chancellor's patronage is held by the Lord Chancellor, and therefore the Prime Minister is not in the same position as the Lord Chancellor. What happened was that in the reign of Elizabeth I, Elizabeth gave all the poorest livings to the Lord Chancellor and kept the fatter ones for herself; and since then the Lord Chancellor has had the actual patronage of what were the poorer livings in the reign of Elizabeth I, which is not necessarily the same now, and the Prime Minister I think technically advises the Crown over the exercise of her own patronage.
LORD HACKING: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord. My education is being taken further. In any event, there has been no bar on the Prime Minister for the last 145 years from holding or professing the Roman Catholic faith. Not only do I welcome the Bill, but I also congratulate the noble and learned Lord on the tact and skill with which he is handling this ancient problem, because, as he told your Lordships, the last debate in this House was as long ago as May, 1943. Indeed, as the noble and learned Lord knows, the presentation of this Bill also gives much pleasure to the Edmund Plowden Trust, who in their own words, have undertaken a large amount of painstaking and unobtrusive study and research into this problem, travelling from the Act of Uniformity of 1559 to the Victorian Acts, principally, of course, the Promisory Oaths Act of 1868, the last one of that study. My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and I merely join other noble Lords in wishing this Bill a fair wind and a good voyage through Parliament.
7.46 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I rise with great reluctance and with great diffidence as the only member here of the Church of Scotland to say, as I feel it is my duty to your Lordships, that this Bill should be treated with the utmost care in regard to the problem (which perhaps the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will be able to clear up) which I know is in the minds of some people in Scotland; namely, that one of the Lord Chancellor's functions is to be the Keeper of the Monarch's conscience —exactly how that works out I do not know. I speak as one who remembers when in the General Assembly an elder came up to me and spoke of the then Lord High Commissioner and said, "I do not trust that man; he sends his daughters to a convent". I said, "As a matter of fact my daughters are at a convent", and I have always supported the ecumenical movement in the Church of Scotland as I think most people do. As your Lordships know, we are plagued by a quite violent small body of people who make a nuisance of themselves over it.
I only intervene in this debate to ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and perhaps my noble friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, to bear in mind that whereas the principles of this Bill, in view of what has been said, are entirely acceptable, there is a possibility that there might be difficulties with the Church of Scotland. I apologise to your Lordships for not having tumbled to this sooner, but until an hour ago I had not seen the Bill and felt it my duty to beg of your Lordships to treat it with the utmost care in regard to this particular point in respect of the Monarch's Oath to maintain the Protestant faith.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, referred to earlier Lord Chancellors long before the Reformation. His Majesty King James II, to whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, referred, caused some of the difficulty. All I can say is that I feel that this is something which must be handled very delicately in regard to Scotland and I look forward to the further progress of the Bill and have no intention of opposing the Second Reading.
7.49 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate in which we have learned a good deal of the ancient history of the office which I now hold. It is an awesome thought to me that it dates back to Augmundus and St. Augustine and that thereafter there were three saints among my predecessors, although I think King Henry VIII did manage to contrive a judgment of ouster against St. Thomas A'Becket in thoroughly discreditable circumstances.
I rise to indicate the approval and full support of the Government to the endeavour and purpose of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, in introducing this Bill. I certainly wish him well. As he has so delightfully explained in his attractive speech, the question whether a person professing the Roman Catholic religion may be appointed to be Lord Chancellor turns on the correct interpretation of a complicated series of Statutes, first erecting hurdles over which practising Roman Catholics could not conscientiously jump, if that is not too irreverent a way of putting the matter, and then dismantling them bit by bit. Whether the hurdles have been completely removed in the case of the Lord Chancellor is a matter upon which, as your Lordships have been told, there has been argument by and disagreement among eminent authorities for something like a century.
I certainly cannot claim to have examined the matter with the degree of thoroughness which the noble and learned Lord has manifestly brought to his study of the problem. But I have reached the firm, though hardly daring, conclusion that the precise effect of the law as it stands at present remains open to substantial doubt. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, has said, the late Lord Simon, speaking in the House as Lord Chancellor in 1943, said that any Prime Minister would be acting most imprudently in appointing a Roman Catholic to the office of Lord Chancellor unless the law had first been made plain by Statute. That pronouncement has been accepted as perhaps the most authoritative expression of opinion on this subject. So accordingly, my Lords, we are faced with a situation that the law that applies is uncertain, and of course,

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uncertain law is bad law. It is right that the uncertainty should be removed. In my judgment the Bill would achieve that purpose.
My Lords, on the main issue, I would hope, and indeed expect, that the great majority of people to-day in Scotland, even in Wales and indeed in England, would regard it as an indefensible anachronism that a person should be debarred from public office, and this public office of Lord Chancellor in particular, because of a doubt as to whether Parliament intended that his religious beliefs should disqualify him. The House will have noted the warning that the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has very rightly given, with his devotion to the Protestant faith and the knowledge of the feelings of Protestants, that this is a matter which needs to be handled sensitively, as, if I may say so, the noble and learned Lord has done, and that is of course recognised. But it has been gratifying that there has been general approval, at any rate to-night, of the proposition based on religious tolerance that is embodied in Clause 1 that the remaining disqualification for the office of Lord Chancellor should be removed. The Government share this general approval of Clause 1. Although there may be two views as to whether the technique of drafting by way of avoidance of doubt is appropriate in the circumstances, in my view Clause 1 adequately achieves the purpose which the noble and learned Lord has in mind.
Clause 2, as he has explained, would enable Her Majesty, by Order in Council in the event of a Roman Catholic being appointed Lord Chancellor, to transfer to another Minister the exercise of functions relating to the Established Church and the duty of visiting certain institutions which are normally performed by the Lord Chancellor. Clause 2 has been criticised by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, and by the right reverend Prelate, as perhaps discriminating in a sense against a Roman Catholic holding my office.
Perhaps it suffices if I say that the Government have formed no concluded view on Clause 2, although I am bound to say there is much to be said for the view that as a merely consequential provision depending on Clause 1 it is satis-
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factory; and that for the limited purpose of this Bill the noble and learned Lord may well be right to deal only with the problem of Roman Catholics and to deal with that limited problem in a practical way that will not embroil this House or another place in difficult and wider areas of law and of practice. It may well therefore be that as a matter of political judgment it is convenient that it should proceed as it now stands. But as I have said, if an Amendment is put down for Committee, the Government will have to consider their position. I accordingly make that reservation. But, at any rate for the time being, my Lords, in my view the sensible course would be to let the Bill proceed in its present form. I conclude by wishing it a fair wind.
7.57 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I should like very much to thank the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. If I may begin by thanking the noble and learned Lord for the words of welcome which he has uttered, I am very grateful to him for all that he has said. I, myself, will accept the Bill, provided that Clause 1 is substantially passed in any form which both Houses of Parliament think agreeable, because I am perfectly content to accept the position which I think I expressed in my original speech, that in practice there is nothing to debar a Roman Catholic from exercising the ecclesiastical patronage of the Lord Chancellor's office. But I deliberately inserted Clause 2 for two or three reasons of a practical nature, some of which I explained in opening.
In the first place, if I had just kept silent about it the patronage would automatically lapse under Section 17 of the Catholic Emancipation Act to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which no one has really supported as a rational alternative. Secondly, we have heard—and I shall come back to it—a speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier. I think that if we were all rational beings Parliament would undoubtedly take the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, which is also my own view. But I do not think we are rational beings about this subject. We have heard of the difficulty about the Presbyterian position, from the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier. We know that the

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other place contains persons who are particularly susceptible to the words, "Pope" or, "Roman Catholic", or any of their synonyms. I should have thought, on the whole, that the caution of the draftsman of this Bill—who was, modestly I declare, myself—in allowing, but not compelling, a Prime Minister to transfer the functions to somebody else was probably an emollient to that kind of opinion. That is, at any rate, one reason which led me to put in the clause. I had to put in something because of Section 17, as I have explained.
The other reason is that I do not want Prime Ministers to be inhibited from appointing Roman Catholics as Lord Chancellors. If, in fact, there were people, either in the Church of England or outside it, who thought they might misuse their ecclesiastical patronage, that might be an inhibition in the future against a Prime Minister appointing a Lord Chancellor to this office. Though I should not have been inhibited in that way had I had the opportunity of being Prime Minister earlier in my career, I can well understand that more cautious gentlemen who usually succeed to that office might be more timid. No doubt that is why they succeed.
But, my Lords, may I turn for a moment to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier. Let me hasten to reassure him that although the Lord Chancellor is rejoicing—at least, I hope that the present one rejoices—in the title of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, he has no functions whatever North of the Border, so far as I remember. Therefore, the Church of Scotland will remain in its virgin purity if the Bill is passed in its present form. Moreover, the noble Lord, Lord Brougham, when Lord Chancellor, made a triumphal procession through Scotland and was immediately deprived of his office by the insistence of William IV, because he incurred the Royal displeasure with what he did and said there. So I think that Scotland is thoroughly protected against Lord Chancellors of whatever religious persuasion.
Before I sit down I should like to get rid of the idea that the Lord Chancellor keeps anyone's conscience in actual practice. This is one of the most popular myths that is entertained about the Lord Chancellorship. The reason for the title,
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"The Keeper of the King's" or "Queen's Conscience" attaching to the Lord Chancellor is, I think, correctly explained in the following way. I reject the idea that the Lord Chancellor was ever the Father Confessor of the Queen or the King. This, I think, has no historic truth and, at any rate, would not explain the present use of the title. But, as all lawyers know, all the powers of the Lord Chancellor derive from his possession of the Great Seal and from his reigning in what used to be the Chancery. All Writs are still issued in his name. His function from about the reign of Henry VIII to the time of the Judicature Act largely consisted of administering a body of legal rules called Equity, as distinct from law. The reason why Equity has a relevance to this problem is that the law was considered too rigid and Equity operated in conscience, so as to mitigate the severity of the Common Law.
The reason why the Lord Chancellor is called "The Keeper of the King's" or "Queen's Conscience" is simply that he operated Equity by the exercise of his discretionary jurisdiction to mitigate the severity of the law. In any event, he never operated in that way in Scotland. I should like to dispose of the myth that there is anything in that purse or bag carried day-by-day in front of the Lord Chancellor in his Procession in the nature of conscience. In particular, it is not a Royal Conscience—it is a void in there—and the Lord Chancellor has no greater or less responsibility for the maintenance and preservation of the sanctity of the Coronation Oath than any other Minister, so far as I know.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, is it not the case that one of my famous predecessors—I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Birkenhead—said that he was not the Keeper of the King's Conscience and that he found it hard enough to keep his own?
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I can well imagine that that might well be the case in that particular instance. At the Coronation of King George VI, my father had 13 sandwiches in the purse. But having said that, I think I have to some extent satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and I hope I have answered the various

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points in the debate, except for thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for whose intervention I was grateful, as I was for the support of the right reverend Prelate.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, I can tell him that I am completely satisfied. The object of my intervention was to get this point absolutely clear in the light of my knowledge North of the Border.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.15 p.m.
[The Sitting was suspended at 8.5 p.m. and resumed at 8.15 p.m.]

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
8.15 p.m.
House again in Committee.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: It may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I were to explain that we hope to continue until the end of Amendment No. 11 on the Committee stage of this Bill, and that we shall then take the Unstarred Question.
Clause 14 [Weighing of motor vehicles]:
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 20, line 35, after ("tested") insert ("by static appliance").
The noble Lord said: It may well be that this Amendment is not quite rightly placed in the Bill in front of us. However, it arises from conversations which I had with the Minister at his invitation, and is purely exploratory. It seeks to establish that any weighing of axles or weighing of commercial vehicles is carried out by a piece of machinery which is not part of a vehicle. We have discussed axle-weighing from time to time, and I have suggested to your Lordships that, in the main, those axle weighing devices which are fitted to vehicles have not yet been proved accept-
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able to most operators and most hauliers. As I read the Bill—for example, in lines 34 and 35—regulations may make provision with respect to,
"…the manner in which a vehicle or trailer is to be weighed or a weight is to be tested…".
The Amendment, by inserting the words "by static appliance" implies that no weighing nor testing of weight may be carried out by any device which is capable of movement on a vehicle. It is my understanding that the regulations are to provide for new and different weighing appliances which are in themselves stationary. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The effect of the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has moved would be to ensure that any regulations made by the Secretary of State in pursuance of Clause 14 should apply to the weighing of vehicles by means of static weighbridges, and not by means of self-weighing devices fitted to the vehicle. I think it is clear that the noble Lord considers such devices to be unreliable, and is anxious that they should not receive statutory recognition. We have had discussions about this and I think I have his mind on the matter.
The Amendment is unnecessary, since the proposed regulatory power is to make provision as to the manner in which a weight is to be tested
"as mentioned in subsection (1) above";
that is to say, as mentioned in Section 160(1) of the 1972 Act. The power provided in that subsection already specifies, in relation to weight testing,
"and for that purpose to proceed to a weighbridge or other machine for weighing vehicles".
Regulations about self-weighing devices would be incompatible with such wording, and indeed the Government have no intention to carry out enforcement weighing by means of such devices. This clause, Clause 14, and the regulations to be made under it, is not concerned with the devices which can be fitted to vehicles to indicate their axle loads. That is a matter to which reference was made during the Second Reading debate. These are generally referred to as self-weighing devices or axle load indicators. They give an indication to the driver in the cab of his vehicle of the load on any axle to which they are fitted.

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My right honourable friend the Minister for Transport is examining the development and potential value of these devices, and tests are in hand to determine how reliable existing models are. By their nature, these tests will take some time yet. There are certainly problems of cost involved here; compulsory fitment to all vehicles would indeed be extremely expensive. But, in any case, their fitment could be authorised under existing legislation, and would not require new powers to be taken in this Bill. I hope I have understood what the noble Lord has in mind, and I trust that those assurances, and the way I have been able to put them, will satisfy him, and that he will feel that his Amendment has served its purpose.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: I should like to make the point that the overloading of heavy vehicles is extremely prevalent and the enforcement is very far from adequate. I hope that serious consideration will be given to developing portable weighing devices which might be used by the Weights and Measures Authority for enforcement. I realise that they cannot probably be as accurate as a weighbridge, but nevertheless with suitable precautions they could be used and if there is an excessive overload it should be possible to obtain a conviction. At the present time, this is a very serious problem indeed and I know that the weights and measures Authorities are not succeeding in producing even a reasonable level of enforcement.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I add that I shall draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has just said.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I must confess that I am terribly disappointed that the noble Viscount intervened in these terms, because I was tremendously happy with what the Minister had to say on this point. The industry generally is extremely aware of all that which follows from overloading. That part of the industry which one might describe as being reputable is cognisant of the difficulties of its own job. I outlined one of the instances during Second Reading. They are certainly not averse to those devices, and I think the noble
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Lord the Minister was talking about the new dynamic weighing device. My understanding is that the industry is perfectly happy about this device, because it is proven. They cannot be happy however about any device, whether it is fitted to a vehicle or whether it is a portable device taken to a roadside. which is capable of misinterpretation and of the continuing need for recalibration. I am reassured by what the noble Lord has told me. I think the industry will be reassured and until such time as these axle weight indicator devices are perfectly acceptable to all sides of the industry—the employer, the employee and the vehicle user—they will be quite happy to go along with those regulations which are in force and the new kind of machinery which is it proposed and which these regulations give the power to use. With the Minister's assurance on this point I am happy and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
8.25 p.m.
LORD HACKING LORD HACKING moved Amendment No. 7:
After Clause 14 insert the following new clause:
Offence of driving with blood-alcohol concentration above prescribed limit.
(".In section 6(1) of the 1972 Act (driving with blood alcohol concentration above the prescribed limit) the words from "as ascertained" to "Act" shall be omitted and the words "at the time he provides the specimen" shall be omitted."
The noble Lord said: Against my interests as a practising lawyer and at the risk of being dubbed "the breathalyser Peer", I beg leave to move the first Amendment that stands in my name on the Marshalled List. I am very conscious that I am addressing your Lordships on this subject for the fourth time in the last six months and I apologise to noble Lords who have heard the argument before. But there are some who have not. Hitherto, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has been spared and I have therefore re-mustered my arguments in order to present to those who have not heard them hitherto a fresh course in breathalyser law. The only comfort I can give to noble Lords who have heard the earlier speeches that I have addressed to

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your Lordships upon this subject is that I have resisted, or am resisting, the temptation of reading one of my earlier speeches to you from the OFFICIAL REPORT.
LORD CHAMPION: Hear! hear!
LORD HACKING: Certainly I have some supporting comfort from the noble Lord, Lord Champion, who sits near me. In an earlier debate on December 17 last year, the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said in reference to the present state of the breathalyser law, "it is ludicrous." At a later stage in his speech, he said —and again I quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT:
"It is a part of the law which causes considerable distress and dismay to many thousands, not least because of its uncertainty and unfairness. What is far more important, it tends to bring the law itself, and those who practise it, into disrepute."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1973, cal. 136.]
So it is and so it does. It has caused immense difficulties for all who have to administer the law, whether those persons be judges, lawyers, police officers, or officers in the magistrates' court. It has collected altogether five hearings largely, if not exclusively, at public expense before the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House. The number of reports in the new edition of the Road Traffic Reports—and it is also significant that there is now a call, and has been a call for the last three years, for an individual set of law reports to cover road traffic law—concerning the breathalyser law must now exceed 60, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. It is difficult to calculate the number of cases that are contested before the magistrates' or Crown Courts because no statistics as such are kept, but I have made certain calculations for the year 1972 based upon a sample at the Bedford Crown Court where I learned that 10 percent. of cases recently have been breathalyser cases.
I have also made calculations upon certain figures produced by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and working on the basis of the sample from the Bedford Crown Court I calculated that there had been no less than 3,700 breathalyser cases brought before Crown
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Courts in the year 1972. Working upon the figures of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, one comes to a different calculation from that of 2,000 cases before the Crown Courts. By any view those are large figures for a new piece of law which was created to bring certainty out of uncertainty. It is small wonder that the present noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, in an authority called Darnell v. Portal in 1972—and again it is significant to note that that was two years ago—in a moment of judicial despair perhaps, spoke of yet another case, "coming from the apparently inexhaustible well of the Road Safety Act 1967", which is the parent Act for this legislation.
Hence I come again to put my Amendments before the Committee in an attempt to resolve three areas of major difficulty. With leave, I should like to say a few words about all three areas of difficulty before addressing your Lordships on the first of my two Amendments. It was not an Act which got off to a happy start. It set out to create two offences: driving or attempting to drive with alcohol in the bloodstream over the prescribed limit, and being in charge of a motor car with alcohol in the blood over the prescribed limit. Alas! the Statute only provided the means by which one of those offences could be proved; namely, the offence of driving or attempting to drive. The only means by which the other offence of being in charge can be proved is by taking the back-door route of Section 5 and arresting the accused for being in charge of a motor car while unfit through drink or drugs, and thereafter invoke the breathalyser procedure.
The first area of difficulty concerns Section 1(1) of the original Act. This attempted to set out not only a statement of the offence but also the means by which it could be proved. Alas! in merging the two, they created a confusion between the two concepts. In the result, a motorist can bring the breathalyser enactment to a nullity by taking a drink between the end of the driving and the supplying of the specimen, whether it be a specimen of blood or urine. The second area concerns the point in time by which the breathalyser procedure has to be commenced. That point in time, in cases other than accidents, is when the motorist is still driving or attempting to drive.

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Hence, if the police are unable to commence the procedure while the motorist is still driving or attempting to drive, the proceedings are brought to a nullity. Consequently, difficulties have been created for the police and the courts; and these difficulties remain considerable.
First, how can the police start the procedure when a motorist in any ordinary sense is still driving or attempting to drive, for example (as I have quoted to your Lordships before), when the car is still in motion and the officer is obliged to start the first part of the procedure, which is the administration of the breath test? Secondly, how can the courts define when a motorist is still driving or attempting to drive, if the meaning is extended beyond the immediate control over steering, brakes and engine?—and of course it has to be extended beyond immediate control over steering, brakes and engine in order to have any efficacy at all. Cases have as a result rained down on both sides of an awkward watershed. Stopping and getting out of a car to buy a newspaper from a street vendor is still driving, while stopping and buying groceries is to cease driving. More than this, it has proved to be manifestly unfair on a citizen who, having consumed alcohol, acts responsibly after being stopped, goes through the prescribed procedure and eventually if he is found to have alcohol in his blood over the prescribed limit, pays the penalty of a 12-month disqualification. That should be compared with the citizen who acts irresponsibly, taking a swig of whisky from a hip flask, breaking away from the car or punching the police officer on the nose and in doing so escaping punishment under the Road Traffic Act 1972, as it now is.
I have quoted to your Lordships before the case of Edkins v. Knowles, and I will not go into details on this occasion. In that case, the motorist drove away at speed and dangerously, followed by a police car manned by detective officers. The man was eventually stopped at a holiday camp, where I believe he lived, and was detained there by detective officers until members of the uniformed branch arrived—but by that time on no view could he be held still to be driving or attempting to drive. Hence he escaped any penalty under the breathalyser procedure.
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This area of difficulty also militates against good citizenship, and I would quote a further case to your Lordships: that is the Queen v. Bates. In that case one motorist—in the Birmingham area, if I remember rightly—saw another motorist who was clearly not in proper control of his motor car. As a result, the first motorist, acting in good citizenship, stopped the other motorist from driving any further by, among other things, standing in front of the bonnet of the other man's car. Eventually, some 15 minutes later, help having been summoned, the uniformed police officers arrived; but by the time they arrived the breathalyser procedure could not be invoked—it was invoked, but not successfully— because the second motorist had by then, according to law, ceased driving or attempting to drive. The point has now been reached when a solicitor who has to advise a prominent police authority in our country told me a few days ago in reference to the definition of "driving":
"I have now ceased to feel that there is any effective advice and guidance I can give to police officers as to what is meant by this word."
I move now to the third area of difficulty. The breathalyser procedure can only be invoked if a motorist is arrested either for driving over the limit or for driving when unfit. Hence, if the motorist has been arrested for a more serious offence, for example, escaping in a motor car following the crime of grievous bodily harm in a public-house, then the breathalyser procedure cannot be used.
Hitherto I have not had much success in my attempts to reform the breathalyser law. By and large the last Government thought that the present law was working well enough—certainly well enough not to merit my arguments being included in the then Road Traffic Bill. As your Lordships will have observed, we now have a new Government and it was refreshing to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, during the Second Reading of the Bill, that the new Government are considering setting up an inquiry into the operation of this law. Further, it was intimated to me last night that the new Government do indeed intend to set up such an inquiry and have taken certain steps in that direction.

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Therefore I earnestly consider whether I should withdraw all my Amendments and leave it to the committee to take over. Frankly, I have not reached a decision and should much appreciate the assistance of the committee in this direction. Of course, I recognise that the proposal to set up a committee is, as I have just said, a refreshing new approach. I also recognise that the proposal enables leading members of the present Government to escape from a position of some personal dilemma, in having voted for me for the last time on the merits of my argument and now being in receipt of the same instructions as those which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, received earlier from the Department of State.
I do not suggest, of course, that this has had any influence on the proposal to set up this committee, but I do have reservations in adopting this course, and perhaps I might set them out in order. First, the setting up of this committee does not meet the need for a wider review of road traffic offences—and I referred during my Second Reading speech to the difficult distinction between careless and dangerous driving and the unfairness that imposes upon the motorist who transgresses. Two, the setting up of the committee will cause delay, when immediate assistance is needed—and, of course, the wider the terms of reference of the Committee, the greater the delay. Three, this Chamber is losing a convenient vehicle for such reform. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, very courteously wrote me a detailed letter (and I believe he did the same to other noble Lords) in which he dealt with various points raised at Second Reading, with which he had not had time to deal in his speech. I should like to express my gratitude to him for being so conscientious and helpful. He wrote as follows:
"In fact, opportunities to introduce road traffic legislation occur rather infrequently".
Hence, I am concerned that we are losing this convenient vehicle for such reform—or we should be losing it if I were to withdraw my Amendments and leave the decisions in the hands of this committee which the Government intend to set up. My fourth point is that the committee is losing the opportunity of using the immense knowledge which is available among your Lordships. I had hoped at this stage in my speech to sweep my hand
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to my right and behind me, and look towards a number of Law Lords who very kindly agreed to support my Amendments. Alas, as the hours have gone by and the evening has lengthened, one by one my supporters from the Judicial Committee have again disappeared off to other places.
Five, my Amendments, if placed on the Statute Book, would not conflict with the setting up of this committee. Statutory Law should surely be just as much a process of evolution as the Common Law. In our changing society, Statutes which seek to create a solution for all time seldom succeed. Much time and care was lavished—and I recognise this—on the present breathalyser enactment, but it did not wholly work out. I believe that my Amendments will work, or will work better, but we shall know only by experience. That is why I should like to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Champion—and I warned him I was going to say this—in his final address to your Lordships when he was speaking on behalf of the then Opposition in the last debate upon Amendments which were, save for very small corrections, identical to the Amendments now before your Lordships. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said:
"My Lords, ought we not to deal with anomalies in the law as and when we can, and as and when they are brought to our attention? I believe that that, surely, is our position in relation to this matter because the Bill that is now before us seems to me to be a suitable vehicle for just the kind of Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, is proposing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15/1/74; cols. 857–8.]
What I am saying now, and I am putting it more in the form of a question than as a proposition, is this. Should not my Amendments be given a try? They do not affect police procedure, and will not create complications for the police in having to learn fresh procedures for the administration of the breathalyser test, and for indeed the subsequent tests that follow from that. It should be much easier for lawyers to tackle the new law coming out in the form of a Statute within this Bill, than for them to tackle the present mountain of authority. Only time will tell and therefore I hesitate over the decision whether to withdraw my Amendments. But if my Amendments were to go through to the Statute Book, the committee would be assisted and not

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impeded. I have spoken at some length; the length of my speech I know not, because the time clocks do not seem to be functioning.
I shall now deal briefly with the first two Amendments, because they are coupled together and deal with the first area of difficulty. They divide the offence from proof of the offence, and in so doing stop up the defence of the "whisky flask". They also resolve the conflict between giving and refusing to give a specimen, because, ironically, if you give a specimen having consumed alcohol between the ceasing of the driving and the giving of the specimen, then the procedure is brought to a nullity. But if, having consumed a drink within that period after the driving and the giving of a specimen, you refuse to give a specimen you can be penalised and punished.
I recognise that my Amendments will result in the courts having to examine, in some cases, what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has described as the "chemical evidence". They are likely to have to deal only with contested cases in a small area, and in the marginal cases around 80 milligrams, because in the nature of the "whisky flask" defence it is only a small quantity of alcohol that goes into the motorist so that defence will be available only if the motorist is marginally over the 80 milligrams level. In any event, the courts have been forced, albeit reluctantly, into further analysis of the chemical test in the "laced drink" cases, in considering special reasons why motorists found with over 80 milligrams in them should not meet the consequences of twelve months' disqualification. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It may be convenient if at this stage, particularly in view of the announcement the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, made of the intention of the Government to set up a committee to investigate the problems, immediate and related, which he has raised in the course of the debate, if I speak now. It may well be that we have reached a decision which will enable the noble Lord to say that success has come his way at last. He has given the state of the law relating to drinking and driving something of what I might have been
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tempted to call in another place a "bashing". It is undoubtedly the case that the 1967 Act has given rise to a substantial law about which, as a distinguished practitioner he would not for that reason, I suspect, have any real ground for complaint. It has beet much criticised, and quite rightly the noble Lord has pointed to certain technical features of the law which have presented serious difficulties.
But, happily, the consequences of the technical faults have not been grave, and I am advised that in regard to all those which are contained in the series of Amendments Nos. 7 to 11, the omissions may well result in not more than a few hundred cases being dropped or lost each year out of a total of 50,000. A few hundred lost is not satisfactory, and I hope I may not be suspected of taking a complacent view when I put it in that way. But while it is right to consider what loopholes there are that need filling, it is right the Committee should give some recognition to the real success that was achieved by the Road Safety Act of 1967 as a safety measure. Indeed, it was largely responsible for a 10 per cent. reduction of casualties recorded in 1968. Putting it, I hope not over-dramatically, in one year it saved a thousand lives. It is not a bad "product" for a piece of legislation.
The severity of the sanctions contained in the 1967 Act, disqualification for a year, and problems related to establishing the objective proof for which the law provided resulted in a series of skilful efforts by the legal profession—and I make no complaint about it; it may well be I took part in some of them myself—to find loopholes in the Act. Indeed, it went so far that at one time the very credibility of the law seemed in doubt. But their Lordships strengthened themselves, they steeled their nerves, and the outcome of a series of appeal decisions has been that the provisions of the Act have been reaffirmed in all their major particulars.
What is left to be remedied is related to largely unsatisfactory results emanating from circumstances which are both unusual and fortuitous. It may well be that there are some motorists who, having consumed not wisely but too well, prepare themselves with a whisky flask for the contingency of being stopped by the

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police, and take a quick "swig" in order to defeat the operations of the law; but I suspect that that is a pretty rare "bird". But the matter has to be faced and these omissions have to be rectified. But again I think it is right, without being complacent, that I should say that the police have not found the law as it stands unworkable. The number of breath tests administered increases annually, as indeed does the number of convictions. Both have doubled from 1968 to 1972, and in 1973 there were nearly 140,000 breath tests. So there is neither inactivity nor ineffectiveness in the law and its enforcement.
Of course, the extent to which the Act continues to have an effect on the road safety problem cannot be statistically measured. The initial impact may to some extent have worn off. But I submit that this will have happened not because the law has loopholes—and I submit that substantially they are minor loopholes—but because drivers will have discovered that the police cannot be everywhere, so they may have avoided being stopped, and undoubtedly because the consumption of alcohol in the community has increased rapidly in the last few years, with inevitable repercussions on our roads. For what I have said to the Committee there is some supporting evidence of the diminishing effect of the Act in the sad data which are supplied by coroners on drivers killed in accidents. The proportion who would have been found guilty under the 1967 Act provisions fell from 25 per cent. to 15 per cent. in the period after the 1967 Act. Alas! it had risen again to 25 per cent. in 1971. In the Government's view it is the continuing problem of drinking by drivers which must be considered and upon which the main emphasis must be placed. With respect, it is our view that the defects in the law to which the noble Lord has rightly drawn attention are relatively subsidiary to the main nature of the mischief that the law has sought to deal with.
It is in these circumstances that the, Government have decided to set up an expert inquiry into all aspects of operation of the law, including technical and enforcement aspects and the general consideration which determined the peculiar form of the existing provisions. The Government are considering the terms of reference and other details, and I have
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no doubt that the matters which the noble Lord has rightly and repeatedly raised will be considered by this committee. It may well be (and I hope I say this without any impertinence to the noble Lord) that this inquiry will come up with proposals which will deal in a more fundamental way than these Amendments have attempted to do, with the features of the law which have given rise to difficulty in the courts. There is a certain danger that any proposals which are not most thoroughly examined in relation to the large body of case law may fail to achieve their object, or even have defects of their own which are not immediately obvious. We have not yet decided the precise form the inquiry should take, but it will be an exercise drawing on practical experience, and, as I have said, it will certainly look at the aspects of the law to which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has drawn attention. There is always a faint sense of a sigh when a problem is consigned to a committee, but I assure the Committee that this is not intended as a long burial operation. We take seriously the problem that the community faces. The community itself ought to take it seriously. But at the root of the matter is the increasing amount of alcohol consumption, the increasing amount of alcoholism, and the inevitable impact which, alas! those brutal facts have upon the motoring scene.
To turn to the two Amendments which the noble Lord has rightly invited the Committee to consider together, they deal with what he has so conveniently described as the "whisky glass defence". As I understand it, the new subsection which is proposed by the Amendments is designed to deal with the kind of situation where, after being involved in an accident, a driver takes alcohol—probably in most cases to steady his nerves, although there may be the determined, well-informed, legally minded driver who will take the precaution of having a whisky flask available. He takes alcohol from a pub or wherever he may get it, or from some kindly St. Bernard, animal or human, who may at that critical time come his way. Then, he having consumed for the purpose of strengthening his shattered nerves, the police arrive and they administer a breath test which is positive, as is the ensuing

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blood specimen. But then, as has been pointed out, in view of the additional alcohol taken after he ceased to drive it is impossible for the prosecution to use the result as proof that when driving he had excess blood alcohol. The subsection that is proposed would place on the defence the onus of proving that the driver's blood alcohol was not excessive before he ceased to drive—as this would for the same reasons as I indicated be difficult to prove, and if this became the law conviction in such a case would be normal.
This is a somewhat controversial change and it is a change designed, as I submit, to catch a very small number of cases, because the course of events which I have described is perhaps somewhat unusual and there are not all those St. Bernards around, after all. If it became the law it could well effect a somewhat unjust and harsh result. It is possible, for instance, for a driver after being stopped by involvement in an accident to take enough of a strengthener then supplied to him to take his blood alcohol above the 80 mg/100 ml and thereby render him guilty. That course of events would result in order to convict apparently also those who perhaps already had had their fill and had 150 mg/100 ml, and the effect of taking the extra "swig" (if I may so put it) would take the level up to, say, 175 mg/100 ml. The outcome of the change in the law would therefore be that the morally innocent would be technically guilty, but we should have the luxury and privilege as a community of saying that we had been surer of catching the morally guilty; and I do not find that an entirely satisfactory outcome of what is proposed.
So the Government are against making this kind of change against the background of the promised comprehensive review of the drinking and driving law. Accordingly, in view of the assurance that I have given and the promise that the matters which he has so persistently raised will be earnestly examined by an expert committee, I hope the noble Lord will not press these Amendments.
9.0 p.m.
LORD FOOT: I am bound to say that I find myself in a difficult and rather mystifying position at this moment because the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, had indicated to me before this debate that the
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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was going to tell us that he intended to set up a committee. My first reaction was to say, "Perhaps we are getting somewhere. We have made some progress." It could be regarded, as the noble Lord said just now, as a win. I am afraid, however, that as I listened to him my acceptance of this proposed committee has waned. Indeed, the whole of the argument that the noble and learned Lord has addressed to us appears to be an argument for not setting up a committee, because he has gone to great lengths to defend the state of the law as it stands at the moment. Indeed, so far as I can understand his argument, there is nothing wrong with the breathalyser law except for the objections which are raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking.
If it is right that the law is working and has proved useful and beneficial and that it is subject only to minor defects of the kind to which the noble Lord. Lord Hacking, draws attention, why set up a committee at all? Is it not a very odd procedure to set up a committee to investigate the working of a law which in the opinion of the Government is working very satisfactorily at the moment?
My faith in this committee's solution was further undermined by the detail of the argument of the noble and learned Lord in defence of the present measure. He said first of all that the consequences of these defects have not, in his view, been grave. As I understood him, he meant by that that few offenders had got through the net.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry that my advocacy has been so totally ineffective. I had intended to convey the impression that the Government are gravely concerned about the incidence of alcoholism in relation to road accidents and in relation to road safety. It is because we are so seriously concerned about this and because of the diminishing therapeutic effect of the 1967 Act, that we think the whole position now needs to be seriously reappraised and examined in relation to the causes of a deteriorating situation and the various social and legal measures which ought to be used to combat it. I hope that my not excessive facetiousness did not give an impression of complacency. If so, I have gravely failed in my first appearance at this Dispatch Box.
LORD FOOT: If I misunderstood the noble and learned Lord then I apologise, but I understood him to be saying that the Government's general view is that, subject to certain admitted defects in the Act, the Act is working reasonably well and has achieved a certain good, such as saving lives and the like. Could I say to him that I was not impressed by some of the arguments that he used in defence of the present situation. His first argument was that the consequences of these defects to which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has drawn attention had not been grave. I understood him to mean by that that a few offenders who ought to be caught were getting through the net, but only a few. If I understand the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, correctly what he has in mind as the grave consequence of the present law is that it brings the law into disrepute when the state of the law is so far removed from Common sense in the eyes of ordinary people. That is the grave consequence which we think stems from these defects in the law.
The noble and learned Lord then used another argument which we have heard before from the Back Bench, although from another Government. It was that these loopholes, so-called, had been discovered by lawyers. These are the invention of lawyers who have got to work upon the Act and have discovered these loopholes. The defects to which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, draws attention are not the result of the ingenuity of lawyers. For example, the defect in the original Act, which said that you could only be convicted of this offence if you were driving or attempting to drive and all the troubles that that has given rise to, is attributable to the defective wording of the original Act and not to the ingenuity of lawyers. I am therefore left unconvinced that this proposal to set up a committee with its yet unknown remit as to what it is to look at and what its inquiries are to be is, indeed, going to achieve the narrow results which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has in mind.
I would say this to the noble and learned Lord. Even if a committee is going to be set up to look at the whole question of alcoholic driving in society, is there any reason why these defects in the existing law should not be remedied by the vehicle of this Bill? Would any harm be done? Would the work of the
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proposed committee be pre-empted or pre-judged in any way if these Amendments were accepted by the Government at this stage? If they are not accepted and a committee is set up, we have no knowledge when that committee will report.
Far be it from me to look into the future, but it may be that that committee will report to another Government. Nobody will know when these things are going to be put right. We may go on for two, three, four or five years before we get an opportunity of carrying through these Amendments, which are not seriously being disputed as necessary for the improvement of the law. I do not think it becomes the present Government, at any rate, to say that we ought to put on one side the question of the reform of the law while there is a Commission sitting to discuss that very matter. It ill becomes the Government to use that argument, because at the end of this Bill where they are making the changes in the punishments which are available to magistrates' courts for traffic offences they are themselves making a decision about the distribution of work between the magistrates' courts and the Crown Courts which has been specifically referred to the James Commission, whose Report, as I understand it, is still awaited.
Therefore, when we were discussing this Bill on the last occasion with the previous Government, when we advanced the argument that we ought not to prejudge this matter but that we ought to wait for the Report of the James Commission before deciding to take away the punishment powers from the magistrates, and so on, we were told then: "Oh no, there is no need to wait. It is perfectly proper to do this. The James Commission can go on with their work and they will not be prejudged by what we do now". If that is right, then I can see no reason at all why the Government should not set up that Commission and at the same time accept the perfectly reasonable Amendments which have been proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking; and if he is looking towards me as someone to help him out of his dilemma as to whether he should go on orith his Amendments or accept the offer of the committee, I can only say that for my part I cannot see why he should

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not accept the offer of the committee and at the same time take his own Amendments to a Division.
9.11 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, made, as he did on both the previous two occasions on which he spoke on this matter, an extremely powerful speech and I am sure my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will agree that that is so. The noble Lord indicated on an earlier occasion that there was considerable disquiet at the Bar and among judges as to the present wording of the litigation. The noble Lord nods his head and I think I have reported him correctly.
I would add this: we are not dealing with something abstruse here. Earlier today we discussed the question as to whether or not we should make the wearing of safety belts compulsory. That was very important, but I should have thought this was even more important. We are dealing here with an aspect of legislation which in many cases means the difference between life and death or mutilation and safety of ordinary road users. Almost everybody drives a car; everybody is at risk of the mismanagement of a car by somebody unfit to drive it. So the legislation one is dealing with here is legislation which directly and immediately affects, in an extremely important sense, every single citizen in this country, young and old, man and woman. Therefore I think the Committee should feel greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for again, with considerable courage and determination, directing our attention to this extremely important matter.
Towards the end of his speech, the noble Lord in effect asked for information from my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor as to what the intentions of the Government were. If I may have the noble and learned Lord's attention for a short time I will continue. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, asked for information as to what the intention of the Government was, and I should like now to follow in the footsteps of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, in the speech that he has just made. I hope my noble and learned friend will be able to give us a little more information as to what really is intended.
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I myself can see great value in setting up a committee to investigate this extremely important matter. I should have thought it was common ground that the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has pointed to defects in the language which is at present used. The idea that we have to go through the back door of Section 5 of the 1968 Act to get a conviction of the offence of being in charge of a motor car when you have in your blood more than 80 milligrammes in a thousand millilitres seems to me quite positively absurd and an obvious error in the drafting of the existing legislation. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to tell us a little more on the following lines: what is the general remit which the Government intend that this committee should have? What is the Government's timetable, their programme?
This important Bill started in your Lordships' House. In due course, I suppose in a matter of weeks (or certainly not more than a few months) it will go through its passage in another place. It will be on the Statute Book before so very long. I should have thought it would be of great help to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, if the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor were able to inform him whether there is any real prospect of the committee reporting in a way which would make it possible for amending legislation, in terms of any recommendation that the committee might make by the time this Bill gets to another House. I should have thought it most unlikely. I suppose it is conceivable, possibly, if it is the intention of the Government that the remit to the committee should be on a very strictly drawn basis. If they are strictly to devote their minds to the narrow issue as to what improvements can be immediately effected in the present legislation affecting breathalysers and alcohol content of the blood, I suppose it might be possible to introduce something to give effect to its recommendations in this Bill by the time it becomes law. I should have thought it most unlikely, but I suppose it is conceivably possible.
If the remit is to be on a rather wider scale to cover the more general question of drink and driving—I rather thought my noble and learned friend was implying this in the language he used—I should have thought it was virtually impossible to contemplate that in this Bill,

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by the time it reaches the Statute Book, there should be any amending provisions dealing with the breathalyser test and the alcohol intake of a driver. If that is so, I suppose one is faced with the situation that there is always a press of legislation, as we are told over and over again. It is obviously the case, and I suppose we would have to wait one, two, three, four or five years before we can get further amending legislation to deal with this aspect of affairs.
In some branches of legislation, one can afford to wait. The citizen must wait because of the press of business, particularly legislation which perhaps affects a very limited number of persons in a not very serious way. This is not legislation of that type. It affects everybody, and I apologise for repeating myself, in a very terrible way. It may be the difference between life and death, between mutilation and the free use of one's limbs. In those circumstances, I hope that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will be able to elaborate a little on what he said, in order to give more guidance in answer to the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. Personally speaking, I would very much like myself to have more guidance so that I can make up my mind on which way to vote. supposing your Lordship's Committee goes to a Division. I hope I am not seeming ungrateful to my noble and learned friend; certainly I am not.
This is important, and the committee is always of the greatest value. I should have thought its recommendations might be extremely important. Personally, I have always taken the view that it would be much better to have random tests rather than tests which could only be made in the event of there being a traffic offence or an accident. Perhaps that is something the committee might wish to investigate. It is my experience that the police have views about that, or at any rate, they had. Therefore, I would ask my noble and learned friend—and I ask this in all friendliness and in no way meaning to be critical of him—to give us a little more information as to precisely what is intended. What is the sort of remit? How wide is it to be? Why cannot these Amendments be accepted in the meantime? What chance is there, if any, of the recommendations made by the committee finding their way
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into this Bill? If they do not, when can the Government promise further legislation to embody them in this extremely important context? I should be most grateful if my noble and learned friend could give us more information along those lines. It would certainly assist me in making up my mind, and I feel sure it would assist the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, because he has in terms told us so. Those are the observations, therefore, that I would put to my noble and learned friend.
9.20 p.m.
LORD PLATT: I have perhaps only a few qualifications for intervening in this debate at all, but I was a member of the Medical Research Council, which advised the Government as to the level of blood alcohol which the Government might choose to be the level above which driving was a serious offence and licences were to be withdrawn. We did, of course, examine all the statistical evidence of motor accidents at different blood alcohol levels, important statistical evidence largely derived from experiments in the United States. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for bringing this matter up, because I am sure that there are serious loopholes in the present law and I do share the view that this brings the law into disrepute.
One of the two points that I might make is that the noble and learned Lord hoped that we would not accuse him of complacency in his kind of defence of the status quo; perhaps that is going a little too far. But I have—this is perhaps another qualification that I have for speaking—a good deal of experience of addicts of various kinds, and whereas he thinks it may be only the very rare case where a man happens to have a bottle of brandy or a flask of whisky in his pocket, if I know the real addict, he will have it every time. I do not know what the statistics are; of course, one cannot find out, because a large number of them get away with it; but it is exactly the behaviour of the addict who says to his pal, "You know, you can get round this quite easily. All you have got to do is have a flask of whisky in your pocket". I have no complacency about that kind of behaviour.
If I had the eloquence of Lord Hacking or Lord Foot or Lord Stow Hill

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I would have made those very speeches. Therefore, I shall certainly support them in whatever line they take over this. The only other point that I might perhaps make is that, as what you might call a human biologist, I realise the absurdity of fixing a line, at 80 or any other level, because in other countries it is not always the same level, below which you are an innocent man and above which you have your licence taken away for a year, et cetera. I know that lines have to be drawn, but this leads, of course, to the final agreement of a rather higher level than good sense would perhaps require, because it is felt that a person should not be submitted to these rather automatic severe penalties unless his blood alcohol really is high enough to be dangerous. At the level of 80 milligrams, the accident rate, if my memory serves me right, is just about double that of people with no alcohol at all.
My suggestion to the Medical Research Council was that in view of the difficulty of drawing a dividing line, there should be two levels, a level of 50 and a level of 100; above the level of 100 there should be automatic penalties of the kind which are imposed at present, and between 50 and 100 this should be a matter which would be taken into account by the courts who had to decide on culpability and matters of that kind. I do not know that my suggestion was a very practical one; it may be that the lawyers would rule it out as impracticable at once, but I just take this opportunity of restating it, since there is this question of a committee to look into the whole matter. I think that they might, at the same time, look into the question of a sort of grey level, where the alcohol is taken into account but where the penalty is not automatic; or shall I say that the penalty is perhaps rather less than the penalty faced by a man whose blood alcohol is over a level which, I suggest, might be about 100.
LORD FERRIER: I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for not being here to hear his speech but I was upstairs in the Hansard office. I heard much of what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said. Something that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said makes me emphasise that this trick is not a lawyer's gimmick; it is a well-known
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manner of frustrating the will of Parliament. A friend of mine and his wife were in a taxi some time ago going to catch a train at Kings Cross. There was a frightful crash when they were driven into from behind. He and his wife were badly shaken and when he got out of the door, which would hardly open, the driver of the other car got out, looked quickly up and down the road and saw a pub, went and had a few nips, and then said, "Now I feel better". So it is not just a question of keeping a flask in your pocket; it can be done anyway so long as you are alive to the fact that this is a way of frustrating the will of Parliament.
9.27 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I intervene again at this point to dispel any feeling of of any kind about the matters that have been raised in this valuable debate. Least of all am I ever capable of feeling any sense of resentment about anything said by my old friend sitting behind me. The problems that face us, the community, and the Government, as responsible for protecting the public in this field, are difficult and serious. The major problem is the repercussion of the increased consumption of alcohol in our community. The Government feel that the nature of the problem requires a reappraisal of the law relating to drink and driving in its entirety, and that the re-examination must be a radical one because some of the assumptions, some of the basic principles upon which the 1967 Act was passed, may well call for serious reconsideration.
Your Lordships will remember that the nature of the present drinking and driving law really stems, as I recollect it, from three sources. The first was the decision of Parliament, if I remember rightly supported on both sides in each House of Parliament, not to grant power to conduct random tests. As I understand it, my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill thinks that that may well have been an error, but it was certainly the strong view of Parliament at the time that it would be an intolerable interference with the liberty of the subject, and an intolerable encouragement to excessive interference by the police in our lives, if random tests were allowed. The decision not to grant power to conduct random tests has meant that a case may fall if

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the police do not give the right reason for requiring a breath specimen. This is one of the basic difficulties that the will of Parliament presented the enforcement authorities with. The second factor was a need for some safeguards in a law which obliges a driver to furnish the very evidence from which his conviction can automatically follow, especially as that evidence has to be obtained by the uncongenial, time consuming procedures—to describe them at the most generous level—of the breathalyser and the blood test or the urine test.
The third factor was the decision which Parliament came to, which does not appear to be an unreasonable one, to spare the driver who, once he realises he is unfit, parks at the roadside and stops otherwise he would be tempted to rush home in the hope of avoiding detection. Those were the not unreasonable principles, if I may say so, embodied in the corpus of law in the 1967 Act. They are difficult principles and a typical product of our reluctance to give the police too much power and authority and to protect the citizens as much as we can from excessive interference by the police. The price we have had to pay in the attempt to enforce the law within the ambit of those basic considerations has been the existence of some escape routes which have evolved. Clearly we must try to stop those escape routes as best we can, and that is in itself an important operation. My submission to the House is—and we must take the Amendments one by one; we are now dealing with the Amendment embodied in Nos. 7 and 8—that so far as that is an attempt to stop one of the loopholes it is not satisfactory for the reasons which I ventured to give earlier and would effect an inadequate, indeed unjust, result if it became the law. It is not effective, I submit with great respect, to deal with the problem that is raised.
The problems are complex, and in my submission the real answer is a radical re-examination of those basic concepts which I have mentioned as being at the base of the present legal position. In these circumstances, after giving the matter the most responsible thought and taking advice, we think that the best course now is a radical review by a committee. Naturally I cannot give any time limit as to when the committee may be expected
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to report. I hope, indeed I am quite sure, that the terms of reference will embody the matters that have been raised in your Lordships' Committee to-night. This debate will have been of great value as a guide to the sort of worries that your Lordships have and to the kind of considerations which should guide the Government in determining the terms of reference of the committee. H the view of the committee is strongly that even before this fundamental and radical re-examination of the position is completed there should be some attempt—I hope I am not putting it offensively if I say "a tinkering with the problem"—to deal with that limited problem or another, of course the Government would be prepared to look at the matter again before the Report stage.
I venture with all seriousness to think that the Government are seriously worried about the problem which exists, and are seriously grappling with it, and with the purpose which the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and others, and my noble friend Lord Stow Hill have raised. Their purpose is very much a purpose in the mind of the Government, and I hope accordingly that they may take the view that it is better now to await the fundamental reappraisal by a body of experts which will cover the whole range of the technical and enforcement aspects of the law and indeed the very assumptions upon which up until now the law has been based. Accordingly, I hope the committee will feel, in view of that undertaking which I give on behalf of the Government, that the purposes which the mover of the Amendment has in mind would be best served by awaiting the outcome of that committee's report.
LORD HACKING: I am still in some uncertainty. Most particularly I am uncertain about the actual terms of reference that the Government have in mind. Although the noble and learned Lord has used fine adjectives such as "radical" and "fundamental", he has not given any clear indication of exactly what will be the terms of reference that the Government contemplate giving to this committee. I accept that he cannot tell your Lordships the precise terms, but I regret that he has not given any clear indication of them.
I said that I was still in a state of some uncertainty, but there are two matters upon which I am certain. First, without

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the alteration of many commas, and certainly not without the alteration of many sentences, the noble and learned Lord is in receipt of precisely the same instructions as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, had when the Conservative Government were in power. Indeed, there were occasions, except for the different enunciation and the different voice, when I wondered as I shut my eyes whether I was listening to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and not to the noble and learned Lord—
LORD ABERDARE: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, since the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, is not here, may I say that I am sure my noble friend would never receive "instructions" from anybody. He was a very responsible Minister.
LORD HACKING: He was receiving exactly the same statistical data and other references from the Department of State. I use the term "instructions" because the debate is now centred among advocates and barristers, and barristers of course receive "instructions". That is the first matter upon which I have certainty.
The second matter upon which I have certainty is that when those "instructions" are bad—and I again use that term in inverted commas if it offends the noble Lord—the Department of State or the choice of Government spokesman settles upon the most able advocate on the Front Bench of whichever Government happens to be in power. The noble and learned Lord, as indeed did the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, dwelt heavily and rested heavily upon statistics as a basis for his argument that the breathalyser provisions were working well, Statistics are often misused. Certainly in this context the statistics do not show those who got away. Of course they show all of those who have been caught, but they do not give the other side of the coin. They do not tell us how many times detective officers have seen a driver who would otherwise be pursued and stopped, being left to go on his journey simply because they knew that if they intervened there would be no powers available to them. That is also in the realm of statistics.
It is really a marriage of two matters. It is a marriage of those who drive a
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motor car and of those who drink. If the statistics go up they prove one of two things; either there are more drivers who are going out and being caught by the police, or there are more drivers who are going out having consumed an excessive quantity of alcohol. I take no comfort from the statistics produced by the noble and learned Lord, any more than I did from the statistics produced by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I am very sorry that he has not come back into the Chamber for this debate, because I know he has been in your Lordships' House this evening and intended to come in here.
I am going to divide the Committee for two reasons. Whether I get a quorum will depend upon the final count. The first reason I am going to divide the Committee is that the noble and learned Lord, despite all his skills, did not really point out in clear terms, certainly in terms that I could understand, what was wrong with my Amendment. He spoke of the morally innocent and the guilty, and somehow that the morally innocent would be found guilty under the provisions. Perhaps he also argued the converse. But morals and moral innocence are not involved in the Amendments which I have placed before your Lordships. The point is quite simply this. If a man or woman chooses to consume a drink after he or she has ceased driving, whether done deliberately to frustrate the law, or taken in shock or because of a passing St. Bernard dog, and that motorist subsequently undergoes the examination procedure and is found to be over the prescribed limit of 80 milligrammes, it is for him or her to show that the excess taking him or her over the 80 mark was caused not by the alcohol in him or her when last driving but perhaps by the alcohol subsequently consumed. There is nothing complicated in that. It does not involve morals or innocence and so forth, only a simple process of proof.
A matter that the noble and learned Lord alluded to was that the onus would then be on the defence. But that is not unknown in our criminal law. There are many examples, such as under the Firearms Act, when the prosecution prove a certain set of facts and it is then upon the defence to establish, not discharging the burden of proof beyond reasonable

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doubt, but on the balance of probabilities, that a person should be acquitted. Indeed one can take as another example the Sexual Offences Act 1956: when a young man who is under the age of 23 has sexual intercourse with a girl who is under the age of 16, if he establishes on the balance of probabilities that, although the basic constituents have been proved by the prosecution, he was genuinely unaware of the girl's age, he is entitled to acquittal. That is not an unusual proposition nor, in my submission, an unfair one.
That is my first reason for dividing the Committee. Despite the erudition of the noble and learned Lord's argument, for the reasons I have hastily put before your Lordships he did not answer the point I was making and did not produce reasoned argument against my Amendments. Secondly, the noble and learned Lord has never answered the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, when he was following through from a point which I made in my first speech to your Lordships. I suggested to your Lordships that all law was a process of evolution, not tinkering, and that statutory law was too, and should be a process of evolution. I further suggested that far from impeding the committee when it was set up, if the committee had an opportunity of seeing the law applied in a slightly different, but significant and important, manner from the present time, that committee would be better enabled to perform its task. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, also drew to your Lordships' attention the fact that the law would not be in disrepute in
LORD SHEPHERD: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
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the time the committee was considering its position; and that the unfairness of these various areas would no longer continue to the extent that they have done up to date.
This is the first wholly impromptu speech I have made before your Lordships, and if I have not drawn my sentences or my arguments neatly or conclusively together I apologise to your Lordships; but, for the reasons that 1 have presented to this Committee, I am now going to invite your Lordships to divide upon my Amendment. I have asked both the Government Chief Whips that I should have a free vote. It seems to me particularly important, in the sovereignty of this Chamber, that my request should be heeded by the two Government Chief Whips. What has happened both times when my breathalyser provisions have come up is this. It offends the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for me to speak in terms of instruction, but the fact of the matter is that, however much the politicians may protest, the decisions are not being made by the elected representatives of the people but are being made, however meritoriously, by persons who are not elected. It may sound strange for an hereditary Peer to speak about the sovereignty of Parliament, but this is what we are concerned about now; and for that reason I ask your Lordships to divide, and to divide upon a free vote.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 11; Not-Contents, 21.

CONTENTS

Ferrier, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Seear, B.

Foot, L. [Teller.]

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Sharples, B.

Hacking, L. [Teller.]

Platt, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Kinnoull, E.

St. Just, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Maelor, L.

Birk, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Phillips, B.

Brown, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Sandys, L.

Champion, L.

Henderson, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Cowley, E.

Jacques, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Kennet, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Elton, L.

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

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

WALLED CITY OF KOWLOON
9.55 p.m.
LORD KENNET LORD KENNET rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is the density of persons per acre in the Walled City of Kowloon in the Colony of Hong Kong. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think that many of your Lordships will have been to Hong Kong and those who have not will know the map pretty well. I should like to ask you to imagine yourselves on Hong Kong Island. You then cross the water to the leased territory of Kowloon—a very large city containing a million or more people. In the middle of this city you come to one special enclave, which is the subject of my Question to-night: that is, the Walled City of Kowloon. It is the old centre of Kowloon. It was a Chinese town when Britain leased their Territory in 1898. It consists of 6½ acres only. I set this out in advance because I want the House to be quite clear that I am talking about a very small part of Kowloon, which is itself only a part of Hong Kong—I repeat, 6 ½ acres only.
The first problem in coming to the Walled City of Kowloon is to find the way in. The old mediaeval walls have gone—they were demolished by the Japanese in 1943—but it is visibly a separate and distinct enclave. You walk round the outside; you cannot find a way in at all; and then at last you realise there are certain alleyways which lead in, and they are 2 feet or 3 feet wide. So, if you have a companion, you get into Indian file and walk in. Throughout the 6½ acres, the streets or alleys are nowhere more than 3 feet wide. Mostly they are 2 feet wide, in some places they are only 18 inches wide. This in itself is perhaps not too remarkable in an Asian slum, but what is remarkable about the Walled City of Kowloon is that the buildings standing on these 18 inch-wide alleys are 10, 11 and even 13 storeys high. No wheeled vehicle can get in there—not a lorry, not a car or even a bicycle. Nothing can get in except a pedestrian. The alleyways are unpaved and of earth. Down the middle of each runs an open drain with the sewage running down it, because the site is on a slope; and in the sewage you see very large rats.
The ground floors on either side of you as you walk through the Walled City
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contain many factories: small spaces, roughly lit. It would not be true to say that the standards in these factories are deficient: the very concept of a standard in a factory comes from another world. You see in them people weaving with looms, doing light engineering, making metal goods or carpentry, or engaged in the preparation of food. The noise, the darkness, the dirt and the dust in those factories are totally unregulated. There is no law to apply to them and the conditions one can see there are beyond description.
There is water in the Walled City of Kowloon. It comes from two sources: either it is brought from municipal standpipes outside the Walled City—that is good water, and it is carried in buckets to the 6½ acres of the Walled City—or else there are illegal wells dug directly under the houses. These wells reach the water-table quite soon, and of course the water there lies directly under, and entirely unprotected from, the open sewers which run down the alleyways. There is light and electric power in the Walled City of Kowloon. How is it obtained? It is stolen from the municipal mains supply outside the city by illegal connections, and wherever you walk, above your head in the alleyways there are "swags" and "festoons" of naked electric cables carrying the stolen electricity.
My question is: What is the density of population in the Walled City? The official figure for the total number of inhabitants in the 6½ acres is 27,000 people. This figure was obtained by the municipal authorities—as they will tell you themselves if you ask them—by the technique of walking around counting the windows and reckoning four, six, or eight people behind each window depending on how far it is from the next. In practice, those same municipal authorities will tell you—and I do not believe that this figure is disputed by the Government here in London—that the true population of the Walled City is 45,000. That gives us a population of 8,500 people per acre. With what shall we compare this? We can compare it with the greatest density of population known in this country. which is about 300 people per acre in our old city centres. New development in this country at the highest density allowed—high-rise

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buildings—is 120 people per acre. Probably other slums in Asia reach a density per acre of 1,000 or 2,000 people. In the Walled City of Kowloon it is 8,500 compared with 300 which is the highest we can see in our own rundown city centres. There are thus 45,000 people bringing up children in a place where they can never see the sky. You cannot see the sky anywhere in these 18-inch wide alleys.
Those who wish to visit their neighbours in the Walled City walk across a plank at the tenth storey over the street into the window opposite. In some places they do not even need a plank; they just step across. It is as near as one can ever come in this world to the ideal concept of the city of dreadful night. How did this arise? It arose because when Britain leased Kowloon from Imperial China in 1898 an exception was made to the sovereignty granted in the lease for the old Walled City itself. A Chinese magistrate was left there with Chinese jurisdiction by the agreement of Britain. Within about three or four years there was disagreement about his functions and he left or was removed by the Imperial British Government. The history is obscure and I cannot properly go into it.
The present Chinese reéime, as we all know, regard the whole lease of Hong Kong and Kowloon as being virtually null. They regard it as an unequal treaty and do not admit its existence. De facto, as we all know, they do not object; there is a de facto agreement that the economic and political phenomenon of Hong Kong shall continue; they do not seek to upset it. But within their de jure objection to British sovereignty in Hong Kong, there is an area of especial de jure objection, and that concerns the Walled City itself. They say to the whole of Hong Kong and Kowloon. "We do not admit your presence, but in practice we do not object". About the Walled City—this 6½ acres—they say, "This is especially Chinese" although everything around it is also Chinese.
In the modern age with the enormous increase in the population and the prosperity of Hong Kong, the Colonial Government have developed a very effective, a very admirable, slum clearance policy. Great areas of Kowloon, most of it, have been slum cleared and
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new blocks of flats have been built. They are good, sound blocks. The density of population is much higher than we know in Europe but not higher than is general in Asia. Life there, though not pretty, is certainly quite tolerable and I think there is little ground for complaint. In 1963 the Colonial Government of Hong Kong faced the question of the Walled City, which was then a normal Asian slum. There was no water, no electricity; there were insanitary conditions, open drains, rats. But the buildings were only one or two storeys high and the alleys were the normal width, 8 feet to 10 feet of mud. The Colonial Government began to clear that slum, as they had cleared all the slums round about.
There came rumblings from Peking and London, and the Hong Kong Government desisted from their slum clearance. In effect, this action gave the green light to speculators. The speculators took the message. They realised that here was a place where there was no law, neither British Colonial law nor Chinese law. I have described its outward appearance. Inwardly, perhaps, socially and in terms of social philosophy, we see here what happens when lawlessness meets soaring land values. There is lawlessness elsewhere; there are soaring land values elsewhere, but I believe that nowhere else in the world is there the combination of lawlessness with soaring land values. The result is as I have described it: 13-storey buildings, 18 inches apart. There are no building regulations. Those skyscrapers have been built without foundations—they could fall at any moment. The only law which has been observed by the speculative builders in the Walled City is the law which says they shall not encroach on the approach funnel to the airport. In practice they have not done so. If one approaches Hong Kong by air one flies in a few feet from the top storeys, and looks in at the people having their evening meal. The builders have kept out of the approach funnel.
Within that dreadful place the Colonial Government themselves are not idle—they do not do nothing; they do not stand by. They have recently, under the governorship of Sir Murray MacLehose—and I pay tribute to him in this House for this —begun to do something to help on the flesh and blood level. Social services exist. There is some impact of education

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services, though not much. The immunisation programme against epidemics is carried out in the Walled City. But that is all. The Government of Hong Kong have not dared physically to clear that awful slum. They know how to; they do it excellently elsewhere. Immediately outside the Walled City the Colonial Government have built modern blocks—excellent modern blocks. One is tempted to say: "Maybe the solution is to build enough good blocks all round and about to draw the people out of the city of dreadful night." But I fear that this is difficult because the rents within the Walled City are about one-third below what they are in the rest of Kowloon. So to draw the people out one would have to bring down the rents, not only in the immediate vicinity of the Walled City but all over Kowloon and all over Hong Kong, by 30 or 40 per cent. It could be done theoretically, but the economic burden would seem to me so staggering that I cannot myself see that as the solution.
At the moment Anglo-Chinese relations are extremely good. They have perhaps never been better at any time since the Communist Revolution in China. One may pay tribute to many people and not least to Mr. Heath for this recent great improvement. The last thing I want to do by raising this Question in Parliament is to upset those relations or to upset the delicate web of forbearance by which Hong Kong continues.
I had the pleasure only six months ago of acting as deputy leader of a Parliamentary delegation to Peking and half a dozen other cities in China. I saw how good relations were and I fully understood the importance of keeping them that way. My question to the Government is this: now that relations are so good, could not the Government take their courage in both hands and for the first time talk to the Chinese Government about this great human tragedy which has arisen in the interstices of these good relations? It has grown up because of the sheer delicacy of the balance. It has grown up because of human politeness and the unwillingness of both sides to raise a potentially embarrassing subject. But there they are—45,000 people in permanent and disgusting night. The good will now existing is great and my question
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is: has not the moment arrived when the good will is sufficient to bear the burden of an embarrassing conversation with Peking? My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name.
10.11 p.m.
EARL COWLEY: My Lords, the Unstarred Question which is being asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, raises issues that go to the very basis on which the Colony of Hong Kong exists. The poverty and squalor which is synonymous with the Walled City of Kowloon has been graphically described to the House by the noble Lord. This tiny area of Kowloon, with its 45,000 inhabitants crowding into about 6½ acres, means that it has a population density of nearly 5 million per square mile. In Europe. 1,000 per square mile is considered gross overcrowding. This slum—for basically that is what it is—has become infamous through its bad housing, its lack of social services, its violent crime and the extensive corruption and trafficking in drugs. For many years the Kowloon police steered well clear of the city. Now they are beginning to enter it, but the influence of the Triads, who control the organised extortion and racketeering, remains almost undisputed. But these factors, like symptoms of a disease, are the result of a long-standing sovereignty dispute between Britain and China.
Under the Convention of Peking in 1898, when the New Territories were leased from China for 99 years, Chinese authority was allowed to continue within the Walled City of Kowloon,
"except in so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements of Hong Kong".
Although Britain unilaterally invoked this clause and took over the Walled City in the same year, the then Chinese Government never accepted Britain's action. Thus the sovereignty question remains unsettled. The present Chinese Government do not recognise the validity of any of the treaties covering Hong Kong and regard the Colony as Chinese territory. However, they add that the question of Hong Kong should be settled in an appropriate way "when conditions are ripe". The present status quo has many advantages for the Chinese Government. The Colony provides a convenient base from which it can reap the benefits of capitalism while preserving the rest of China

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from contamination. It is unlikely that they would want to put this in jeopardy.
However, the Hong Kong Government still feels that, if it administered the Walled City of Kowloon in the full sense of the word and so appeared to exercise sovereignty over it, the dispute would once again be re-awakened. While this might not put the whole existence of Hong Kong in question, it might damage the fragile pedestal upon which the Colony and its economy are founded. Thus the Hong Kong Government finds itself caught between the devil of poverty and the deep red sea of Chinese sovereignty. The result of this state of affairs and of the policies that have flowed from it has meant that the Walled City has been left in the control of its own internal affairs, if that is not too much of a euphemism. It has been completely bypassed by the Government's programmes on housing and social services which are being rapidly improved in the rest of the Colony.
Furthermore, Hong Kong's housing and health regulations are totally ignored within the Walled City, thus leading to extortionate rents for slum housing and a high risk of disease. The massive flood of immigrants, which has put a terrible burden on the whole Colony, has worsened the already deplorable problem of the Walled City which, because of its sovereignty boundaries, cannot expand outwards but is forced to grow inwards. Since 1945 the population of Hong Kong has escalated from 600,000 to over 4 million in 1972, with more than one million coming over from mainland China since 1950. Immigration, especially illegal immigration, continues to swell the Colony's population.
With the ending of the 1967 "troubles" and the appointment of Sir Murray MacLehose in 1971 as Governor of the Colony, the long-standing policy of laissez-faire was finally sunk without trace. Ambitious targets have been set in the fields of housing and education. In ten years it is planned to rehouse one and a half million people. The old resettlement blocks, built during the late 1950s and the early 1960s, are either being torn down or modernised to supplement the new housing programme for the all-embracing housing authority which was set up in 1973. Also four new towns are being developed within the
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New Territories. The rate at which new schools are being built has also been increased and primary education has been made both free and compulsory. Massive investment is being injected into the Colony and China is also taking an increasing part in the financial life of Hong Kong. Furthermore, following the study by McKinsey's in 1972 Central Government has been reorganised to increase its efficiency and to enable it to take better account of the needs of the Colony. Serious attempts are being made to stamp out violent crime and investigations have been started into corruption, especially at official levels.
But all these achievements and their resultant benefits, for which the present Governor deserves full credit, are restricted to the areas of the Colony outside the Walled City. It is as though the city did not exist. But as the Colony is improved so the Walled City sticks out more and more like a rancid sore thumb, allowing no one to forget its existence. It seems that if the inhabitants want to benefit from Hong Kong's economic expansion they must leave the Walled City. The Hong Kong Government's policy appears to be based upon this: hope that the problems of the Walled City will be solved by attracting its population to other parts of the Colony. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, I feel that this is purely wishful thinking on the part of the Hong Kong Government. The problems are far too serious and urgent for such a policy to have any real or lasting effect. I sincerely believe that it is only the sovereignty dispute that stops the Hong Kong Government from clearing this slum and rehousing its population, and is in no way the result of lack of concern for their desperate plight.
The current policy of the Chinese Government towards Hong Kong and its direct economic involvement in the Colony might be conducive towards a solution. The prevailing climate of entente cordiale between China and Britain could not be better, especially after the successful visit of my right honourable friend. Has not the time arrived to open unofficial negotiations between London and Peking to discuss the terrible situation that exists within the Walled City of Kowloon and to find a way whereby the Hong Kong Government can administer the district properly? China's sovereignty rights could

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be protected by the so called "sovereignty umbrella" and remain unaffected or unrestricted by any agreement arrived at, or by the negotiations themselves.
My Lords, I do not expect any answer on this point when the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, comes to reply to the Unstarred Question. But I sincerely hope that he will seriously look at the suggestion, and perhaps put it to his right honourable friend for further consideration. I think the whole House will agree that the poverty and suffering that exists in the Walled City is a heavy price to pay fora question of sovereignty.
10.20 p.m.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has raised a question of acute concern for all of us, and in so doing he has spoken factually and responsibly, having regard for the difficulties as well as the urgencies of this matter. The noble Earl, Lord Cowley, who followed him, in his admirable analysis of the physical problem and the political dilemma, also deserves our thanks for having treated this extremely difficult and sensitive problem in the way that he did. I am inclined to say that I agree with every word that has been said in this very valuable debate. It is only on one or two points of factual detail that I find myself in difference with my noble friend and the noble Earl. As to the purpose of the two speeches, I am in entire agreement with what has been said, and with the motivation.
My Lords, we must all apply ourselves to securing real progress in ameliorating these dreadful conditions in this enclave which, after all, formally, constitutionally and in fact is a responsibility of this country. Of course it would be wrong, as my noble friend Lord Kennet took care to point out, to see this as a lawless enclave outside the control of the Hong Kong Government. It is lawless in the sense that he used the term, but it is an area relatively crime-free and subject to effective police patrol, at least as effective as any that applies to any other district in the Colony. I will not detain the House further by re-stating the details of enormity which my noble friend and the noble Earl, I think very faithfully and exactly, have placed before the House.
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I go on to the point that concerns us most; namely, what is being done about this afflicted enclave in this Colony, and what can be done. What is being done, as has been pointed out, is quite considerable—very considerable throughout the Colony as a whole, and fairly considerable against the most intricate difficulties within the enclave of the Walled City. I refer to it as the enclave, which I find a precise term, because this is in actual fact neither a city, nor walled. First of all, on the question of water supply, which I was very glad to hear my noble friend bring forward with such emphasis, there are plans, far advanced now, to put the water supply of the enclave on a more regular basis. This is connected with proper drainage, and the horrifying details to which we have listened emphasise the importance of a proper system of drainage. Pumphouses are being installed and the open ditches have, since last year at least, been cleared twice daily. This is not much by European standards, but it is a great deal by Asian and Kowloon standards; and plans are now being considered to repair the main drainage.
On the subject of sanitation, the Urban Services Department has a large team of sweepers who operate in the city. There are several huge refuse bins, standpipes for street cleaning are now installed, and the Urban Services Department carry out investigation of infectious diseases. My noble friend mentioned this inspection as being pretty efficient. They also have a service for pest control, the daily chlorination of wells and the maintenance of public latrines. This is very basic. Compared with the conditions in the Walled City that preceded this very hopeful and, within its limits, effective series of reforms under the present Governor, it gives cause for cautious optimism.
My noble friend and the noble Earl mentioned the question of fire hazard, deriving in particular from the extraordinary mesh of electrical installation which hang like a web through this enclave. There are now plans to sort out and improve this inadequate and, indeed, hazardous electricity situation. Fire risk, because of the maze-like layout of the Walled City is, of course, very high. Among the essential services, it is difficult to allot priorities to water and

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drainage, linked as they are to sanitation, and electricity and fire risk. These reforms must go forward together. In 1973, the Hong Kong Government started to clear the sensitive areas on the fringe of the Walled City, and legislation regarding the storing of dangerous goods is also in force. I understand that this is effective.
I think, however, that the point made by both the noble Lord and the noble Earl about housing is probably the key to a real improvement. This is a problem of density, as my noble friend emphasised from the start and, indeed, pinpointed in the phrasing of his Question. It is a problem of housing, the density of housing, and the poor quality of construction in the Walled City. These are matters for grave concern and the ideal solution, I suppose, would be to tear the lot down and start again. But apart from the political problem, to which both my noble friends referred with responsibility and care, which I very much appreciate, of avoiding invoking reactions which might in the event create situations worse even than those we have heard described so precisely tonight, there is the practical question of rehousing, of giving priority to this particular enclave ahead of the rest of the Colony, of indeed getting general acquiescence to such apriorised programme.
I very much liked something my noble friend said on this point. He finally very reluctantly rejected it as a solution, but I think on reflection he, like myself, may find in something like the following a constructive approach to a gradual solution; namely, that the Hong Kong Government should go ahead as expeditiously as ever possible with its massive programme of house building—that is, a programme for building enough houses to rehouse 1·8 million people out of a total population of over 4 million. It is a programme to rehouse over 10 years almost half the population of the Colony. Already a substantial part of this new housing is being located on the very edge of the Walled City.
I understand my noble friend's reservations about whether this in fact may prove to be a solution. I think it may contribute substantially by attracting from inside the Walled City—the "city of dreadful night", as my noble friend
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referred to it, and as I am quite sure Francis Thompson himself would have done if he had seen Hong Kong—increasing numbers, especially among the young, from this morass of disease and danger into these new flats and houses, so that the density in the Walled City is gradually diluted as the new standards become known to those still remaining, still preferring to remain, in the Walled City. This is the best kind of reform, the reform over a period on the basis of experience and acceptance, although it is always tempting in situations like this to go for the revolutionary change, the instantaneous stroke. I hope that we can all look at this problem as one which may possibly begin to be solved on the basis of this massive housing programme and its location.
I think that my noble friend will be glad to know the position on rents. He said that rents in the Walled City are one-third below those in the rest of Kowloon. I understand that it is not true in relation to Government housing, the rents for which are well below private rents in the Walled City. The answer is, therefore, more Government housing, which we may be sure will certainly be more attractive to many families in the Walled City, and even more economical for them.
So much for the enormous physical problem and the efforts made to tackle it. But I must briefly touch on the second question, to which both noble Lords who spoke, quite properly, drew attention. These efforts are constantly affected, inhibited indeed, by a political situation of a unique character, with its roots in the past and its implications for the present and the future, that we simply must carefully take into account. As I said previously, we must be very careful indeed that we do not, in our genuine desire to improve the situation within the Walled City, so move as to evoke actions which create new and increasingly difficult situations, perhaps less tractable, more dangerous than the one we are considering tonight.
The Chinese have in the past, and do now, claim jurisdiction over the Walled City. In 1963 they protested strongly when the Hong Kong Government attempted to carry out clearance operations. In fact, the reaction was such and the implications were so apparent, that the clearance operation was stopped. The

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issue is, therefore, sensitive and Her Majesty's Government—not just the present Government but their predecessors—believe that the risks attached to precipitate action might indeed create problems worse than the conditions themselves.
The Governor's aim is to build up a working relationship with the inhabitants of the Walled City itself which will enable specific problems to be discussed on the local level, for there to be acceptance and co-operation in ameliorative policies which in turn will have their effect upon the attitude and reaction of the great People's Republic of China which, understandably, is watching everything that is happening in Hong Kong and in the Walled City.
In the past very dangerous friction has arisen over the question of jurisdiction in the Walled City. I have recently consulted the Governor. He intends to con-tine to improve the areas around the Walled City, so far as possible, in such a way as to avoid friction, and gradually to expand urban services within it, as he and his Government are now doing. It is his and our hope that this policy will generate confidence among the city's inhabitants and, therefore, beyond the boundaries of the city and the boundaries of the Colony, and will produce an acceptance of this policy of social reform and a positive desire to help over the improvement of conditions within the city.
Both noble Lords rightly raised the question of whether the time has not come for a more positive approach to the Government of the People's Republic. I certainly do not rule this out. I do not think that either noble Lord, myself
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or anybody speaking from London about this extraordinarily difficult problem, would wish on our own account to decide whether to take such a course and when and in what way, except after the closest consultation with those who really have to cope with the problem and with the eventualities which result from such action in Hong Kong itself. I shall be seeing the Governor soon, and I can assure noble Lords that this point will once more be a question for discussion. There are wider considerations to be taken into account, and it would be very wrong of me to enter into any firm commitment that this attractive and sensible suggestion will in fact be implemented.
I have listened very carefully to everything that has been said. I was very glad to hear tributes from both sides of the House to the present Governor, who has indeed done a very great deal already for Hong Kong and for this enclave. I welcome this debate, and particularly I welcome that it should put the facts on the Record of the British Parliament, and reflect how concerned we all are in this House about the future of this enclave and, indeed, of Hong Kong.

BRITISH WATERWAYS BOARD BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and referred to the Examiners.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Eighth Report from the Joint Committee, made and to be printed.
House adjourned at nineteen minutes before eleven o'clock.