Lords Sitting of 25 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 Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
The Lord Wright of Ashton-under-Lyne—Took the Oath.

LORD TRANMIRE
The Right Honourable Sir Robert Hugh Turton, K.B.E., M.C., having been created Baron Tranmire, of Upsall in the County of North Yorkshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Crathorne and the Lord Inglewood.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES AND CONSUMER INTEREST
2.48 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: 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 make a Statement concerning the place of the consumer interest in the nationalised electricity industry.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (LORD BALOGH): My Lords, there are independent statutory Consultative Councils, appointed under the Electricity Acts 1947 and 1957 by the appropriate Secretary of State, for the area of each Area Electricity Board. They have the duty to consider any matter relating to electricity supplies in their area and to make representations to the Generating Board, the Electricity Council and the Secretary of State as necessary and appropriate.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, as these Independent Consultative Councils have the responsibility of protecting the interests of users of electricity, and as these Councils had no thoughts about what the Minister himself
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has described as a "sense of injustice" on the part of consumers, would the noble Lord agree that either the Councils should be done away with or that we should find a means of making them more effective?
LORD BALOGH: No, my Lords.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask a second supplementary question, quoting what the Minister said in another place on June 20, which was:
"My aim will be to restore the differential so that the charge per unit for off-peak electricity will once again be 50 per cent. of the standard charge per unit. That will remove the sense of injustice".
May I ask the Minister whether that statement means that the differential will be restored as from the original statement, and that none of this iniquitous 70 per cent. increase will appear on the current accounts?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I fear that I cannot answer that question, but I shall endeavour to write to my noble friend and explain this point.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, if I may give my noble friend advance notice, is he aware that I put down a Question on the Order Paper to-day for Answer on July 16, asking for a statement about the charges being made for night storage heaters?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I have no doubt that my noble friend has put down a number of Questions.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that for the last two years the questioner on our Benches has been kicking at her own goal, and it is about time she tried to be loyal to our Party?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware, as I happen to have been responsible for putting this legislation through another place, on the understanding that under a public corporation as against State capitalism, which was rejected at the time, it was expected that the Central Electricity Board and the Area Boards, which I appointed, and successive Area Boards, have neglected the interests of consumers, unless in the case of a

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V.I.P. who may get preferential treatment? And if the Consumer Councils are not able to act effectively, then it is about time they were changed.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I do not think that that would be in accordance with the best practice. These Area Consultative Councils must have a certain independence and the Minister cannot dismiss them merely because, on occasion, they come up with, according to some, the wrong answer.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, in order to look after the interets of the consumer one has to ensure that neither the Area Electricity Boards nor any other corporation sell electricity apparatus for domestic space heating, because it is more expensive than other methods of heating and less thermally efficient. Therefore, will the Minister consider issuing a general direction to Area Electricity Boards not to advertise the use of electricity for domestic space heating?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I shall certainly report to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State what has been said, and we shall certainly be able to consider this demand.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while I am very glad that I am able to score goals in either goal net, may I ask my noble friend whether he will ask the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, whether he has ever heard of the West London Air Terminal?
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I know the West London Air Terminal. I am a little nauseated by the attitude of the noble Baroness during the last two years and her attack on the trade unions and our Party. I am just about tired of it.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this Question is very important, as indeed all my Questions are? Is my noble friend further aware that it is naturally expected that as a result of the application of the nationalisation theory, which I have advocated for many years and which I still uphold, the consumer's interests must be protected? Is he also aware that if a submission is made to a Minister who may be responsible for energy, the person who makes the submission is referred to the Area Board concerned? Is that
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entirely satisfactory? Ought not the Minister to be responsible to some extent for consumer interests?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I think my noble friend has raised an important question, but it does not arise out of this difference of opinion.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: My Lords, is it not true that arising from price controls and investment control in all industries, particularly the nationalised industries, we are arriving at a stage where the councils in control are completely bewildered as to whether thye have to operate upon an economic basis or upon a political basis? Is not that bound to raise the very problems which are being raised now? Is not the present problem a question of who should pay the inevitable increased cost arising from the increased fuel cost? Is not the simple answer that if the night storage heater users are to get their electricity at the usual cheap rates then those who pay the normal rates will have to pay an even higher rate? It is a matter of a small mathematical adjustment that is being blown up to give some kind of picture of the problem that is arising from all nationalised industries at the present time.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that it is either a political or an economic question. It seems to me that, as he suggested, the answer is that it was handled from the point of view of the economics.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND WIDOWS' BENEFITS
2.57 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: 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 the reasons why the Secretary of State for Social Security does not know how many widows have had supplementary benefit withdrawn for cohabiting in the last year for which figures are available.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, there are no records kept of the number of cases in which benefit is withdrawn, or the woman ceases to claim benefit,

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on grounds of cohabitation where special investigation was not involved.
During 1973 the number of cases in which, after special investigation, supplementary benefit was withdrawn, or reduced on grounds of cohabitation, was 3,646, but the central records kept of the results of such investigation do not distinguish between widows and single, divorced and separated women.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask him whether he does not think that the Ministry ought to keep proper statistics? These are figures which the public are entitled to have. Secondly, in view of his reply, are figures available of the total number of women, whether widows, divorced or separated, or unmarried mothers? If so, could we have them?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the only figures available are the figures which I have given. During 1973, the number of cases in which widow's benefit was disallowed on account of cohabitation was 1,113 for National Insurance widow's benefit and 33 for industrial death benefit which, as the noble Lord will realise, is quite different. No records are kept of the number of such widows who are also in receipt of supplementary benefit. This is the difficulty, because the noble Lord's Question refers to supplementary benefit.
With regard to whether the Department ought to keep more effective statistics, I do not think that anybody would disagree with what the noble Lord has said. However, one has to bear in mind that the work involved in analysing the reports of special investigations and carrying out a detailed recording of the matters which the noble Lord has in mind would impose a considerable strain and expense upon the Department. However, I can say to the noble Lord that in future we will give consideration to the keeping of records of special investigations in sufficient detail so that widows can be distinguished from others. I do not think I can go beyond saying that at this stage.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, is it not right that supplementary benefits are the last refuge against destitution, and that when a book is withdrawn and no more supplementary benefits are paid there must be a record at the Ministry
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of the woman in question and of the grounds upon which benefit has been withdrawn?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, that is true, but some of the supplementary benefits are reduced. The benefit is not always withdrawn 100 per cent. Where there are children, certainly for a period a re-assessment is made of the amount of supplementary benefit so that the children do not suffer. However, I should like to give my noble friend the assurance that we, too, feel that there ought to be more adequate records. I hope, therefore, that he will feel able to give us time to look into this matter to see whether or not we can meet the views which he has expressed to-day.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is the difference between widows on supplementary benefit, divorced persons, single persons or any other woman who is involved with supplementary benefit? Why should widows be particularly singled out?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, widows are not particularly singled out. The Question dealt with widows and I tried to answer on that basis. They are singled out in the Question, but not by the Department.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, can my noble friend say what conditions have to be established before the authorities deduce that there has been cohabitation?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am not in a position to give the yardstick, but I think I am right—in fact, I know I am right—in saying that the Department has to satisfy itself that there is a state of cohabitation existing between a man and a woman, and not just a casual affair. If I may put it in this way and if the lawyers will not mind, it is the act of consortium; the act of living together.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I put another supplementary? I have in mind the case of a widow who is hard-up, and I should like to ask my noble friend how the authorities distinguish between a man who is cohabiting with her and living in the house, and a man who is merely a lodger.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is part of the difficulty with which the special investigators are faced.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, is it not a fact that a great many of the rules which are applied by the officers in their investigations to determine whether or not cohabitation exists have leaked from the Department into the national newspapers? So why does the Department continue to withhold the complete set of instructions given to these officers, because if they were published we should all know what criteria were applied.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am surprised to learn that there has been a leak to the Press. If this is so it is reprehensible and regrettable. I understood the noble Lord was saying that there had been a leak of information between the Department and the Press, and I should not have thought that was desirable. With regard to the yardstick which is applied, to which the noble Lord referred, I should have to look into that because I am not myself familiar with the document.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, the noble Baroness asked the noble Lord some detailed questions about what rules were applied, and in answer to me he said that it was reprehensible that this information had leaked out from the Department into the public Press. Does he not appreciate that it is a matter of public concern what questions are put to these women, and how it is ascertained that cohabitation exists, and that it is therefore highly desirable that the full information should be published?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I am sorry, my Lords. I misunderstood the noble Lord. I thought he was referring to the fact that information about some women who had had their allowance withdrawn had been leaked to the Press. I take his point.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, does the Minister not think that the whole process of chasing widows on pension, with the aid of M.I.5, is nauseating, and does he not think that there should be more liberalisation in the Department? As I cast my eyes over the House of Lords I think,
"He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone".
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is a matter for Parliament to deal with, but at the present moment it is laid down very clearly that if it is established that there is cohabitation going on in the case of a widow or some other person who is separated, divorced or single who is drawing supplementary benefit, then the supplementary benefit should be disallowed. But the remedy is in the hands of Parliament.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord how many men have had their supplementary benefits withdrawn, when it has been proved that they were living in a house owned by a woman and were partially supported by that woman?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Question deals with widows and I have tried to deal with it on that basis. If the noble Baroness wants to know the position with regard to men, perhaps she, too, would table a Question.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that he has dealt very ably with the supplementary questions that have been directed against him and the Department which he seeks to represent in this House? The Department has been working under heavy pressure for a very long time, and there are noble Lords assembled within this Chamber, who have also had experience in the other place, who know what has been involved in the cases that have come to them to he directed to the Department and know how they have been dealt with, and every praise ought to be given to the Department for its consideration.

NORTHERN IRELAND (YOUNG PERSONS) BILL [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make temporary provisions for the holding in custody of young persons charged with certain offences in Northern Ireland. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND WATER SPORTS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
LORD CHANCELLOR (TENURE OF OFFICE AND DISCHARGE OF ECCLESIASTICAL FUNCTIONS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
FARRIERS (REGISTRATION) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT 1963 (SUGAR) ORDER 1974
3.9 p.m.
LORD JACQUES LORD JACQUES rose to move, That the Draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Sugar) Order 1974, laid before the House on May 23, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. At the present time sugar is supplied in prescribed quantities of imperial weights. The purpose of this Order is to give an alternative of prescribed quantities of metric weights so that the trade will be able to use either imperial or metric weights. Last November the House approved a similar Order for salt and another Order for pasta. Those Orders were in very much the same terms as the present Order. The sugar industry wishes to introduce metric packs and this Order will facilitate the planning of their programme of re-equipment. Because of the time lag between order and delivery of equipment it is urgent that the Order receive approval, but there is no urgency as to its becoming effective. Consequently, it does not come into effect until October 1, 1975.
There have been consultations with representatives of manufacturers, retailers and consumer organisations, and all their comments have been taken into account in the framing of the Order which is now before the House. At the present time, granulated sugar is sold in packages of 2 lb. imperial weight. It is extremely likely that in due course sugar will be sold in packs of 1 kilogramme. Speciality sugars are at the present time sold in packs of 1 lb. It is extremely likely that in due course they will be sold in packs of 500 grammes. This will mean that both the packs will contain 10 per cent. more than they do at present. My right honourable friend has sought and obtained specific undertakings that the price will be no more than proportionately increased. Indeed, it is possible that because of the economy of the larger pack there may in due course be a reduction in price.
The Prices Bill which is at present before the House—if and when it is passed—would permit unit pricing of sugar if need be during the transitional period. I would doubt whether this would be necessary. There will, however, be a period when both metric packs and imperial packs are on the market at the same time. This is inevitable for two reasons. First of all, sugar has a rather long shelf-life and therefore, inevitably, you will get the position where some retailers have the old imperial pack and other retailers have the new metric pack. Secondly, it will take some time for the trade to re-equip so that it is packing wholly metric. It is, however, expected that the whole process of conversion to metric will be completed before the end of 1976.
One of the leading manufacturers, who uses the back of the pack for advertisement, has agreed to use the back of the pack for informing the public on the metric system. That we welcome, and we pay our tribute to him for his public support in this matter. There will be new marking regulations which are now being drafted, under which it will be necessary for markings to be in both imperial and metric weights for a considerable period of time. This we consider to be necessary in order to safeguard the consumer. We believe that industry should be able to proceed without frustration in the changeover from

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imperial to metric. We also believe that the Government of the day should take all necessary steps to safeguard the consumer. We are acting accordingly.
Before sitting down, I should like to pay tribute to a number of noble Lords in this House who have done such good work in facilitating the process of change from imperial to metric weight. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who was the first Chairman of the Metrication Board, to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, who is the present Chairman of the Board, and to my noble friend Lady White who is the Deputy Chairman of the Board. We think it right that this House should place on record its thanks and its gratitude for the work that they have done, and this appears to be the appropriate moment. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Sugar) Order 1974, laid before the House on May 23, be approved.—(Lord Jacques.)
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I deal rather more extensively with this Order than its modest size might at first seem to justify. It is important for two reasons: the first concerns its presentation and the second its implications. On May 9 last, as your Lordships may recall, you considered the Weights and Measures (Sale of Wine) Order 1974, and it fell to me to comment on it from these Benches. In so doing, I had to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that this Instrument had been reported to both Houses of Parliament by the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation. It was reported that it was obscure and ambiguous. I said then—and I said it on your Lordships' behalf and not on behalf of these Benches only—that it was not right that the strictures of that Committee should be set aside. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, seemed to agree, and I supposed that an echo of the Joint Committee's displeasure and a rather louder intimation of his Lordship's concern would eventually reach the ears of those who devise Statutory Instruments on weights and measures. This appears not to be the case, since again the product of that Department has attracted the
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hostile attention of the same Committee. I will take only two examples of the misuse of language. The first is an example of ambiguity.
In Article 3 we are told, and I quote—
"Sugar which is not pre-packed shall be sold by retail only by net weight."
That, at first reading, means quite clearly that there is only one way to sell sugar that has not been pre-packed, and that is by retail; and, furthermore, that retail sale must be by net weight. It is only when we consider the absurdity of the proposition that all wholesale sales of sugar must be in pre-packed form that we look again at the sentence and arrive at an alternative meaning. This, presumably, is that all retail sales of sugar which has not been pre-packed must be by net weight. If the noble Lord confirms that that is the meaning which is intended, will he please tell us why this could not be written in the first place? Ambiguity usually means litigation, and litigation always means expense.
My Lords, I do not want to labour this point. I have a series of similar points to raise throughout the Order, but these are listed by the Joint Standing Committee of both Houses on Statutory Instruments and I take it that it will suffice to draw your Lordships' attention to it. But I should like a more forceful assurance than I had last time that the comments of this Committee will be borne in mind and drawn to the attention of those who draft Instruments. The same applies to the Explanatory Note at the end. It is worth pointing out that the Explanatory Note is meant to explain, but in the first sentence it merely reiterates, exactly as the exasperated traveller in a foreign country shouts louder at the person who has not understood the first time, and the attitude of the person who is shouted at is not a friendly one. I think that should be our attitude on this occasion.
My Lords, I have compressed what I wished to say about this Order, but there is also the question of the intention and its implication. The intention, we have been told, is to limit to particular weights the size in which pre-packed sugar may be sold retail and Article 4 specifies those weights. Subsection (a)(i) lists the acceptable size of packets marked in imperial pounds and ounces, and subsection (a)(ii) contains a not similar list of size of

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packets marked in metric grammes and kilogrammes. The two lists are not equivalent; they do not correspond. There is nothing in the metric list, for instance, to correspond to the old well-known 1 lb. pack.
This brings me to the implications of the Order. The omission of even an approximate metric equivalent to the old 1 lb. pack can only be because the metric sizes are designed to comply with the Brussels standard, and because in the none too distant future, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, indicated when he moved this Order, the Brussels standard will displace the 1 lb. pack altogether. I wish simply to draw the attention of the Minister, somewhat urgently, to the effects of this. The sugar industry already has vastly more capacity than the potential supplies of raw cane can take up. The cost of converting plant in a refinery from the manufacture of 1 lb. cartons to cartons of another size will run out at about £5,000 a machine, which is about £30,000 a plant. On the one hand, we have the implication of that change and its effect hanging over the manufacturers; on the other hand, we face the end of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement and a projected reduction in the volume of imported raw cane to 1·4 million tons. Reorganisation to meet that contraction alone, if it takes place, will be expensive—certainly in plant and, quite possibly, in redundancies as well. The time to impose the heavy capital cost of conversion of machinery to metric sizes is shortly after, and not before, the Government finally decide on the future of the sugar industry. Therefore, may I ask the noble Lord to see that the publication of that decision follows as hard upon the heels of this Order as is possible?
3.20 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I confess at once I have not the competence to debate the subject of metrication, but I cannot allow the opportunity to pass without objecting as strongly as I can to the suggestion by my noble friend Lord Jacques that we should pay tribute to those Members of your Lordships' House, and there must be others, responsible for metrication. I thought we had suffered enough from decimalisation. We still continue to suffer, although people have
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to tolerate it. There can be no doubt that as a result of decimalisation, there has been unnecessary and artificial inflation from which consumers have suffered. This can be argued at great length, but I have no wish to do so at the moment, thus occupying the time of your Lordships. The facts are there for everyone to observe.
Metrication was rushed through another place without very much argument, dismissing anything in the nature of contention, for the reason that at the time they were busy enough with other matters. Heaven knows! our country is busy enough with other more important, more difficult and more complex problems. I have no doubt at all that decimalisation and now metrication are associated with the Treaty of Accession to the Common Market. I was very glad to see to-day, as was my noble friend Lord Blyton, the introduction of the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, formerly the father of another place, a highly respected member of the Conservative Party for many years. Although we differ politically, I have always had a high regard for him, and still have it. I recall his sincerely expressed opposition in another place in the frequent debates that occurred on the subject of the Treaty of Accession. I am glad that the noble Lord will be available at some time to share in our debates on that subject.
For the moment, however, I cannot allow the opportunity to pass to express my opposition to metrication. I know that our speeches receive very little publicity, but what I am about to say and what I have inferred already will be on the Record. I object vehemently, strongly, almost passionately, to this abominable suggestion, not because my noble friend Lord Jacques has been responsible for the utterance; I have no doubt it is on his brief. Those behind him are responsible for the suggestion. As I have said, I object with all my strength, meaning what I say, and no nonsense about it. I object to the suggestion that we should pay tribute to those who have laid this abominable imposition on the general public.
3.26 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, will forgive me if I do not follow him on the subject of metrication. I

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have some sympathy with what he said on the general subject, but not with what he said by way of withholding thanks from those of your Lordships who have been doing work at the request of the Government. My only qualification for saying anything on this Order is that two years ago I had the honour to be Chairman of a Joint Committee of both Houses which made the unanimous recommendation that in future such Orders as these should be examined as to their technical accuracy by a Joint Committee of both Houses. This is what happened in this case.
My Lords, the Joint Committee has drawn the special attention of both Houses to certain unsatisfactory features in the wording of this Order, particularly to cases of ambiguity. It has always seemed to me that the Ministry concerned should pay attention to the Parliamentary findings of a Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and should take some action. In this case, it would be easy to take that action because this Order, which is at present only in draft, could be withdrawn and there could be laid a new draft Order which met the points, or at any rate endeavoured to meet the points, raised by the Joint Committee. It would be all the easier in this case because I note that the Order, although laid in draft now, is not to come into effect until October 1, 1975. Therefore, there is no immediate pressure of time. It is quite clear that the criticisms of the Joint Committee could have been met without serious inconvenience to anyone, and with benefit in clarity to the general public and the trade, by withdrawing this draft and laying a new one. I want to know why that has not been done.
3.28 p.m.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, made reference to the Joint Committee. The noble Lord will be aware, as we all are, that nowhere is it written that the implementation of any decision arrived at by a Joint Committee shall be imposed upon the Government of the day. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. I would back him up to the hilt concerning metrication. We were responsible as a Government for introducing decimalisation, but nothing has caused more unrest
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throughout the general population of this country. Such things as the increase of bus fares due to decimalisation has caused much unrest among our people.
We are getting ourselves tied down beforehand when Instruments of this nature are presented to the House. Irrespective of whether or not we continue in the Common Market, we have to follow the system operating on the Continent and in the European Economic Community. We ought not to give our consent to such Instruments as this. It is all right for the children at school and for adolescents; they can pick up these things quite quickly—my grandchildren can. But older people find these things very difficult. This we have to take into consideration. As with decimalisation, people are brought into a new world, and it is difficult for them to understand what is taking place.
Consideration must be given to the Weights and Measures Acts and to everything else involved. I sincerely hope the Government will have second thoughts before they try to impose the implementation of this particular Instrument, and that they will consider its effect so far as the British population is concerned.
3.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, as one who is concerned with consumer affairs, I wish to make one point. I personally support metrication. There are many arguments both ways, but I think it will do a great deal for the future generation. But we should metricate as quickly as we can. The worst possible thing we can do is to have two systems going along side by side. I have said this before. Of course, there is a fatal tendency on the part of Governments, of whatever complexion, to want to drag their feet on this issue because one knows it is not universally popular. I make the appeal that we should go ahead with such Orders as fast as we can. That is not to say that if the Order is defective it should not be tabled again. I am merely making the point in principle that we are not getting enough of these Orders nearly quickly enough.
3.30 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, first I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, whether they agree with me or not. I should

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like first to deal with the wording of the Order. I think its effects are being grossly exaggerated. Only a short while ago in this House we were debating a complex Bill, the Consumer Credit Bill, and we had long arguments about drafting. But there was one point on which the whole House, on all sides, was clear and united, and that was the virtue of being consistent; we all agreed that we should be consistent. This is really what the draftsmen have done.
Let us take the first of the points made by the Joint Committee. They questioned the wording in Article 3:
"Sugar which is not pre-packed shall be sold by retail only by net weight".
The draftsmen have used that in the Order because this is an Order based upon the Weights and Measures Act 1963 in which this precise wording is used. The draftsmen are being consistent. However, I would say that the wording which is suggested by the Committee,
"Sugar which is not pre-packed, if sold by retail, shall be sold only by net weight"
is better than the wording in the Act, but I would nevertheless defend the draftsmen for having acted consistently. In this Report by the Committee, I would hope that in all the cases where they have suggested alternative wording the draftsmen will take note of it, because in every case the wording suggested by the Committee is undoubtedly better.
On the second point raised by the noble Lord, as to the confusion in the Order, this largely arises out of a Directive by the European Commission. In the discussion on metric weights and the appropriate scale for retail the United Kingdom took an active part after it was decided that we should go into the Community, and at the request of our consumer organisations the scale of metric weights was changed. The small weight of 125 grammes was put in, and it is in this Order originally at the request of consumers in this country, although it has little relevance to sugar. But I am advised that the E.E.C. Directive requires that the whole of the metric range which is in this Order shall be in, not just part of it, and that is why there is a metric range in this Order which is so different from the Imperial range. There is no attempt on anybody's part to put in a metric weight which would approxi
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mate the lb. That is going over to metric half-heartedly. It is expected that the lb. will be taken over by 500 grammes, which is 10 per cent. more, and it is for that reason that there is no attempt made to put in some odd number of grammes which would be approximately equal to one lb.
On the third point raised by the noble Lord, on the Explanatory Note, I would agree that the additional words suggested by the Committee would help, but they have no great significance, and in order to show that is so I shall read it to the House. The Order says:
"The Order provides that Parts VIII and IX of Schedule 4 to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 shall cease to apply to sugar."
The Committee say, I think quite rightly,
"The force of the Note would have been more immediate had it gone on to say 'and those provisions shall be replaced by this Order'".
That would have been a useful addition, but I do not think it is a material point. Therefore, I suggest to the House that the draftsmen were right in being consistent, that the Committee is also right in suggesting improvements in the wording, but that these improvements are of negligible significance and do not cause confusion and do not in any way invalidate this Order.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is trying to prove to the House that the draftsmen, because of the Committee's recommendation, were perfect in every detail when they drafted the Statutory Instrument or when they drafted the Bill? Perhaps when the time comes and he has the responsibility for introducing a Bill he will know that the draftsman is not always right—far from it.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I am not suggesting that the draftsmen are always right. I am saying they are right in being consistent, and remember they are being consistent with the Weights and Measures Act passed by a Conservative Administration who apparently approved the wording. I am also saying that the draftsmen should take note of the recommendations of the Committee in regard to the wording, because there will be many other Orders similar to this in the near future. I am not by any means saying that the draftsmen are always right.

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There is an urgency in regard to this Order. The trade are frustrated by the delays that have occurred in getting this Order to this point, and they are asking that they should have this Order as soon as possible. They want this Order so that they can plan their programme of re-equipment. It is their wish that they should re-equip on metric lines. It is not something that has been forced upon them by somebody else. I would remind your Lordships that the sugar industry has at least some export trade in pre-packed sugar, where they are packing in metric weights, and it would obviously be to the convenience of the industry if they were packing in the same weights for the home market. I hope that the House will not reject this Order at this juncture of time because of the criticisms of the Committee, which should be taken into account, but which are not serious.
To my noble friend Lord Shinwell I would say that he is confusing decimalisation with metrication. I think there is evidence that on the occasion of decimalisation there was an impetus to inflation, but I often think it is blamed in a way in which it should not be blamed. I think the effect of decimalisation on inflation has been grossly exaggerated by those people who wanted to exaggerate it. But here we are on another matter. We are on metrication. We are on the weights and measures and not the money, and there is no evidence that metrication has resulted in any inflation. In point of fact, earlier this year there was a shortage of sugar. Some retailers imported pre-packed sugar from the Continent. That sugar was packed in kilogrammes, which are 10 per cent. more than two 1bs. They showed the metric weight, with its 10 per cent. more, at the same price as two 1bs. in their shops. That is, I suggest, the opposite to causing inflation.
I agree that once you have decided to change your weights and measures system then the quicker you get on with it the better, because the process of change is not limited to the shop; the process of change starts in the schools and works right throughout the whole system. Having started that process of change then you must not hesitate, you must get on with it. I would also plead that metrication will be exceedingly helpful to this
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country, not merely in exporting to Europe but in exporting to the Commonwealth. Every Commonwealth country with the exception of Sierra Leone is already metricated. I would have thought Lord Shinwell, with his support for the Commonwealth, would have wanted to get in line with them so that we can get our goods on to the Commonwealth markets. In these circumstances I am surprised at his criticism.
3.40 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I have listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has said, and I think that he has given a spirited defence of the Order, but I am not sure that he has met the feeling of the House on this matter. The two arguments raised against the Order were the arguments on the merits raised by the noble Lords, Lord Shinwell and Lord Slater, who were concerned about metrication—I think that most Members of your Lordships' House would feel that to consider whether accepting or rejecting an Order is not perhaps the place to settle a major issue of this sort; and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, to whom we listen with such respect on matters concerning delegated legislation, raised this central issue as to whether or not the comments, for the second time we understand, of the Joint Select Committee on Statutory Instruments had been fully considered by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. My noble friend Lord Elton gave chapter and verse of that in his opening speech.
As I understand it, what the noble Lord who has just replied for the Government has said is that he accepts the validity of the comments made by the Joint Select Committee, that he thinks that the wording proposed by them is better, but that what is contained within the order is consistent with the wording used in other legislation, and that therefore he would put consistency above clarity. This is an argument that should be pursued, and I am not satisfied (I do not know whether my noble friend is) that there is any reason why the noble Lord should not take this Order back.
I very much hope that it will not be necessary to reject the Order. I hope that the noble Lord might feel—the noble Lord the Leader of the House is with him and he might well feel the same—that

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what has been said spontaneously in this debate would lead him to withdraw the Order, to look again at the wording, and discuss it with his Department. There is nothing like pressure from a House of Parliament (this House or another place) to enable a Department to look at something at a much higher level, with greater concentration, involving perhaps the Secretary of State herself, whose work in this field we all admire and respect, and then come back to the House again.
As we see, the Order does not come into operation until October 1, 1975. The noble Lord has told us that the trade would like to see it earlier so that they would know where they stand and could prepare themselves. We understand that argument, but I cannot believe that to ask the Government, and the noble Lord the Leader of the House, to withdraw the Order, to look at it again, and do it urgently and quickly, and then come back with perhaps a revised Order before the Summer Recess, is asking too much; and this I now do on behalf of the House.
3.44 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I have participated, over quite a few years, in seeking to amend a Bill's phraseology when it has appeared strange, and I have listened to Ministers of Governments of different complexions all arguing that you can raise a serious question of doubt when you are legislating in a particular field and you suddenly change the phraseology from what has been recognised. I can well remember some of the arguments in the last Session with, I think it was, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. It seems to me that my noble friend was quite right to argue on the basis of consistency and the desire to avoid doubt among those who have to administer the Order and regulation.
In regard to the Report, I understand that this was received only last night by the Department, and of course the Order had already been placed on the Order Paper. Why was it placed on the Order Paper? I understand that it was because the Department, because of considerable pressure from industry, has asked for this Order to be passed by both Houses of Parliament by the end of June. Therefore, one is in a dilemma. Should one
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delay, recognising the consequences, which are not necessarily serious but with a degree of worry for industry? Should one take the view of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition that one should have another look at this? Or, at the end of the day, should we decide—as I suspect that perhaps we may—that it is right to retain consistency in the field of legislation, making sure that what is in an Order is understood and is clear to everyone in regard to the parent Act?
I am not a lawyer, and I am only speaking on the advice that has been given to me over many years by lawyers in your Lordships' House. If the noble Lord has made an appeal that this Order should be taken back and looked at, I should be the first to accept it. If he wishes to pursue it, then I would strongly advise the House to agree, but I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, when he presses it again, will recognise the importance of seeing that Orders that stem from a parent Act should remain consistent and clear, not only in the interests of Parliament but in the interests of those who are called upon to administer them. If he presses it, I should be willing to have it withdrawn and looked at, but I must say to the noble Lord that I would have to ask the House to take it on Friday when we are meeting, because I believe that the Government have a sense of obligation to the industry to put beyond all peradventure, all doubt, what is in fact Parliament's mind here, because that is what the industry is concerned about. It is not what the Government have in mind in this field, but whether Parliament in fact will sanction it, and until the Order has been passed there will be that element of doubt. If the noble Lord asks me to withdraw it, I hope that he will recognise that it is bringing into question what I think has always been the case that has been made by Ministers, whether or not they have been lawyers, of the need to keep the parent legislation close to that of all the Orders and regulations that flow from it.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, if I may have the leave of the House to speak again briefly on this Order because a question has been put to me, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that reply. It was a very fair reply, and it

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sets out the issues in a generous and proper way. I should like to press the request that the Order be withdrawn. I do so for one reason in particular arising out of what the noble Lord has just said. If I am right, he told us that the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection received the Report from the Joint Select Committee only yesterday. This must mean that no official at a senior level, knowing the pressure upon them in the private office of the Secretary of State, can have seen this matter or considered it at all. When they come to do so, they may come to one conclusion or another, and I shall certainly not oppose the conclusion to which they come at a later stage. In those circumstances, I think it would be right to ask the noble Lord to do as he suggested, and withdraw this Order.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, I would beg leave to withdraw this Order, on the understanding that we take it on Friday.
On Question, Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MINISTERS OF THE CROWN BILL
3.50 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This Bill amends some of the provisions of the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1972. In addition, it makes a number of changes in other legislative provisions related to Ministerial offices, and makes specific provision for the post of Minister of Overseas Development as the head of a separate department.
I will deal first with the changes in the pattern of Ministerial offices resulting from the Amendments (in Clause 1 of the Bill) to Schedule 1 to the 1972 Act. First, the offices of Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and of Minister of State are added to those offices whose holders receive a higher or lower salary under the 1972 Act, according to whether they are or are not members of the Cabinet. At present, if the holder of one of those offices is in the Cabinet (and at present none of them is) he cannot be paid at the same rate as his Cabinet colleagues; and as the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition will know, his
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right honourable friend Sir Geoffrey Howe, who was Minister of State in the Department of Trade and Industry, was in the Cabinet in the last Administration but because he was a Minister was not able to receive the salary of his colleagues. The new provision is purely permissive; it will be for the Prime Minister of the day to decide whether to include any holders of these offices in his Cabinet.
Secondly, a new general category is being introduced of Ministers in charge of Departments who are not members of the Cabinet. This will provide additional flexibility when new Departments are to be created and is the provision under which a salary will become payable on the appointment of a Minister of Overseas Development in charge of a separate Ministry.
Thirdly, there are changes in the limits contained in the 1972 Act on the number of Ministers who can be paid at various salary levels. The number of Part I salaries which may be paid is increased from 19 to 21, and the number of Part I and Part II salaries taken together from 46 to 50. At present there is a separate limit of 30 on the number of Parliamentary Secretary salaries which may be paid under Part IV. In place of this a new overall limit of 83 for Part I, Part II and Part IV Parliamentary Secretary salaries taken together has been introduced. This compares with an effective overall figure of 76 under the 1972 Act. So there is an increase under the Bill of 7 posts but, overall, the number of salaries payable under the Bill will still be one less than the number payable at the time of the Ministerial Salaries Consolidation Act 1965, nine years ago. In view of this increase in the numerical limits of the 1972 Act it is, in our view, right to make some increase to take account of this in the limits set by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1957 on the number of Ministers entitled to sit and vote in another place. This is dealt with in Clause 2.
Why is this increase in the limits on the number of Ministers necessary? The pattern and structure of Ministerial offices prescribed in the 1972 Act was designed to match the pattern of Departments as it existed at the time, and there have been a number of important changes since then. Later in 1972 itself, a

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separate Northern Ireland Office was established. In place of the single Department of Trade and Industry we now have four separate Departments. It is not surprising that these changes have strained the framework of appointments prescribed in the 1972 Act. Quite apart from this, there is now a need to augment the Ministerial team in the Northern Ireland Office to deal with the situation created by the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive and it is this which gives urgency to the present Bill.
Apart from these general provisions on Ministerial salaries and numbers, the Bill also contains (in Clause 3 and Schedule 1) provisions relating to the establishment of a separate Ministry of Overseas Development. As noble Lords will recall, it was the previous Labour Government which created a Ministry of Overseas Development in 1964, but after six years of separate existence the Ministry was merged by the previous Administration with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is at present, in formal terms, a wing of that Department. The provisions in this Bill will enable us to take the necessary formal steps to reestablish a separate Ministry in its own right.
I need refer only briefly to the other effects of the present Bill. As I have mentioned, the necessary salary provision for a Minister of Overseas Development in charge of a separate Department is covered by a new general category of Ministerial office provided for in Clause 1. The Bill also contains supplementary provisions relating to the new general category of Ministerial office. The opportunity presented by the Bill is being taken to tidy up the present provisions governing transfers of functions between Government Departments where these are headed by Secretaries of State. I hope that in what I have said I have shown that the effects of this Bill are relatively modest but none the less necessary.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Shepherd.)
3.56 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for that explanation. He took it at a good fast pace and he
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gave us a lot of information. It is a short Bill. In structure, it is not a particularly easy Bill to understand, and there is no doubt a need for the public to be aware that there is a limitation—and it may be a surprise to some people to learn this—on the number of Members of Parliament and of Members of your Lordships' House who can serve as Ministers in an Administration, and on the amount they can be paid. The official Opposition spokesman in another place, my right honourable friend Sir Keith Joseph, said that as a Party we do not dissent from these proposals. We accept the need for more Ministers to assist the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during the second period of direct rule, which we all hope will be as short as possible, and we are aware of some of the problems arising out of the way in which the previous restrictions were drawn. I should therefore like to put only two questions to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd.
I should be interested to know the reason for including the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, otherwise known as the Government Chief Whip, in the list of Ministers in Clause 1 of this new Bill, at the top rate so long as the holder of the office is a member of the Cabinet. Although the Government Chief Whip is not a member of the Cabinet and, I understand, never has been since 1715 or thereabouts, he always attends meetings of the Cabinet and plays a full part in its deliberations. His relations both with the Prime Minister and with other Ministers are of a special character. They are very important to the working of Parliament. He has an independent status, to a certain extent acting on behalf of the Leader of his Party, and it is a role that has evolved over a long period of time. I should like to ask the noble Lord: is it now intended to change this by making the Government Chief Whip in another place himself a member of the Cabinet? If not, why is this provision necessary at all?
The second question will not surprise noble Lords. It is about the effect of this Bill in the future on those who hold ministerial offices in this House. I do not want to be unduly critical, still less partisan in a Party sense, but the Leader of the House must be aware that there is some disquiet at the moment in the House over the number and the seniority

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of the Ministers who represent the Government in our proceedings. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has done his best, and I think the House is very grateful to him personally, for the very heavy burden of legislative business and other Government business which he has handled. But we have to recognise that the reputation of the House as a whole depends to a very considerable extent on those who represent the Government in the House at any one time. If enough suitable Peers are not available in the House, for one reason or another, life peerages mean that people of experience can be brought in from outside.
I see the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, sitting on the Government Bench. We welcome him and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. They were brought in by the Prime Minister after the General Election in that way, because of their experience in national politics and in another place, in order to represent the Government in this House. As we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, there are now to be up to seven more Members of the Government in all. I would urge the Leader of the House to use all his influence—supported, I am sure, by many other noble Lords in all parts of the House—to ensure that some of this greater latitude is used to strengthen the Government Front Bench. A few more Ministers may make the task of the Opposition harder, but it is a price which we will willingly pay to see the authority and reputation of this Upper Horse of the British Parliament maintained.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, for what he has said about the Bill. In regard to the Parliamentary Secretaryship of the Treasury and the Government Chief Whip, when I was a newcomer in politics and in Parliament he was as close to God as any human being could get to Heaven while alive! I was very surprised to find that not only was he not in the Cabinet but was not very high or very senior. But, as the noble Lord has said, it has not been the custom since the mid-eighteenth century for the Chief Whip to be a member of the Cabinet. I think that a case could be made out for the Chief Whip being there, because in practice he sits and
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offers advice and I should have thought there was something to be said for a corporate responsibility in certain situations. But practice is one thing. As to what the future intentions are, this is entirely a matter for the Prime Minister. My honourable friend who introduced the Bill in another place said that the Government have no immediate intention of making either the Minister of State or the Parliamentary Secretary a member of the Cabinet. But we have a degree of flexibility so that if this is desirable it can now be accomplished under the Bill.
In regard to the House of Lords, of course there is always disquiet about any Front Bench whether one sits in Government or on the Opposition Front Bench, because not always are we able to satisfy our supporters. To that extent, I am aware of disquiet. The noble Lord referred to numbers and seniority, and in anticipation of that point being raised I did a little research. I always believe that one should compare like with like, so I looked at the numbers with which the Labour Government started in 1964. I saw that we then had 18 Ministers, but in the period of Office that number increased. However, I noticed that the Conservative Government began in 1970 with 16 and ended with 20. We started in 1974 with 15 and one vacancy.
My Lords, we shall have to see what the next ten years bring forth. We may have even bigger numbers than those with which the Conservatives finished at the end of their short period. Of course, it is right that the Government should be properly represented here and, in the light of some of the remarks in a previous debate, I think that this House is being very well served by all my colleagues. Already we have got through a good deal of legislation and we have sought to meet the wishes of the House, not only across the Floor but outside, to see whether it was possible to meet certain points. I have no doubt that the legislation has been improved as a result, and I am most grateful to my colleagues.
My only worry—it is a genuine worry—is that because of our numbers we will be very much strained during the next five weeks in manning the Bench at night. I intend to adopt the practice of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, by asking some of his Back Bench colleagues to become unpaid Whips and help to man

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the Bench during the difficult period that clearly lies ahead. I am grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has said in support of the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
4.6 p.m.
Report of Amendments received.
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 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—
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(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 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

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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 not-withstanding 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 purposes 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 local 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 thereover) shall apply as if this section were included in that Act."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 1. Your Lordships will already have heard me several times moving this Amendment and I must apologise to the House that it appeared so late. That was not altogether our fault. We put it down on Friday morning. I say straightaway that it is tabled with a view to ascertaining Her Majesty's Government's further thinking on this matter. We are very grateful to the Government for the way in which they have treated the Bill so far and our suggestions relating to it. It is a Bill
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which is aimed at the safety of all users of the roads. It is a practical measure. We must pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for the way in which they have been able to meet our points. I am most grateful.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, dealt with the Amendment before; it is the one dealing with urban junctions and it is a measure of safety. I have several times reminded your Lordships that, if my memory serves me right, some 6,270 people are estimated to have suffered from accidents in 1972 through vehicles being parked near urban junctions. I have expressed previously the opinion that to have a general banning by the Secretary of State on parking at urban junctions is a good thing. The flexibility is there, as I have also pointed out and as is explained adequately in the Amendment which indicates distances of between 5 yards and 30 yards. Any ban could be applied to a distance of as little as 15 feet or as much as 90 feet. Local authorities would have the power to decide.
I do not wish to labour this aspect because the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said he would consider it with sympathy and see what he could do. I merely move the Amendment with a view to seeing what the noble Lord has been able to accomplish. On the last occasion in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Foot, pointed out with great force that universality was a great strength. If people knew that there was a ban at every urban junction, at every corner where accidents occur, then they would know that they would need to look for a certain road marking. It might be as little as 5 yards or as much as 30 yards from a junction but they would know automatically, if they were in an urban area, that there would be a restriction of sorts. Local authorities would have their way and the Secretary of State would be able to enforce a prohibition of this kind. I beg to move.
4.10 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for the very generous way in which he has spoken. He was equally generous when we discussed this matter in Committee. I gave an undertaking that we would

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continue to give consideration to the points he had raised, and it is right and proper that we should remind ourselves that the clause which the noble Lord seeks to move into the Bill is one that was in the earlier measure. I ought to say that I have been very conscious of this throughout the discussions in which I have been involved and every time I have had occasion to come to this Dispatch Box in connection with the Bill, and I have wanted to be satisfied that there was a case for not proceeding with matters that were in the previous measure. I would say in all frankness to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, that I believe the further thinking that has been given to this matter would have placed him or one of his colleagues in exactly the same position as I am in here to-day.
The Amendment is much the same (if, indeed, it is not worded in identical terms to it) as that which the noble Lord tabled at Committee stage, and, as he says, would re-introduce the junction-stopping ban provisions in the previous Road Traffic Bill. As I explained when we were in Committee, the Government have given much thought to this matter since the previous Bill was before your Lordships, and they have reached the conclusion on the best advice available to them that a national ban would be too much of a blunt instrument. Junctions come in all shapes and sizes. They have widely differing flows of vehicles and pedestrians, posing a multitude of problems. Some are controlled by signals, others are not so controlled. They have different requirements for servicing and different facilities for their servicing. A ban imposed centrally, even allowing that some broad classifications of junctions could be laid down for different treatment, could not hope to recognise the wide varieties of circumstances at the hundreds and thousands of individual sites involved. Therefore, we think that to attempt to impose such a ban would give rise to severe practical problems.
I have previously assured your Lordships that in reaching the conclusion that a national ban would be too inflexible the Government are not in any way attempting to deny the serious problem which exists and of which the noble Lord speaks—the problem of accidents at
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junctions, the number of which he has given to the House this afternoon. But we think that the best way to tackle what is, for the reasons I have briefly attempted to outline, a problem with many local ramifications is to ensure that local authorities have the powers to provide stopping bans at these junctions. They know the individual sites, the vehicle and pedestrian conditions and requirements at each one, and the associated accident problems. There are already fairly wide powers for authorities to make local traffic regulations under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967; and, while we have not finally determined the legal issues involved, it seems that further main legislative powers may not be required.
The present powers are to some extent inhibited, and in general properly so, by requirements to hold public inquiries and to obtain consent of the Secretary of State when local orders prohibiting vehicles stopping or waiting at a site operate for more than eight hours a day. To give authorities adequate powers, it may therefore he necessary to make subordinate legislation to circumvent these inhibiting provisions in the case of junction-stopping ban orders. Thus armed, we are confident that the authorities will be able to deal with the problem in an effective and sensible way.
My Lords, when we were considering the matter previously, in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Foot (and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, has referred to what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, had to say), raised the important point that it would be essential to have a standardised sign marking stopping bans at junctions. I said then that we accepted the need for this, and I repeat now that a national sign, probably a road marking, will be formulated and prescribed in regulations to ensure uniformity of application over the whole country. I repeat that we have given this matter serious and lengthy consideration. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, will appreciate that not only have we taken note of his concern but I have also endeavoured to give an assurance from which I trust he will draw satisfaction. I hope he will feel that he has made his main point, and that the matter can rest with the assurance I have given.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, may I make two comments in response to what the noble Lord the Minister has just said? The first comment I should like to make is that it continues to surprise me that the previous Administration, when they were formulating their Road Traffic Bill, were presumably advised (because I do not suppose they thought this up themselves) by their advisers that this reform was necessary. I imagine that this is a reform which has been in the stocks, as it were, in the Department of the Environment for quite a long time, and that they have been waiting for a Bill in which this reform could be introduced. We are faced with the rather strange position that in the intervening six or eight months, or whatever it is, between the introduction of the Bill by the previous Administration and its introduction here to-day, apparently the people who are giving thought to this matter in the Department of the Environment have reversed their position and have decided that what they recommended to us in December, 1973, is something which it would be wrong to do in June, 1974. That strikes me as a strange way to go about things, because this cannot have any Party connotation, and it cannot be due to the change of Government, because there are no Party politics in this matter. It is merely a matter of trying to get the road traffic law right. Although the noble Lord the Minister says that he has now been advised that what was thought to be right then is not right now, he has not told us the reasons—at least, I do not think he has explained this—why there has been this dramatic change in the thinking of the Department during that time.
The second point I should like to make is that I am grateful to the noble Lord for having given careful consideration to the suggestion which I made on the last occasion that, even if the prescribing of the junctions to which this law is to apply is to be left to the local authorities, nevertheless under the regulations there should be a universal sign indicating the junctions which are so affected. I am grateful to the noble Lord for what I think is a marked advance, but I would invite him to consider whether it does really get over the problem.
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When you are approaching a traffic junction in a moving vehicle you are concerned primarily, of course, to keep a close watch out to see whether there is a "Stop" sign or whether there are lights, and to try to see as soon as you can whether there is anything moving on the other road or whether there is anything coming in the opposite direction. Is it desirable, therefore, that your attention at these important moments should be distracted by yet a further road sign that you have to look out for, indicating to you whether this is one of the controlled junctions or whether it is not one of the controlled junctions? When you are approaching a junction it is imperative that your attention should be directed to what may be the major hazards; and I suggest that the multiplication of road signs, particularly at junctions, is something which is undesirable if it can be avoided.
If you have a universal rule that all urban road junctions are subject to the restriction that nobody shall stop within 50 yards, it has the enormous advantage that people do not have to worry themselves, amid all their other difficulties, about the question of whether or not this is a controlled junction, because they know that in any event it is. Therefore, I still ask the Minister whether this matter could be considered again and whether the solution at which they have arrived is the best way of dealing with the matter.
The last point I should like to make is this: not only do you not want to have your attention distracted by road signs and by looking out for road signs when you are approaching a junction, but you may have very little time to ascertain whether this is a controlled junction or not. After all, if you are approaching from a distance of, perhaps, 100 ft. back, it takes only a second or two to cover that distance and it is during that time that you have to ascertain whether this is a controlled junction or not; am I permitted to stop as I approach this junction or am I not? I still think, despite what the Minister has said, that there is good reason for reconsidering this matter to see whether the proposals originally put forward by the Department were not in fact the correct solution.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I should like very much to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for what he has said. At the same time, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, will weigh fairly heavily with all your Lordships. I, too, find it slightly curious that the advice that we got has undergone such a "dramatic change"—to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Foot—over this matter of control at junctions. But on such a Bill as this, which concerns a non-Party political matter and which is aimed at the good of all in road safety, I should not like to bring in a controversial note. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has made a marked advance on what was the Government's stance previously. He has said that he felt that it would be too much of a "blunt instrument" in a wide variety of circumstances. I accept that. We had thought that the variety of 5 to 30 yards probably took care of this point.
The only thing that worries me at the moment is that local authorities will feel—I think the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, used the word—"inhibited". The noble Lord has said, and I am very grateful to him for saying it, that he is proposing now to formulate and prescribe a nationally recognised sign to deal with this matter. I think the point made about extra signs by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, is good. As the noble Lord knows, we were going to have a sign on the ground, on kerbs and road, and when coming to a junction automatically a driver would know that it would be there and would look for it. I should still like the noble Lord to give me an assurance as to what extent local authorities are going to be encouraged—or is that too strong a word?—to put up these signs. I am not quite clear in my own mind at this moment as to how these signs will be formulated and prescribed for local authorities. Given the words the noble Lord has used—and we still have a Third Reading ahead of us—if the noble Lord can assure me that there will be a very definite instruction issued as to how this will be done, we would be quite wrong to force this point. The words the noble Lord, Lord Foot, used will be within the recollection of the noble Lord. We are all trying to reach the same objective and if the noble Lord
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will give me the few words for which I ask I will, by leave, withdraw the Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, by leave of your Lordships there are one or two things I should like to say. I have been asked a number of questions and I hope it will not be expected that I should speak at any length. We are at Report stage and we have spent some time in Committee on this matter. First of all, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, I would say that every possible encouragement will be given to local authorities to get on with this matter. But I shall take the precaution of writing to the noble Lord, setting out more precisely how it is intended that it will be done.
I thought we had come a very long way to meet the points that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, raised on Committee. We are going to have one uniform sign and I should have thought that that was a very good thing. When he talks about a distance of 50 yards, and that sort of thing, at least in my mind he conjured up the situation that will confront the motorist. The motorist will never know exactly what distance is involved and he will need to be careful. If a uniform sign is employed I should have thought that from that point onwards the motorist would need to be extremely careful to appreciate that he needed to acquaint himself with exactly what was happening in that locality. The noble Lord mentioned 50 yards. There may well not be spaces of that kind to play with in some localities. We will give further thought to what he has had to say. I cannot say that our thinking is likely to be any different, but I would say to him that policy is decided by Ministers and Ministers take advice from a great many people. I know that my right honourable friend will want to take full responsibility for the attitude which the Government are adopting in regard to this matter.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, if, with your Lordships' leave, I may speak again, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Compulsory wearing of seat belts]:
4.28 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE moved Amendment No. 2:
Leave out Clause 7.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name which has the effect of excluding Clause 7 which deals with the compulsion for the wearing of seat belts. I make no apology to your Lordships for bringing this matter up again because interest has been steadily growing in this matter since the Bill was given a Second Reading, culminating in the Division on Committee last week when 55 of your Lordships voted against compulsion, compared to 66 who voted for it. Since that time, I read in the Press to-day, the judiciary has been making certain comments upon the compulsory wearing of seat belts and there is even a leading article in the Daily Telegraph to-day which mentions the name of my noble friend the Baroness behind me.
This is not a Party political issue. The last Government, I think mistakenly, put Clause 7 into their Bill. The present Government have repeated Clause 7 in their Bill. But if it is not a Party political issue, it is, I submit, a political issue of importance in the broadest terms. I do not propose to try to re-hash the arguments and counter-arguments on belt safety in the majority of accident statistics which were quoted in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and contradicted by my noble friend Lord Mountgarret, who quoted the Report of the Road Research Laboratory. Of course I admit at once that the wearing of seat belts is probably right for the majority of people in the majority of cases. But there is a minority of cases—and no noble Lord who likes compulsion can deny this—where the belts cause injury or death in the circumstances of a certain accident.
My first submission to your Lordships in objecting to this clause is that I dislike passing laws which cannot be enforced. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, dealt with this point during the Committee stage, saying—and I think I may paraphrase not unfairly what he said—that it does not much matter, because we
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already have a lot of laws which cannot be enforced, so one more will not hurt. I submit that having laws already on the Statute Book which cannot be enforced is rather different from Parliament now being asked to pass a law which is generally admitted to be unenforceable by an overworked and undermanned police force throughout the country.
My second submission to your Lordships about this objectionable clause is that Clause 7 is really a horrid piece of delegated legislation. The Minister is being given powers far too wide and undefined. He can make what Orders he likes and can then make what exceptions he likes. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell said, that we shall have the Negative Resolution procedure, but that is not really a sufficient safeguard. Under the proposals here, the Minister could order everyone to wear belts all the time, and then make an exception and say that no-one need wear them except between, say, midnight and 1 a.m. The Minister will say, "Of course, we would never do anything like that"; that is always the excuse of any Executive when it is asking for the use of any undefined powers. But I submit that Parliament should not include Clause 7 in its present wide state, without further information on what the Minister proposes to do.
We are not opposing compulsion just for the sake of opposition. I am all in favour of ordering the fitting of seat belts to all cars. I am all in favour of seat belt-wearing in the majority of cases; certainly, I would never dream of going down the M.1 or any other motorway without my own safety belt. But there are circumstances where belts cost lives, and circumstances where no belts save lives. Those of your Lordships who looked at the Evening Standard last Monday would have seen a picture of a wrecked motorcar and an account of the accident, in which the non-wearing of safety belts saved the occupants of that car from serious injury. So that while the majority may elect to wear their belts, there is a minority who have real fears and objections—technical, personal and possibly medical.
If we pass a law for compulsion (and we must assume, when arguing this, that the law will be kept) will not Parliament

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be taking unto itself collectively, and we ourselves individually, a grave moral responsibility in respect of victims in those cases where death or injury is caused by the force of compulsion? Some of your Lordships, and I myself, might well have some relative, a wife or a daughter, who became involved in an accident while driving a car, with terrible results. In such a case, that member of my family would have had no free choice at the start of the journey as to whether or not she put on a safety belt. She may have had grave objections to wearing a belt, but because of the law she would have put it on. In such a case the victim would have been sacrificed on the altar of compulsion. In a sentence, compulsion may save but it may also kill, and I look to the Minister for a very clear reply to that point.
Without compulsion, responsibility lies where I submit it should lie—on the individual decision. Freedom of choice, individual freedom—call them what you like—are involved. During our debate during the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Slater, interrupted the Minister from the opposite side of the Chamber to ask whether he would consider what the noble Lord called the "liberty of the subject". The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, also interrupted to ask whether we were having a discussion on seat belts or a philosophical discussion on freedom. I would say to the noble Baroness that, like it or not, the whole philosophy of individual choice is involved in this Clause 7. The question we have to decide is: how far should the State go in protecting the individual from the possible results of his own actions? Or, to put it in another way, how far should the State go in ordering the course of action of an individual, even though such a course could result in a disaster to that individual? In Clause 7 this freedom of choice is being taken away, irrespective of the individual's own views and convictions, and is being replaced by a State-decreed course of action. For the reasons I have given, I believe that the encroachment of compulsion by the State should be resisted by leaving out Clause 7. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD STOW-HILL: My Lords, we have just listened to a most impressive speech on an extremely difficult subject and, speaking for myself, I think the
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arguments are difficult to balance. But having said that I should like to submit to the House for consideration the opposite view. We each have to make up our own minds. Subject to hearing what is said later during the debate, I have made a provisional decision for myself and I should like to deploy some of the reasons to justify the position which I have provisionally formed.
May I take seriatim the two arguments to which we have just listened? First, is it right as a matter of general principle that the State should interfere with the choice of the individual, to the extent that the exercise by the Secretary of State of his powers to make the wearing of seat belts compulsory would interfere with that choice? The noble Lord added that should a Secretary of State be reluctant to interfere, the individual concerned could only harm himself if he embarked upon the course which the Secretary of State thought of prohibiting.
I submit two points in answer to that argument: first, to-day we have to accept the fact that for civilised society to proceed, the State must habitually interfere in matters of personal, individual choice. Take, for example, the consumption of drugs. It could be said that if anybody has in his possession opium or cocaine, or something of that kind, it is entirely his own business as to whether he likes to inflict upon himself the harm which the taking of those drugs may cause. I know that there are many people who would say that it is the individual's business and that he should be allowed to take those drugs if he chooses to do so. I would have thought it was the general, strongly-held view of our community—and that is, after all, a relevant matter in this context—that the State was amply justified and, indeed, obliged, in order to preserve the individual from his own folly to say that under criminal sanction he must not take or consume what are described as hard drugs. I say in the presence of my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger that I would also take that view in the case of the soft drugs, though I know a number of people would not go nearly so far as I would go.
Those surely are clear cases in which the State is taking upon itself to say to the individual, "You are not to do this because it will harm you if you do it". In the context we are now discussing, the

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urgency, if the interference would be useful and productive, is every bit as justifiable as in the case of taking drugs. One therefore asks whether, if the State interferes there is to be obtained a gain to the public and individual, which makes that interference justifiable and worth while? I know there is dispute as to the figures. I asked for some information and I should like to make a short quotation because if it is true it is an important point from which to set out. I should like to quote two sentences from a publication by the Government called Road Accidents in Great Britain, 1972. Paragraph 13 under the heading of Seat Belts reads:
"The effectiveness of a seat belt in reducing injury depends on the type of accident and whether the belt is correctly adjusted. On an overall national estimate the wearing of a properly fitted and adjusted belt reduces the risk of death or serious injury by as much as one half. There is some evidence that the reduction in risk is rather greater in built up areas than on motorways and other fast roads."
I know that that is not accepted by everybody, but it is an official and, I feel sure, a responsible publication which was brought forward, after mature reflection, by those who are acquainted with these matters.
It could easily be said—and I accept it at once—as noble Lords said in the course of the last debate, and as the noble Lord repeated to-day, that there are some accidents in which the use of a safety belt may produce injury which otherwise might have been avoided. One pictures the situation of a car overturning and perhaps catching fire. Those are cases in which it would be a disadvantage perhaps to be strapped in by a safety belt. I think one has to ask oneself—and this is the question I ask myself—whether one can nevertheless say, looking at the situation as a whole, bearing in mind the infinitely different types of accident that may occur, that the balance of advantage is really substantial? If it is accurate, or approximately accurate, that the risk of death or serious injury is reduced overall by a half, surely that is an enormous public gain. If it could be said that half as many people are likely to be killed or seriously injured over a period of time if safety belts are used than are likely to be killed or injured if they are not, that would go a long way to justify the com-
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pulsory use of them. It is an enormous gain.
I accept the point that the noble Lord made that it is a dreadful tragedy for someone to be seriously injured after having been compelled to wear the safety belt which that person would not have otherwise worn. I accept at once that it is a strong consideration on the other side of the case. But I look back on the broad conclusion I cited from the document. If half the people are saved from death or serious injury, it would take a great deal to justify the conclusion that safety belts should not be worn—and I leave out the word "compulsorily" for the moment. I start from that general proposition; I start from a bias in favour of their use. It is said, "In any event, if you make the using of them compulsory you are not able to enforce the law". I accept at once that the mere fact that there are a number of laws on the Statute Book which now cannot be enforced of themselves does not justify adding another. It is a bad general principle to enact laws that cannot be enforced. But we have had to do it in a great many cases.
Take the case of driving with a higher alcohol content in one's blood than is allowed. That is on the Statute Book, we approved it recently. I suppose it is constantly neglected and broken. Take any ordinary speed limit. I suppose the number of times a speed limit is exceeded is legion. The noble Lord says that is not another justification for adding one more. When dealing with this question of motor traffic which so directly and immediately affects every single person among us, we are justified in taking a rather broader view than we might take in other contexts. I should like to add that the information with which I was furnished from my own Front Bench is that the Department of the Environment in 1973 took a number of opinion surveys. The one which is directly relevant to what I am about to say, and what I am at present arguing, is this: they showed that, among other things, over 80 per cent. of the people of this country were convinced of the value of wearing a seat belt, and over 95 per cent. would wear it if it was a legal obligation to do so. That is an estimate, but if it is true, 95 per cent. of the people who travel in motor cars would, in any case, wear them.

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I should have thought it was not accurate to say that this was a law that would be massively disregarded. Certainly that would not be true. You will now and again get the person who, for one reason or another, does not wear a seat belt. There are persons like myself who very often are too lazy to wear one. And I would deserve punishment, I think. But it would not be a case of the police having foisted upon them yet one other gigantic task which they had not the manpower to enforce. I suppose that they would probably enforce a law of this kind, in so far as there were breaches of it, in very much the same way as other laws relating to motoring are enforced. A motor car is stopped and it is observed that the driver, and perhaps his passenger, do not wear a seat belt. Then a prosecution might result. That would be the way in which it was enforced, and that, after all, is the kind of way in which the breathlyser test comes to be administered. There is not very much distinction in principle, and both are matters of extreme importance.
It is said: "What about the person who really suffers from a sense of claustrophobia, or who has strong personal objections to wearing a safety belt?" Here I would point out that the form of Clause 7 is permissive. The noble Lord said that it was putting too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State. I would commend it for the reason that it only enables him to make the wearing of seat belts compulsory, and also gives him a power which is quite indispensable: to make any exceptions that he thinks are necessary. Exceptions will obviously have to be made, one would have thought, in all sorts of contexts—children, very old people perhaps, people who have a strong objection, people who really are frightened by having to wear a seat belt.
The power is one which also, taken in conjunction with the Construction Order made under, I think, the 1972 Act, can prescribe particular forms of safety belt. I should have thought that in the exercise of that power the Secretary of State would have to be extremely careful to ensure that the means of unclipping the safety belt in an emergency were absolutely foolproof and could be operated with the greatest possible ease. That, perhaps, would go some distance to meet the kind of situation in which a car over-
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turns and catches fire or something of that kind. Those powers are essential and I venture, respectfully, to disagree with the view the noble Lord expressed when he said that, after all, it was nothing like enough for those powers to be subject to Negative Resolution.
What does that procedure result in? Each exception would be individually scrutinised and criticised in whichever House had to deal with it. I should have thought that that was a very useful and valuable power, and what one would hope to see emerge from Clause 7 is a general provision making the wearing of seat belts obligatory on persons who ought to wear them as a matter of general common sense—but safeguarded and hemmed in by a large number of exceptions which would take account of all the kinds of cases that the noble Lord had in mind, and rightly had in mind, when voicing his opposition to this clause.
While I accept that the arguments are finely divided, and I accept the reluctance and hesitation—indeed, I was very much impressed by the reasons that were advanced by many noble Lords when this matter was debated on the last occasion—on balance, I come down in favour of the view that we should pass this clause. We can, I hope, rely on Secretaries of State to use their powers under the clause sensibly, particularly as the user of it can be constantly scrutinised by the House under the Negative Resolution procedure. I hope the result, if the statement which I have quoted from the Government publication is anything like correct, would be that over the years a great many people would escape injury or death who otherwise would have been seriously maimed as a result of being thrown forward against a windscreen, or something of the sort, in the event of an accident. For those reasons, I respectfully hope that your Lordships will not accept the Amendment to delete Clause 7.
4.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I should like to support the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Balfour. He has put the arguments so well that I have very little to add. But I should like to take up one or two points which my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill has made. He has said, as I understand, that under this proposed clause the

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Minister could make exceptions. He could make exceptions, for example, for somebody who suffered from claustrophobia and found it impossible to wear a seat belt and who would therefore, I suppose, otherwise be debarred from going in a car. Just consider, my Lords, what might happen. I could be prosecuted for not wearing my seat belt. "Oh!", I say, "I suffer from claustrophobia and therefore I am within the exception." It makes complete nonsense of it.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I quite agree. It would be a perfect nonsense if it worked in that way. But I certainly assumed that the regulations which were made under Clause 7 would provide for specific exceptions being granted in advance; that is to say, a person who could establish, by medical evidence or otherwise that for one reason or another he could not wear a safety belt would be granted a dispensation by the police or the appropriate authority. If he was stopped he could at once show the dispensation which he had been granted in the form of a permit or something of that kind. I quite agree that, if one did not get that, it would work in a perfectly absurd fashion.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I am obliged to my noble and learned friend. But I think your Lordships will agree there is a very possible weakness in the whole matter if one can obtain a certificate to say that one suffers from claustrophobia and is therefore exempted from wearing a seat belt. However that may be, my noble and learned friend then referred to dangerous drugs. That is an entirely different matter. I fully agree with everything he said about dangerous drugs. But here we have a situation in which, on balance, it may be safer to wear a seat belt. On the other hand, there are plenty of cases in which it is proved to be fatal to wear a seat belt. One's car crashes—supposing one is in an open car. Without a seat belt one is flung out; with a seat belt, one is tied to the car and burned to death. There are other cases. Surely the right answer is to educate the public. Let them know the advantages and disadvantages of wearing a seat belt. Make the provision of seat belts in cars obligatory so that the seat belt is there. Then the intelli-
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gent motorist can make up his mind whether or not it is desirable to wear it. But do not make these things compulsory. This is what I call nursery legislation in its worst form.
We have had a rather similar problem over the fluoridation of water. It is said—and it may be true—that if fluorine is put into the water it is very good for young children's teeth. On the other hand, it is also said that fluorine can be a poison to people with a certain medical history. Surely the answer is not to put the fluorine in the water so that one has to drink it whether one likes it or not. You can obtain fluorine on the advice of your dentist or doctor, and you can take a dose of it if it is good for you. You may, however, be told that it is very poisonous and is the last thing you should take. Leave it to the individual to take a sensible course. In the wearing of seat belts the same principle is involved. For myself. I would congratulate (if that is not patronising) my noble friend Lord Balfour on a really powerful speech. He said a good many of the things I should have liked to say, and I hope your Lordships will agree to his Amendment.
5.0 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, if what we are discussing now is analagous to fluoridation, as the noble Viscount has said, no wonder I am against the Amendment, because I happen to be President of the Fluoridation Society which exists for the purpose of ensuring that fluoridation is universally adopted in water supplies in this country. It is not quite the same thing, because in the case of fluoridation one is not concerned with ill-health of a very serious nature. It may be widespread and damaging from a cosmetic point of view, but it does not cause the same kind of distress, and certainly not death, which we are talking about in the case of the wearing of seat belts.
Going back to the arguments of the noble Lord who introduced the Amendment, the advocacy of the Daily Telegraph and certain sections of the Judiciary would lead some of us in the direction of opposing his Amendment rather than supporting it. One would rather look at the evidence given by people like the British Medical Association and the casualty officers whom I noticed the noble Lord did not cite in favour of his Amendment. If we asked them, they

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would no doubt tell us that where the wearing of seat belts has been adopted it has caused a considerable decline in the number of serious accidents and deaths. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, gave us overall figures to illustrate the significance of the reduction which can be made.
The noble Lord said that he disliked laws that cannot be enforced. I think he is being a little pessimistic. At first, in cases of damages, the courts looked at the wearing of seat belts and made some reductions, but I understand that in the most recent cases which have come before the courts the Judges have held that since Parliament has not decreed that the wearing of seat belts should be compulsory this should not be taken into account in the calculation of damages. But supposing that Orders were made under the powers given to the Secretary of State, obviously the courts would take that into account and somebody who was not wearing a seat belt at the time of an accident would be likely to receive a smaller sum in damages than if he had been wearing one. I suggest that this might be quite a powerful inducement to the wearing of seat belts.
It has been mentioned this afternoon that the law on drinking with alcohol in one's bloodstream is widely disregarded. At the same time, people who are in the habit of drinking when they drive are also careful not to commit moving traffic offences which would be likely to prompt a policeman to stop them and make them liable to take a breath test. I suggest that those people who have had a drink would be extremely careful to put on their seat belts and thus avoid the necessity of blowing into the bag and finding themselves in a police station giving a sample of blood.
I think also that in general the people of this country are much more lawabiding than the noble Lord gives them credit for. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, said that 95 per cent. of the people would wear seat belts if there were a legal obligation upon them to do so. I would certainly do so myself. I have to confess to your Lordships that although I am very warmly in favour of the wearing of seat belts, so long as it is not a legal obligation I do not normally put on a seat belt and I think that most of us are in that position. We are too careless
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and too unobservant of our own safety to do it as long as there is no law, but we would certainly obey the law if it were on the Statute Book.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, says that the intelligent motorist can make up his own mind whether or not to wear his belt. How can he possibly tell when he gets into his car whether he will be involved in the type of accident which the noble Lord describes, where his car overturns, he finishes up in flames and the seat belt stops him from getting out, or whether he will be involved in the much more common type of accident which causes death or serious injury within, maybe a few miles of home at the fairly low speed of 30 to 40 m.p.h. and does not bring in the kind of considerations which the noble Lord has given us?
Finally, the noble Lord who moved this Amendment said that there is a great moral responsibility upon those who suggest that there should be this element of compulsion, as they see it. I put it to your Lordships that there is a great moral responsibility upon those who, by supporting this Amendment, cause the destruction of human life and serious casualties in very large numbers.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I had not intended to involve myself in this argument but I should like to put two short questions. The first is that the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has told us that in about 50 per cent. of accidents if the person involved is wearing a seat belt he will escape death or serious injury. I am quite prepared to accept that, but I wonder whether anybody can tell me the number of people who have been involved in accidents, who, if they had been wearing a seat belt, would have been involved in serious injury or death which they would have escaped if they had not been wearing a seat belt? That is a fact which we should know. I ask the question entirely without prejudice.
Secondly, if this Amendment is not carried, the Bill becomes law, the wearing of seat belts becomes compulsory and somebody is involved in an accident in which they are killed because they are wearing a seat belt, will it be possible for their executors to sue the Government for damages, because they were carrying out the Government's law which made their death certain in this particular kind of accident?

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Apart from the moral issue which is involved these appear to be two simple and practical questions which one would like to have answered before one makes up one's mind.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, I will speak briefly because I have spoken on this matter before. I am strongly in favour of what has been said by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. I have had many years of experience of driving every kind of vehicle on the roads of this country and I shall certainly vote for his Amendment, for three particular reasons. One is that I do not think that a safe seat belt has yet been designed. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has said that if it can be easily unclipped then it will be a good seat belt. I have not found one that can be easily unclipped from the right place. In my car it is down on the left-hand side and if I am crushed in my car and my car is on fire, either somebody has to saw off my seat belt with a very sharp instrument, which he probably has not got, or he has to try and get across the driving wheel and try to unclip the seat belt clip which, in my view, is in the wrong place. I am also against the clip being in front of one's body because that is dangerous. Therefore I am against seat belts, anyway, because in my view they are badly designed.
I think, too, that freedom of choice is very important. I think that we should all have seat belts in our cars but that we should be allowed to be adult enough to know whether we want to use them or not. Thirdly, from the police point of view I do not think that the wearing of seat belts is enforceable, because a policeman, whether he is travelling behind you in his car or whether he overtakes you, cannot possibly say whether you are wearing the belt as prescribed or not. The only time he could possibly say whether you were wearing one would be if he stopped you on the road. My Lords, you and I know that if seat belts were compulsory and one were stopped on the road it would be quite simple to fasten the seat belt quickly. I know that that is cheating, but people do cheat on the roads of this country. I would certainly vote for this Amendment.
5.10 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, unfortunately I was not able to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, said, but I can imagine what he said from the tenor of the subsequent remarks of various of your Lordships. I wonder just what the House is about, because I heard a number of reasons advanced against the compulsory wearing of seat belts which strike my mind as unconvincing, and in some cases virtually trivial.
Your Lordships know that I have had a certain amount of experience in the field of road safety and of driving cars and flying aircraft, and so on, and I believe that some of the things that are being said are absolutely not true. I think this Amendment is looking for reasons—and not very convincing reasons—to try to stop compulsion. I know why your Lordships do not like compulsion; none of us does. None of us cares for legislation to protect fools from their folly. We never have liked that, yet I suspect that was why we were all so enthusiastic to make crash helmets compulsory for motor cyclists. That we did.
My Lords, where lies the difference? It is said that, because of their adult intelligence motorists must be given freedom of choice; they must be educated to wearing seat belts and understanding all about it. They have been in the process of being educated for 15 years along these lines. The noble Lord, Lord Marples (who I believe has just left the Chamber) and I were associated in beginning this education in the early 1960s. We have had upwards of 10 years of education. What has been the result? All we have at the moment are some rather pathetic figures which indicate that this education and propaganda is not getting home. To argue that occasionally a casualty will be caused by the wearing of a seat belt is possible.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, that of course it is compulsory to have windscreen wipers, and headlamps and glass in the windscreen, and so far as I know if you get killed by any of those things you have no compensation claim against the Government. I would disregard completely any insinuation that a seatbelt is

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a compulsory killer installed by legislation. That is nonsense, and to take the view that this is an unacceptable measure, one that the public do not want, do not require and do not need, is absolutely flying in the face of all sense. That is my view, my Lords.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I only want to intervene for a second or two because I think Parliament has no right compulsorily to enforce upon a certain section of the public the necessity, in their opinion, to strap themselves to death. There are two views on this problem of the seat belt. Seat belts can be very dangerous; they can make it impossible to escape. The seat belt is known perfectly well, it is well advertised and it should be left to the individual to judge what he prefers to do in the interests of his own safety. The wearing of seat belts can result in death, and I think it is an intolerable and tyrannical act of Parliament to attempt to impose upon adult citizens who are perfectly well in a position, when driving a motorcar, to judge for themselves the wisest course to adopt in regard to the necessity of wearing a seat belt and when, in the opinion of quite a large number of people, to do so would be strapping themselves to death. I support the Amendment 100 per cent.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, as the Member of your Lordships' House who originally moved this Amendment, together with the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Davies of Leek, I do not wish to repeat my speech or to get involved in moral issues, although those who do get involved in moral issues do not seem to get involved in the same way when they go in aeroplanes. However, let us deal with the question of the enforcement of seat belts. Seat belts were first introduced in Australia, followed by New Zealand, and there have been no problems whatsoever of enforcement in those countries; and if it is thought that we are less law-abiding or that our police are less efficient, I do not agree. Seat belts are also compulsory in France outside towns, and in Yugoslavia and Malawi.
I refute absolutely the suggestion that seat belts are dangerous; in fact I consider that view to be total nonsense. Thousands of people in this country, probably some Members of your Lord
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ships' House and millions in the world outside, can give definite evidence of how their lives have been saved by the wearing of a seat belt, and I do not think there can be many people who can actually say that they would have been killed if they had been wearing a seat belt. This is something which it is quite impossible to say. It is quite possible that seat belts have been wrongly fitted, but that is another matter because they should have been properly fitted. I also admit that considerable improvement could be made in the design of seat belts, but that is a matter that is going on all the time.
I believe that to make the wearing of seat belts compulsory is preferable to what has been tried in the United States of America. There it is impossible to start your motor car without putting on your safety belt, which means literally that if you have to take your car from your garage to your front door you must wear your safety belt. The reason for that is because there they have shirked the issue of making them compulsory; and those of us who have driven in America recently know how tiresome it is to have mechanical aids in the car to make one wear a seat belt when they can go wrong or can be cheated. We have a wealth of experience based on facts that have come from Australia and New Zealand, that there is an immediate 20 per cent. reduction in accidents, both fatal and injuries.
This proposal is supported by the Automobile Association, by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and by a great many people who are involved in motoring all over the world. Of course it is unfortunate to have to impose things on people, but I believe it would be foolhardy for any Government to throw away a chance which could at a stroke save so many lives each year on our roads.
5.18 p.m.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, may I intervene to make two points. One is following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, when he drew our attention to the terms in which the clause is expressed, permitting the Secretary of State at some future date to make regulations of whatever kind he may think satisfactory, if he feels inclined. I think the House ought to recognise that

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in being asked to approve a clause of that kind, which is purely permissive and does not require the Secretary of State to do anything, we are in fact shirking the issue. We are leaving the decision whether the wearing of seat belts is to be made compulsory to the discretion and judgment of an individual. We do not know who that individual will be. If he is an individual who shares the philosophic notions of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, about the freedom of the subject, and so on, he will not make any regulations at all; if, on the other hand, he is a person who shares the philosophic notions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, he will make regulations. So really we are funking the issue. We are saying, "Let us put it aside; let us sweep it under the carpet and let the Secretary of State pull it out at some later date". We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we are deciding this matter to-day.
Secondly, I want to engage in a little philosophic argument, if I may. with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, because he based the whole of his case on certain views that have been expressed about the rights of the State to impose its will upon the individual, and he sought to draw an analogy between the prohibition of the taking of hard drugs and the injunction which this clause might involve, enjoining the citizen to wear a seat belt, and he said that he could not distinguish between the two. I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord that there are two important points of distinction between his description of a prohibition against taking hard drugs and what is proposed in this clause. The first of them is this: When you prohibit a person from taking a hard drug you are saying, "Thou shalt not"; when you say to a person that he must wear a seat belt, you are saying, "Thou shalt". And there is a vital distinction between the two. It may well be that the State is entitled to say to somebody, "Thou shalt not do such-and-such and may not be justified in imposing a positive obligation upon him to do something. There is a logical distinction between the two.
The second fallacy which I would respectfully suggest came into the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, when he made that analogy is this. I suppose it will be conceded by everybody
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that in the case of consuming hard drugs there is everything to be said against it and nothing in favour of it. Nobody, I suppose, would argue that there is anything to be said for taking hard drugs, but in the case of the wearing of seat belts we are faced with a different proposition. We are faced with a situation in which the balance of advantage may be, for all anybody knows, in favour of the wearing of seat belts but where it is acknowledged that there are certain cases where it is not an advantage—indeed, where it is a disadvantage. That distinguishes this case wholly in logic, and in philosophy if you like, from the analogy which the noble Lord was trying to draw.
That, if I may say so, is the same fallacy as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, fell into when he said that there was no difference between compelling people to wear seat belts and compelling people to wear crash helmets. I suggest for his consideration that there is a distinction, and the distinction is this: in the case of the crash helmet nobody, I suppose, is going to argue that a crash helmet on some occasions has disadvantages and is likely to cause greater injury. I suppose that in 99 cases out of 100 the wearing of a crash helmet is likely to avoid damage, but in the case of the seat belt the whole matter is in dispute and there are some cases in which it is advantageous to wear it and some cases where it is not.
For those three reasons, I would suggest that there is a great deal of merit in what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, is proposing: that we should not engage in legislation and funk the issue to which we are supposed to be addressing ourselves; secondly, that the case for enjoining the individual to do something for his own safety is quite a different matter from prohibiting him from doing something which may do him damage.
5.24 p.m.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, I rise for only a few moments to support my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye in this Amendment. I do so for a very broad reason which I do not think has been mentioned so far in this debate. We are living in a day and age when the law is being increasingly disregarded. Attention was drawn to the approach of anarchy and so on in a

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notable speech at the week-end by Sir Alec Douglas-Home. In the case of crash helmets, anybody can see whether or not a person is wearing one and therefore that law is completely enforceable. But this law is not enforceable. partly for the reason which the noble Baroness mentioned a short time ago. It seems to me wrong, when we are living in times when there is some indication of the approach of anarchy and power is being taken away from Parliament and from the law, for Parliament to introduce a law of which it can be said that the law is an ass because it cannot be enforced. I believe that for that reason apart from any question of statistics as to whether or not seat belts preserve life, it ought to be taken into consideration by the House when Considering this Amendment.
5.25 p.m.
LORD MONSON: My Lords, in supporting the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I will, like him, try not to reiterate the arguments, mainly ethical but partly practical, which I advanced at Committee stage, but to move on to fresh ground. I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foot, in querying the analogy made by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, between the compulsory wearing of seat belts and the taking of hard drugs. First, I believe I am right in saying that in fact it is not the consumption of hard drugs which is the offence, but the possession of drugs—the distinction is subtle but important. Secondly, cocaine and heroin, I understand, are frequently taken by schoolchildren; and recently we have heard of children who started taking drugs at 15 and were dead by the age of 18. I think we all agree that it is society's duty to protect young people in this way. So far as LSD and amphetamines are concerned these frequently incite the person to commit violent crimes. Again, where third parties are liable to suffer, it is quite acceptable for the State to interfere.
My Lords, to take up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot: as I understand it it is not entirely true to say that there can be no ill effects from the wearing of crash helmets. I have been given to understand that in certain cases there is evidence of whiplash injury being caused to the neck from the sudden braking and deceleration of a motor
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cycle, because of the weight of the helmet. I agree that these are very small in proportion to the benefits conferred, but they do exist.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, I have read the excellent and interesting booklet Road Accidents in Great Britain during 1972 published by the Department of the Environment, but unlike him I have drawn entirely different conclusions, which only goes to show that statistics can mean anything according to how one interprets them. For instance, we see that road deaths in Britain per head of population per vehicle are, together with those in Norway, the lowest among the twenty-two countries surveyed, thereby confirming the observation made by my noble friend Lady Macleod a fortnight ago that, "in these days very few people on the roads are absolute fools; indeed there are very rarely any fools at all". However, if one extracts pedestrian deaths and considers them in isolation, this country does not come out so well. Pedestrian deaths here are proportionately roughly equal to those in Italy, while those in Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United States are lower than in this country. I shall return to the significance of these pedestrian casualties in relation to the compulsory wearing of seat belts in a minute.
The survey goes on to suggest that about 400 deaths were saved during 1972 by the use of seat belts. This is no surprise to those of us who oppose compulsion. We recognise, on balance, that they do more good than harm. But this estimate does one thing: it very usefully knocks on the head the more wildly exaggerated claims made by advocates of compulsion. Less than three weeks ago the chief safety engineer of British Leyland was claiming in the Press that 1,500 lives would be saved annually if the wearing of seat belts was made compulsory. One can now see that this widely reported estimate was almost four times the actual figure. Of course, even as few as 400 premature deaths are to be deplored, but let us get the figure in perspective. Let us start by disposing of the purely financial aspects. This survey, Road Accidents in Great Britain, puts the cost to society of a fatal road accident at £23,000. This figure is somewhat inflated in that it includes

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what the survey admits to be purely subjective elements such as pain, grief and suffering.
Noble and learned Lords will correct me if I am wrong, but I have always understood that in English law no monetary value could be attributed to grief or suffering. However, let us give the survey the benefit of the doubt and accept this estimate of £23,000. It so happens that The Times supplement on Australia on June 5 reported that the cash value to Australia of a fully educated immigrant is estimated by the Australian Department of Immigration at £10,000. The logical corollary to be drawn is that the loss to the British Exchequer of the emigration of fully educated people is also £10.000 per head. If one wishes to subordinate human freedom to a profit and loss account coldly calculated consideration, then the Exchequer would save more by emulating the Eastern bloc and forbidding the immigration of 1,000 or more skilled workers than it would by making seat belts compulsory.
Even for those who disdain such financial considerations but believe that the State has a duty, in so far as is possible, to ensure that citizens die peacefully in their beds, the saving of 400 lives per annum by making seat belts compulsory is small beer compared with what would be achieved by other forms of restriction and coercion; not only by forbidding mountain climbing, pot-holing, boxing, steeple-chasing, and so on, but by banning cigarette smoking completely, or by severely restricting the consumption of alcohol, and not only in connection with driving.
More relevant to the matter under discussion is the whole question of motor cycling. The survey reveals that motor cyclists are no less than 27 times as likely to be killed as motorists. By banning all forms of motorised two-wheel transport other than mopeds, one could almost certainly save more than 400 lives a year. Against this, our export trade would be severely hit, unemployment in the Midlands would escalate, the present troubles at the Meriden Works would resemble by comparison the proverbial vicarage tea-party, and a large number of people would be deprived of a cheap form of transport and an enjoyable form of recreation—
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though undoubtedly a somewhat dangerous one.
But as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, so rightly said 12 days ago, on the notable occasion when the House was debating the Report of the Select Committee on Sport and Leisure, the acceptance of risk must be a matter of personal choice taken when one is well aware of it. It is up to the individual to choose the risks he takes. Accidents are bound to occur occasionally, and when unhappily they do, it is wrong to put the whole spirit of the daring in reverse, from a failure to retain a sense of proportion. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was speaking about mountain climbing, but his remarks apply equally, I submit, to motor cycling and other forms of dangerous sport.
I want to move on from comparisons, from the strictly libertarian argument, to suggest why compulsion may in some respects be positively harmful. In the first place, despite the undoubted overall benefits of seat belts, it is a fact that 211 drivers and front seat passengers were killed in 1972 while actually wearing seat belts—over 8 per cent. of the total. From reports of inquests we know that seat belts have acutally caused deaths in at least a few cases. I am sorry to have to contradict the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, but this is recorded fact. Surely it is up to the individual to decide whether he or she wishes to take the relatively greater risk of being hurled through the windscreen through not wearing a seat belt, or the lesser but still real and even more frightening risk of being trapped in a blazing car through not being able to release the buckle of the seat belt. As the Daily Telegraph writes to-day in a leading article:
"Let the motorists make their own judgment, for how can the State know better?"
Even more important is the worrying question of the relatively high incidence of pedestrian casualties in this country, compared with some others. To put this into perspective, no fewer than 3,083 pedestrians were killed in 1972, almost eight times as many as the non-seat belt wearers. Of these, 320, over 10 per cent., were children between the ages of 5 and 9 years. There exists a school of thought which believes that ideally the car driver

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should feel as vulnerable as the pedestrian, for the optimum safety of the latter. Experimental cars for use in towns are usually designed with no bonnet or other projection between the driver and the road, for this very reason. One may add to this the undoubted fact that many drivers feel excessively secure and relaxed when wearing a seat belt, to the extent of being inattentive—day-dreaming if you like. Given the tendency of children of the 5 to 9 years age group to dart out from behind parked cars, and the consequent absolute necessity of a split-second reaction from the driver if an accident is to be avoided, is it not arguable that compulsion may indeed save the lives of a number of drivers and passengers, but at the expense of a few unfortunate pedestrians?
I have received a mass of telegrams and messages of support from a wide variety of institutions—the Royal Automobile Club, the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, the Motorcycle Action Group, the Society for Individual Freedom; and also from a great many impassioned private individuals. After all, there are a great many ways of improving road safety which involve neither restrictions on personal liberty nor the expenditure of taxpayers' money. If we were engaged in a general debate on road safety, I would happily spend 20 minutes expounding these to your Lordships, but to-day we are discussing the subject of compulsion.
Every now and again this House has the opportunity to demonstrate to the public at large in a forceful way its essential common sense and concern for the freedom of the individual. I believe to-day is one of those occasions. I hope your Lordships will give massive support to this Amendment in the Division Lobby.
5.36 p.m.
LORD ELTON: I was afraid that the longer the discussion went on on this Amendment, the fewer of your Lordships would be here to deal with the next one. One point of fact was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Bealieu, amongst others, and I think it should be answered. The point was raised whether there was anyone about who would have been killed had he worn a seat belt. My Lords, I stand before you. I ordered safety belts eight or ten years ago. Before they were
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delivered I was involved in a major car crash. I was not severely injured. My car was; in fact it was written off. When I went back, the space between the driving seat and the ceiling of the car on that side was 8 inches, and had I been wearing a scat belt, I would have been dead, and it would no doubt have saved everyone a lot of trouble. I would add this before it is sprung on us as an argument in favour of the Amendment, that had I had seat belts fitted, I should have been wearing them voluntarily, so I should still be dead. So I do not think the Amendment would have affected my survival in any way whatsoever.
LORD SOMERS: I was not in the Chamber to hear the speech of the mover of the Amendment, but I should like to say something on the question of seat belts. Much has been made of the fact that the wearing of seat belts is not enforceable. There are more rules concerned with motoring and road traffic that are not enforceable, than there are rules that are enforceable. So I do not think one really needs to take a lot of notice of that. Then, of course, the perennial argument about the liberty of the individual, the liberty to do whatever he likes, however absolutely crackpot it may be and whatever disadvantages it may cause to anyone else has been raised. That is an argument of which I am heartily sick and tired. This question of compulsory wearing of seat belts is supported very strongly by the Institute of Advanced Motorists.
I would point out one aspect of this matter to your Lordships. No doubt, if one is to press the argument about the liberty of the individual, one has liberty either to kill oneself through carelessness or to injure oneself severely, but there is something else to consider in this case. What about one's wife or one's husband? If one kills oneself, it would be a bitter blow, but not perhaps an eternal one. If one injures oneself severely, then one's wife or husband has to look after one for the rest of one's life, and that, to my way of thinking, is an extremely selfish and idiotic thing to do.
5.40 p.m.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, last year I asked a Question which was answered by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and at least he

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will remember it. It concerned the wearing of safety belts when in the cabs of lorries. The Answer to the Question was very unsatisfactory, because I gathered the reason why people in the cabs of lorries did not get the opportunity of having a seat belt to wear was that the cabs were not strong enough, and the loads came through them. Since this might squash the driver, if he had a seat belt he might not be able to jump so quickly out of the lorry. I support the wearing of seat belts. They prevent brain injuries, of which I have seen far too many. Anything that will prevent them is a good thing. I would ask the Minister whether, if the law to wear seat belts in cars is enforced, he is going to do anything about strengthening the cabs of lorries, and therefore making more safety precautions for commercial vehicles?
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, before the Minister answers, may I speak very briefly. I have pondered long about intervening in these matters, but we are discussing life and death, or rather life and pain, which to me is far more important. What has finally decided me is the remarks of the High Court judge which we heard so much about to-day, and a report in my local paper, the Bucks Examiner, where a headline reads:
"Car's seat belt caused girl's death in crash, pathologist tells inquest."
Both reports appear on the same day. I could instance the case of a noble Lord whose spine was broken in two places over 40 years ago before seat belts were invented. If they had been and I had been wearing one, I should certainly have been dead. The noble Lord says it may have saved my life by making me incapable for combat, and he may well be right at that. But "three swallows do not make a summer", and no doubt countless other examples in a contrary sense could be found.
What finally convinced me was The Times report of June 5, quoted, I think, by the noble Viscount Lord Mountgarrat, that the number of car drivers receiving fatal or severe head injuries in crashes is not reduced by wearing safety belts. This is the opinion of Mr. A. E. Gratton and Mr. J. A. Hobbs of the Transport Road Research Laboratory. They should know, if anyone does. Anyway, much as I dislike the idea of being killed or
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severely injured, I would dislike still more the idea of being unable to get out of a car and being burnt alive. These are the practical reasons why I am against making compulsory the wearing of seat belts.
The other reason is that I agree wholeheartedly with the learned judge when he speaks of the invasion of the individual's freedom of choice, just as I disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, when he said in Committee:
"Some people have to be saved from themselves".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11/6/74, col. 378.]
I have never been so shocked by any remark in your Lordships' House. It is to me the negation of all I stand for. As the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, said in Committee:
"I usually wear one, but I object to the element of compulsion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11/6/74, col. 370.]
That is my view. I usually do not wear a belt, and I believe both of us have an inalienable right to do as we please. To end may I quote once more from the learned judge:
"Without the sanction of Parliament, and perhaps even with it, I do not feel that the courts are justified in invading freedom of choice."
My Lords, let us not give that sanction.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I intervene briefly, simply as Chairman of the Motoring Club in your Lordships' House.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if the noble Earl will permit me, we have been on this Amendment, now since a quarter-past four and I think this is the fourth time we have had a debate on this subject. It is a matter entirely for the House as to how it wishes to conduct this debate, which I know is very important. We have a number of other Amendments on this Bill in which I know many noble Lords are particularly interested. My only fear is that if we go on too long this will make discussion of the other Amendments even more difficult. It is entirely a matter for the House itself to take a view, but seems to me, taking into account all the other business that we have and the time that we have spent on this Amendment, that we ought in the interests of further consideration of this Bill to bring this discussion shortly to a close.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I say that while I agree very much with what the noble Lord the Leader of the House says, several noble Lords have taken much trouble and care and feel deeply on this matter. I suggest that, with a limited number of speeches, we go on for half-an-hour or so.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, what I am going to say will take about a minute. The longer this debate goes on the more it seems entirely wrong to force people to wear seat belts. I have great pleasure in supporting the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye.
5.46 p.m.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I apologise very much to your Lordships' House, and I appreciate very much what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd has said. I remained silent in order to let as many noble Lords as possible speak, because this question has generated an enormous amount of interest since I moved the Amendment in Committee. I felt, therefore, it was possibly correct that before saying anything further I should wait until everybody had had a chance to speak. I am sorry that the discussion has gone on so long, but with your Lordships' permission, I would draw attention to one or two points raised this afternoon and try to co-ordinate them in such a way that noble Lords can best see them.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell mentioned the word "freedom" in Committee. He said:
"Freedom means being able to pursue a course of conduct which is not going to have adverse effects on other people".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11/6/74; Col. 375.]
He was, of course, entirely and absolutely right; that is exactly what I said in Committee. We must have laws to see that other people do not suffer, but we must not have laws which affect the individuals themselves. We must have freedom of the individual to choose for himself what he wants to do. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said that he did not accept the point that because there may well be difficulty in enforcing a law it is therefore unwise to make the law. I find that really a remarkable statement. It surely must be extremely wrong to make such laws. For instance, there was a report in a newspaper not so long ago in which
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the right honourable Member for West Ham, North—a Member, I may say, of the Labour Party—was reported as saying that the fact is that the police are snowed under by bureaucracy and cannot cope. My Lords, do not let us do something else which will aggravate that situation. I can see no justification at all for this.
The noble Lord went on to say that it was calculated that some £40 million a year might be saved to the National Health Service if all drivers wore seat belts. This may very well be true; I am sure the figures are as accurate as they can be on a subject like this. But let us think of something else. Let us think of smoking, for example. I wonder how many millions of pounds a year are spent by the Health Service trying to patch up people who have ruined their health by smoking; and yet there is no law to stop smoking, at vast expense to the consumer. There is a "Warning by Her Majesty's Government" that "smoking can damage your health". We try to encourage people not to smoke, and I am sure that that is an excellent thing to do, but we do not make a law saying, "You will not smoke". As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said—and I think this is one of the strongest points— "Thou shalt do something" and "Thou shalt not do something". This is very important.
Evidence of belts not reducing fatal or severe head injuries has been mentioned by noble Lords. This is a fact, and if we make the wearing of seat belts compulsory we may tarnish our reputation as legislators in that we will insist on making people do something which will kill them or injure them, and we must not do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, asked whether we were having a philosophical discussion on freedom or a discussion on seat belts. I submit that we are possibly having a philosophical discussion, not so much about seat belts but about Government as a whole.
One noble Lord said that people in this country are very law abiding. It is perfectly true that they are, so long as they can see that it is for the good of others. People do not like having good done to them. Nanny always said to us: "Come along, dear, it is time for you to drink your milk of magnesia.

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It will do you good." We did not like being done good to, then, and we do not like it now, and I do not think that we ought to do good to other people "in their own interests". The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, made a comparison between drugs and seat belts. With respect to him, I would suggest that although the law relating to drugs relates to people taking drugs and trying to protect their health, people who take drugs encourage the taking of them by other people. The point is that if we stop people taking drugs themselves, we are helping to stamp out the encouragement of drug taking by the third party. That again illustrates my point that we must have laws to help a third party, but not for the individual.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, is not the noble Viscount perhaps "flogging" this issue too far? He has had the very strong advice from the Leader of the House that we have argued this endlessly not only to-day but on earlier occasions. I think that the feeling of the House is that we have probably had all the arguments. I wonder whether the noble Viscount would feel that perhaps he could draw to a close?
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, may I make two very quick points—
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, having asked one noble Lord to sit down, and having had the acceptance of the House in this, I wonder whether really it is wise for others to get up?
5.52 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think that some 18 Members of your Lordships' House have spoken this afternoon. I want to repeat something that my noble friend Lord Stow Hill said, because it is extremely important. Wearing a seat belt can reduce the risk of death or serious injury overall by nearly half. I hope that all your Lordships will bear that in mind, because that is the conclusion reached as a result of considerable research by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. I doubt whether there is a Member of your Lordships' House who does not respect the conclusions that that body comes to as a result of the research it undertakes.
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How far have we got with persuasion? It has been said this afternoon that we began seeking to persuade people in January, 1965. Since that time we have secured the fitting of seat belts in 80 per cent. of motor cars on the road. Up to 1973 we had spent £1,700,000 on publicity campaigns to persuade those who have seat belts compulsorily fitted in their cars to use them. And yet the sad truth is that at maximum we have only been able to encourage something like 30 per cent., at the highest, to use them. There was a short break in the advertising campaign and, as a result, there was a fall off from 30 per cent. to 20 per cent. in the number using their seat belts. To-night, a new TV campaign is being started again at a cost of £850,000 to persuade people to use seat belts. It is unfortunately all too likely that this campaign will not do much more than sustain the present low wearing rate, or raise it temporarily by more than a few per cent. This is an extremely disappointing response to all the effort that has been put in to persuade people of the value of wearing seat belts. I would say in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that we have been under some pressure, including that from the Automobile Association, to deal with this matter. The noble Earl nods his head.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, on a point of order, may I say that I am nothing to do with the Automobile Association.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I appreciate that the noble Earl was speaking on behalf of the R.A.C., and I think that the point of view of the other main motoring organisation ought to be quoted. The question is raised as to the respect which such legislation would command. I hoped to have more time to detail what has happened in Australia, where they have had compulsory legislation dating back to 1971. Briefly, there has been a reduction of 15 per cent. in serious cases, and a dramatic fall in admissions to hospitals for head and back injuries. As a result of this, the Australians have been encouraged overwhelmingly to use the seat belts that have been inserted in their cars.
What is it that we can anticipate by way of benefit in this country? Allowing for the casualty reductions that are already attributable to wearing seat belts, it is estimated that an extra 1,200 lives

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could be saved and a further 11,000 serious accidents avoided each year if the 70 per cent. who do not bother to wear seat belts could be induced to do so. In sheer economic terms, terms of lost production and of costs to the Health Service, we should be saving something like £40 million a year, but in terms of suffering to the victims, and to those who love them or depend on them, the cost is incalculable.
The clause would give this Government, and indeed any Government—and the Front Bench opposite have been in agreement—powers to take steps to prevent such casualties. If Parliament grants these powers this year, then consultations can begin about such aspects as exemptions, for which the clause makes full provision, with a view to making regulations before the end of 1975.
I have information here that I could use to reply to the many questions that have been asked. I think your Lordships would not want me to pursue them unduly. I will give the undertaking that, in so far as I have been asked detailed questions, I will see that the information is passed on to those who asked for it. I trust that the House will resist this Amendment and will secure this clause within the Bill, because it is indeed a measure intended—and we can be as sure of this as we can of almost anything we do—to save life and prevent serious injury.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before the Minister sits down may I ask whether he is proposing to reply to the question that I raised on Committee stage, for which purpose I specifically put down my name to this Amendment? In his speech from the Box this afternoon he has not in fact replied to the question I raised. He has offered to reply in writing, as he did last time, and his reply in writing is nothing more nor less than a statement of the Department of the Environment's view. I asked a specific question, and I think that I am entitled at this stage to an answer.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I can add nothing to the letter I wrote to the noble Lord.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I shall be brief, since I sense that the House
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wants to come to a decision on this matter. I do not want to go into arguments as to the merits, so ably put forward on both sides, but as I was responsible in the last Government for this clause in your Lordships' House I should like to make my position clear. Your Lordships will recall that this clause was not in our original Bill. It was an Amendment put down at the Report stage by my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and two other colleagues and was similar to what is now contained in Clause 7. Our position when we were in Government was that we were anxious to consult as widely as possible and to have the views of both Houses of Parliament before we came to a decision. We were therefore prepared to accept the Amendment of my noble friend, which provided enabling powers and did not prejudice in any way the final decision, which was left to the negative procedure; and, again, we left the final decision in the hands of both Houses of Parliament.
We then listened to what your Lordships had to say in the last debate and the weight of opinion on that occasion was very much in favour of this clause and of compulsory seat belts: some 12 speakers spoke for compulsion with four against, and the Amendment was accepted without a Division. Then we lost Office and had no more to do with it. All I should like to say from this Front Bench is that we came to no final decision. Many of us were convinced, one way or the other, of what was correct; but so far as this debate to-day is concerned we shall vote as individuals, taking our own lines as to what is right and what is wrong. I shall vote against the Amendment because I believe, from the arguments I have heard, that the case for compulsion in this matter, subject to certain exemptions or exceptions, is made out.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I shall not stand between the House and the Division Lobby for more than a moment. The question has been well and truly argued from both sides and I am grateful to noble Lords who have put their views on both sides of the case. The only noble Lord I am sorry for is Lord Stow Hill. He put up a number of ninepins and one after the other they

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were knocked down. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, and also the noble Viscount, Lord Mountgarret, knocked down the one about drugs. The rest have been knocked down, and the poor man has been left with very little to the arguments which he put forward.
Referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said, there is no analogy between crash helmets and what we are discussing to-day. I do not know of anyone who has ever been hurt by wearing
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
a crash helmet. I do know people who have been hurt by wearing belts. I thank the Minister for his reply. It was an admirable reply of general contentions, supported by no arguments or facts, to which I listened with great interest. I hope we shall now go to a Division.
6.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 79; Not-Contents, 72.

CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Elles, B.

Monson, L.

Amherst, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mountevans, L.

Amulree, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mountgarret, V. [Teller.]

Arran. E.

Erskine, of Rerrick, L.

Moyne, L.

Atholl, D.

Falmouth, V.

Onslow, E.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Ferrers, E.

Platt, L.

Barrington, V.

Feversham, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Foot, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Belstead, L.

Gainford, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Berkeley, B.

Gladwyn, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Bledisloe, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Helens, L.

Boothby, L.

Halsbury, E.

St. Just, L.

Bourne, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sandys, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Howe, E. [Teller.]

Selsdon, L.

Brecon, L.

Killearn, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Kindersley, L.

Shannon, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Sharples, B.

Caccia, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Slater, L.

Cathcart, E.

Long, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Loudoun, C.

Strathspey, L.

Clwyd, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Tenby, V.

Daventry, L.

Luke, L.

Thomas, L.

Davidson, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Verulam, E.

de Clifford, L.

Mansfield, E.

Vivian, L.

Derwent, L.

Meston, L.

Wise, L.

Dundee, E.

Milverton, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Dundonald, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Reigate, L.

Addison, V.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Rhodes, L.

Arwyn, L.

Grenfell, L.

Roberthall, L.

Auckland, L.

Hacking, L.

Rochester, L.

Avebury, L.

Hale, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Balogh, L.

Hall, V.

St. Davids, V.

Bernstein, L.

Hanworth, V.

Sandford, L.

Birk, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Seear, B.

Brayley, L.

Henderson, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Burntwood, L.

Henley, L.

Somers, L.

Byers, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Stamp, L.

Chesham, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Stow Hill, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Lyell, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cowley, E.

Mais, L.

Darwen, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Vernon, L.

Denham, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Walston, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Duncan-Sandys, L.

Norwich, V.

Wheatley, L.

Elton, L.

O'Hagan, L.

White, B.

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

Phillips, B.

Wigg, B.

Reay, L.

Windlesham, L.

Feather, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Fulton, L.

Redesdale, L.

6.15 p.m.
LORD ELTON LORD ELTON moved Amendment No. 3:
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 be 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: Most of your Lordships would agree with the late Sir Winston Churchill that, "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war". But I believe most of your Lordships feel that it is a great deal less good than a drink before dinner, and I shall therefore be as brief as I can. In the recent past we have discussed the pros and cons of the Amendment which I place before your Lordships for your attention. I said then that we had been waiting 40 years for the effects of the Amendment brought in by my father in 1934 and now, in case this should go against me, I offer through the columns of Hansard my affectionate good wishes to my son in the year 2014. But I hope they will not be needed for this occasion.
In the earlier debate, I drew the attention of your Lordships to the fact that the Road Traffic Act 1972 and the Statutory Instruments in the past laid down the acceptable maxima of noise emitted by motor vehicles and the means of ascertaining it. It was agreed that this was largely honoured in the breech. I put it to your Lordships that the Noise Advisory Council was right in saying that the only way of getting an effective control of the noise made by vehicles was to establish testing stations, and that the Minister had the power to do so, but that it was not yet used. I said that a date was needed on which that power should become compulsory on the Minister, and by amending
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the Act of 1972 the Amendment would ensure that it was put into action.
In his reply, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, made a number of points, which I have now had time to consider, and on which I should like your Lordships' indulgence while I briefly answer them. He said that no maxima were prescribed for the Ministry of Transport's annual test for heavy goods vehicles, but that maxima were prescribed for vehicles in use. These, however, are not effective because the means of testing are not yet satisfactorily available, and the Amendment would ensure that the means do become available. The noble Lord further said that the British Standards Institution's test of noise levels of new vehicles required precise conditions which were not suitable for large-scale testing. But these standards and methods are laid down by Statutory Instrument and can therefore be changed by Statutory Instrument without Parliamentary debate. So that the standard of the British Standards Institution, which is used in this case, is used as a matter of convenience and not obligatorily by the Minister who can substitute other standards if he wished. My Lords, we are not concerned here with the decibel ratings of acceptable noise; at this stage we are only concerned that such maxima should exist and should be enforced. The Secretary of State finds the criteria and the methods of establishing them an obstacle in his path. This Amendment will encourage the Secretary of State to remove that obstacle, and therefore that argument is one not to reject the Amendment but to accept it.
If I go fast, my Lords, I hope that I shall be forgiven, because I sense that it is the will of the House. The question of the actual date to be inserted in the Amendment arises and if the noble Lord feels, with the advice he has had, that 18 months hence is too soon I am more than sympathetic to that; perhaps two years or even three years would be acceptable. If in his reply he asks me to do so, I shall be more than ready to ask the Chair to accept a revision of the Amendment so as to insert the date of July 1, 1977, if that will help the noble Lord. I am glad to concede that, but I cannot concede that the complication of the noise tests, as it exists at the moment, is a sufficient reason for standing still on the whole matter. The difficulty of devising a simple noise test was advanced by the

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noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, at the Committee stage as a reason for rejecting the Amendment. But immediately afterwards the force of that argument was much reduced by his saying that in the case of diesel engine vehicles a stationary and simple test was already devised.
At this stage I should like to express to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, who is now at the wicket my appreciation of his great patience and kindness and of the time spent in discussing this matter with his advisers earlier to-day. During that, I gathered that the diesel testing device is simple to operate and, indeed, mobile. Supported by similar equipment at test stations, it seems to me that what already exists would very nearly meet the requirements of this Amendment as it stands. Surely a date can, therefore, be found.
My Lords, I have very briefly, and I hope not too succinctly, recapitulated almost all the Committee stage arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, on the Government's behalf, and I hope I have shown that those arguments either have little force or, in some cases, have a force in favour of acceptance of this Amendment. There was one more point made, however, to which I believe many of your Lordships will take as strong, as particular and as principled an objection as I did. It was the last point. The noble Lord said that the question of vehicle noise control was under examination by the E.E.C., and he continued:
"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".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11/6/74, col. 402.]
In considering these words, I am instantly aware of two considerations. The first is that a large and increasing volume of heavy-goods vehicle traffic consists of so-called juggernauts coming from the E.E.C. countries, who, together with us, are considering the problem at the present; and I feel that if any vehicles ought to be controlled then it is these, first on grounds of practical necessity and in common every-day fairness to the British people, who live under their shadow, as it were, at the roadside. but that is an emotional reaction, and perhaps a little superficial, and I do not want to make too much of it. The
1372
other consideration is more profound and more important, and it is this. If we are to sit back with our hands folded and wait for every piece of our own legislation on such trivia as even this to be decided for us in Europe, then I think not only will our own dignity be affronted, not only will our Parliament atrophy, but we shall be missing a golden opportunity into the bargain.
I was under the impression that we were in Europe to lead it; and, whether we wish to be in Europe or not, a lead is something that we should give. It seems to me that here is a question concerning the quality of life, particularly the quality of life in our cities, which we cannot afford, and must not be content, to let others who live outside these shores decide for us. If our standards turn out to be higher than theirs, so much the better: it is up to them to conform with us, and not the other way about.
My Lords, we are under stress of time. I see the noble Lord opposite looking anxiously at me, anticipating my subsidence on to the Back-Bench again, where I belong, probably. I would therefore ask those, if there are any such, who wish to support me to speak for not more than five minutes, and any of those who wish to speak on the other side to speak for not more than three minutes. I beg to move.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to support this Amendment, but I really do not know whether I am in order to do so since I do not have a copy of it in front of me, there being a printers' strike at the moment. My noble friend has been kind; I now have a copy. I support this Amendment entirely. It is time we did something about noise on the road. It is absolutely shattering sometimes. I think there is one point that should be emphasised, and that is that any vehicle makes more noise when accelerating than when merely cruising. Therefore, any tests that are made as to the noise that is being emitted at that time should take that point into consideration. But no doubt those who organise the tests will be perfectly competent to see to that. I strongly support this Amendment.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, may I add one word to what has been said? I apologise for speaking, as

1373
the second Cross-Bencher, when the feeling of the House is that we should get on with it, but I think that noise is one of the aspects of pollution which it is most difficult and most important to control. My mind goes back 25 years, and it seems to me that there were then immense risks that we were to make our life almost intolerable, particularly through vehicles on the roads; and those of us who had had experience of other parts of the world, whether in Mexico, in Italy, in Spain or, indeed, in Paris, realised what tremendous risks we in this country were running. Since then we have held the ford more successfully than I expected, but we are proposing to spend large sums of money to attempt, at any rate, to abate the noise of aircraft. It seems to me ludicrous that we should not take this opportunity to do something that may help. However few statistics one can produce in support of this Amendment, I hope that your Lordships will support it, if necessary in the Lobby.
LORD LYELL: My Lords, I seek to add my support to this Amendment, as I understand that it is a relatively simple operation to bring into force the requirements of the existing Ministry of Transport test, which I am given to understand is applicable to heavy-goods vehicles. I understand that the Minister in another place is considering making testing for defective silencers and the incidence of noise in motor cars a requisite of the annual Ministry of Transport test for motor vehicles over the age of two years. So far as I am aware, all the silencers on new cars are approved and are efficient, and, also so far as I am aware, they meet all the E.E.C. Regulations. It would therefore seem to me to be a relatively simple request to make that this efficiency of new silencers should indeed be maintained and that effective measures to reduce the incidence of noise in all motor vehicles, however old they arc, should be enforced, because it is a law which can be very easily, conveniently and effectively enforced. I cannot see that speed, or any form of effective transport with an efficient engine, requires noise. It is for that reason that I am glad to add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, speaks with
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speed, and he has marshalled his arguments very well. I may say that we have done our best to appreciate the stand that he has taken on this matter, and I have listened with interest to what those noble Lords who have spoken in support of the Amendment have had to say. The difference between the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the Government is over means, not over ends. We are all after less noise from traffic, and as soon as possible. If we are to keep an environment fit to live in, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, himself said, measures must be taken to deal with this problem. The question for discussion is: what measures will give us the best results quickest, and the best value for money?
In the Government's view the matter has to be tackled on three levels. First, there is the setting of standards which will limit the amount of noise which vehicles may produce. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said, we already have a set of limits covering all vehicles, but many people think they are not severe enough, and the Government share this view. We are therefore discussing with our European Community partners to what extent vehicle noise limits can be reduced. The Council of Ministers has set a deadline of October 1 this year for reaching agreement on this matter.
Secondly, there is the problem of ensuring that vehicles meet the standards when they are first built. The House is making a major contribution to improving the powers available to the Government in this field by agreeing to the clause on type-approval in this present Road Traffic Bill. For the first time in this country this will give a general power to ensure that vehicle manufacturers produce for sale in this country only vehicles which comply with the legal requirements, including noise limits. When these powers become law the Government intend to introduce the scheme as fast as possible. Thirdly, there is the problem of ensuring that vehicles meet the legal requirements once they come into use on the road. That is what the noble Lord is concerned with and what he wants to achieve through his Amendment.
When we are considering noise on the road—"in-use enforcement" as it is called in the jargon—we are faced with a very difficult problem. This is the problem of how to measure noise. Noise is in

1375
fact very difficult to measure in a way which will give consistent, repeatable results, since it is very dependent on the circumstances in which it is measured. While we are all anxious to repress unnecessary noise, we must at the same time be fair to the motorist and the haulier: a method of test which did not give consistent repeatable results would not merely create injustice between different motorists and hauliers, but would also bring the whole attempt to enforce this type of requirement into disrepute.
It is for this reason that the two tests which are laid down in the present Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations specify very precisely the conditions in which the test is to be carried out. This involves a number of matters, such as the size of the testing ground, its surface, what obstructions there may be around it, and how many people there may be near the microphone. The British Standard test also specifies the speed and gear at which the vehicle must be driven. There are two inevitable results of all this: first, it is not practicable to test more than a small number of vehicles by these methods; and secondly, the established tests are not suitable for large-scale in-use enforcement.
The question arises: what are the Government doing about this? The first answer is that we are developing new methods of test which can be used for large-scale enforcement. For diesel engines, the Department of the Environment's engineers have already produced a test which can be administered while the vehicle is stationary. Although this cannot take into account the noise generated by the tyres, or the noise resulting from a loose load, it can deal with engine noise—the worst source of noise on most vehicles. This has been incorporated into a draft amendment to the Regulations, which has been circulated for comment to interested organisations. I can promise the House that, subject to the normal procedure for Satutory Instruments, we shall see the new test in operation well before the deadline set in Lord Elton's new clause. This test method is not suitable for petrol engines, since it relies on the presence of an engine speed governor to prevent the engine being damaged. Research is
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in hand to develop a way of dealing with this problem, but I cannot forecast when we will have usable results. However, we must remember that diesel engined vehicles—buses and lorries—are the main source of complaint.
The Government are also using their existing powers in other directions: first, noise tests are included in the certificate-of-fitness examinations for buses—and no bus may be used on stage services without this certificate. Secondly, the annual test for heavy goods vehicles includes a check on the silencer and exhaust system of all large lorries—and it is in this area that the bulk of the problems of noise due to poor maintenance arise. Finally, as my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell announced at Committee Stage, the Minister for Transport is considering including a similar check on exhaust systems as part of the annual M.O.T. test.
I am sorry that it has taken me so long to explain the action already being undertaken by the Government in this field. But I am sure the House would not wish met o ssvheotero shrdl cmhm not wish me to gloss over the very real practical difficulties facing us despite the pressure of time. But I do not wish to blur the fundamental issue: how are we going to make real progress with in-use enforcement? Basically as we see it, there are two methods by which we can tackle the problem. First, by periodic tests of all vehicles on the roads; or secondly, by spot-checks of vehicles which are prima facie in breach of noise limits. By requiring equipment to be provided as part of the stations used for the annual tests of vehicles, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has opted for the first of these methods. In the Government's view this is not the right approach. Rather than waste resources on testing the large bulk of vehicles which give no offence, the Government would prefer to test only those vehicles which seem to be in breach of requirements. For this reason, we feel that we have been right to give priority to the new Regulations for spot check tests of diesel engines. I feel, therefore, that it can fairly be said that the Government are pursuing the same ends as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, wants them to—and at least as fast as his Amendment is suggesting—but by a different enforcement system.

1377
To sum up, I would say that I sympathise entirely with Lord Elton's aim of improving enforcement, but I would say in reply to what he has said that his Amendment is not the best way of achieving this end. More flexible and cost-effective powers will be available through the new Regulations the Government have in hand and well within the timetable of the noble Lord's new clause. I therefore recommend that the House should not accept this clause.
6.37 p.m.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to that reply, and, with great respect, I am glad to hear that Her Majesty's Government are seeking to increase the rigidness of the standards of noise control within the E.E.C. That, of course, is not an argument against the Amendment. I am also glad to hear that the type-approval certification scheme will be enforced so that in future vehicles made after this Bill will conform to the standards which we require. That again is not an argument against the Amendment because these are all the vehicles already on the road. The noble Lord spoke of the problem of in-use enforcement, and that I accept is the most difficult problem we have to tackle. It is rather a question of the chicken or the egg. If you have not got the stations to test, there is no point in having the standards, and then when you are asking for a lower standard you are told that there is no station at which it can be enforced. The circle must be broken somewhere and I submit that this is the point at which it should be broken. It is a difficult problem and I have advanced the offer of putting the date of July 1, 1977, into the Amendment in place of the present date. When I sit down perhaps the noble Lord will tell me whether lie would wish to take up this suggestion. He shakes his head.
Then there is progress, we are told, in the testing of vehicles but this is not suitable for large-scale tests, and, since the choice is between periodic testing of all vehicles and spot-testing of individual vehicles the Government have come down on the side of spot-testing of individual vehicles. There is nothing in the Amendment which will prevent that going on. The noble Lord suggested that the wrong clause was amended in
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this Amendment because it came down on the side of blanket testing.
I am now going to advance to your Lordships a proposition which I think bears consideration. It is a proposition for the passing of this Amendment and it rests upon the peculiar standing of this House in the community at the moment, which results in the fact that the debates in this Chamber are not widely reported. I think noble Lords will agree that not only is my Amendment and the purpose of the Government identical but that the purpose of all of us is identical and it is a purpose which is accepted by the great majority of the citizens of this country. It is the control of vehicular noise. To get that control faster one needs pressure of public opinion. The public must be aware of the discussion, and it will he more aware of the discussion if it takes place in another place than if it takes place in this Chamber. Therefore, it is logical. I do not accept unreservedly that this Amendment is in the wrong clause, but I am saying this to those who have considered it and think that it is in the wrong clause; let it be threshed out there, because that will generate attention and support. Therefore, if noble Lords opposite do not wish to take up the offer which I extend to them, it only remains to me to move this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONFS): The Question is that Amendment No. 3 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content". To the contrary, "Not-Content". I think the "Contents" have it. Clear the Bar.
Tellers for the Not-Contents have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 51. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the "Contents" have it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Amendments relating to licensing of drivers of vehicles]:
6.44 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 19, line 10, at end insert—
"(dd) conferring powers on appellate courts to suspend orders of disqualification imposed by lower courts".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment goes with Amendments Nos. 12, 14 and 15, and in conjunction with those Amendments it enables appellate courts where an appeal is lodged, or where an application is made for leave to appeal, to suspend any disqualification imposed by lower courts. I believe your Lordships are already aware that where a driver is disqualified in a lower court the disqualification begins immediately and his licence is taken away from him. Where he gives immediate notice of intention to appeal—
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, on a point of Order. I am sorry, but I gather that my Amendment which was after Clause 22 has not been called. Is that correct?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I called Amendment No. 4 in the name of Lord Harris of Greenwich, and this Amendment is being dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I was dealing with the position where a driver is disqualified in a lower court. Unless he immediately gives notice of intention to appeal his licence is taken from him. This Amendment provides that where he subsequently gives notice to appeal, the appeal court is able to suspend the order of disqualification and he is able to use his licence until the appeal has been dealt with. This is largely a matter of routine. In operation, it ought to prove fairly automatic. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 22 [Experimental introduction of road humps for controlling vehicle speeds]:
6.47 p.m.
BARONESS MACLEOD or BORVE BARONESS MACLEOD or BORVE moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 31, line 2, at end insert—
"(aa) the width of the road surface shall be not less than 12 feet; and".
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I must apologise to the House. I had not seen the Amendment before mine. I shall not take up very much time on this Amendment. I am not at all keen about the possibility of having humps in the road, in any case, but as the Govern
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ment have put it into the Bill that humps should be at their apex five inches above the road, then it is also vital for local authorities that the width of the road that comes up to the apex of five inches should be defined in the Bill. I have taken 12 feet as being the footage, giving six feet on either side of the apex of five inches; that figure was given to me by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, at the Committee stage. I believe that this is terribly important, because, as we all know, local authorities, vary so much in the ways in which they implement even Acts of Parliament. So I hope that the Government will see fit to include the width of the road as well as the height of these humps if they are minded to go ahead with experimenting in the use of humps. My Lords I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, this is a rather technical matter. Briefly, a short hump affects smaller vehicles such as motor cycles rather more than larger vehicles such as lorries. With a long hump, the reverse is the case and 4 inches by 12 feet appears, in laboratory conditions, to be the most promising design. But these dimensions are not sacrosanct: they are inter-related in a rather complex way. A reduced height would allow a reduced length.
Subsection (7) of the clause prescribes a maximum height of 5 inches or a depth of 2 inches, as the noble Baroness will be well aware, and a shape which will not damage tyres. This sets statutory bounds to the nature of the device used, but these are experimental powers. Specifying a minimum length will not guarantee safety, which depends on a host of factors. What it will do is inhibit the design flexibility and so detract from the value of the experiments. Design is a technical matter; it must take account of conditions at each site.
The only practical way to proceed is by relying on the skill and experience of the Transport Road Research Laboratory. The whole object is safety, and it is the safety department of the T.R.L.L. that is carrying out this research. I want to emphasise the fact that the clause authorises only the Secretary of State to undertake experiments, and not any other authority. In practice, the T.R.R.L. will be responsible for the control of the experiments. These remarks apply to the

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present experimental proposals. If legislation is introduced later providing for the general use of humps, it will then be necessary to consider more stringent statutory safeguards. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel she has achieved a good deal of what she was aiming at, because I cannot advise the House to accept the Amendment.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord fot making me more aware of the difficulties, and the fact that it will be only at the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State that experiments with these humps will take place, and not local authorities. It would be an impossible situation if various local authorities were trying to carrying out their own experiments. With the assurance that that is not likely to happen, and that it is outside the province of what the Government are now aiming at, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH)THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH) moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 22 insert the following new clause:
Use of pyrotechnic flares by police for traffic purposes
.—(1) Notwithstanding anything in the Explosives Act 1875 or in any other enactment, a constable who is for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic in a road or any person acting under his authority may, on or in the vicinity of the road, light and use a flare for the purpose of regulating the traffic.
(2) In this section "flare" means a firework or other device designed to produce a light by a process of combustion."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think the House will agree that this is an extremely modest and non-controversial matter. For some years the police, particularly on motorways, have been using flares These are used where there is a substantial amount of fog. It is obviously highly desirable that this practice should continue. However, there is some ambiguity in the law here. Under Section 80 of the Explosives Act 1875 there is a provision which forbids the setting off of fireworks on a highway. We are removing in this Amendment the ambiguity in the law. I beg to move.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, my mind goes back 30 years ago, in 1944, when I was in Normandy.
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It so happened that in my previous "incarnation" in those days I was a subaltern with four General Sherman tanks. The tanks were positioned on either side of the road which I had been told was of vital importance—the usual story! If anybody came along I was told to fire a Very pistol and if I did not like the look of the chap to open fire at him. The only vehicle that come along in two or three days while we were at this post was when I happened to be on duty in the turret 'at about one o'clock in the morning. I fired my Very pistol towards the oncoming vehicle. The vehicle took fright and promptly went into a hedge not knowing what was about to come down on it. In the vehicle was no less a person than the corps commander who had no idea that he was coming along the road from the enemy side! I did not know whether I would be sent back to Britain, court martialled or recommended for a medal. In fact none of those things happened.
Thinking of that experience, if flares were used by the police on a dark night, or when dawn was just coming up, perhaps a driver of a motor car, rather stupidly, would be using only side lights and if the police did not illuminate themselves and just fired a flare at the vehicle, it might cause fright. The perfectly innocent driver might well drive off the road into a hedge. I should be grateful for reassurance on this point. If the police illuminate themselves, all well and good, but it should be borne in mind that firing a flare could be frightening to drivers.
BARONESS MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, will the flare be a continuous light? In the circumstances of fog, that would be helpful to motorists.
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I am sure that we do not want a situation where any motorist is put in the peril that the noble Lord's corps commander was in on that rather disagreeable occasion for him. As I understand it, when the flares are used they are pointed away from the highway. We are simply removing an ambiguity from the law. This practice of using flares has been going on for a substantial period of time and we want to remove this ambiguity to avoid difficulties for the police authorities who are continuing to use these flares. I cannot answer the

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point raised by the noble Baroness, at the moment, and I will discover it in due course.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, may I, with the leave of the House, ask whether the instructions to the police are to fire away from the vehicles?
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 25 [Variation of penalties for certain offences]:
6.57 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 33, line 13, at end insert—
"(6) Notwithstanding the preceding provisions of this section or Schedule 5 to this Act the following provisions of the 1972 Act, namely,
Section 2, section 5(1), section 5(2), section 6(1), section 6(2), section 9(3), section 25(4), and section 29 shall be deemed to be offences punishable with imprisonment for the purposes of:
Section 15, Criminal Justice Act 1972 (Community Service Orders)."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the story behind this Amendment is as follows. It is part of compound Amendments put down in the name of my noble friend Lord Janner at the Committee stage. In the event, he was unable to move the Amendments and they were taken over by my noble friend Lady Phillips. In the discussion that ensued there was considerable confusion. The Government's reply was mainly directed to arguing the point against retaining the magistrates' powers to imprison people for certain traffic offences. But that was not at issue in Lord Janner's original Amendments, and it is not at issue in the four Amendments which I am now moving, and to which I hope I may speak altogether.
The intention of these Amendments is not to retain the magistrates' powers of imprisonment, but to ensure that should that power be withdrawn there will not also lapse with it the power to impose certain other sentences, some of which are of a wholly non-custodial character. As the law now stands, and as the Bill now stands, withdrawing the power from magistrates to imprison for these traffic
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offences would have the result that they could no longer make orders for community service or for attendance at attendance centres. Also, they could no longer make orders under the Mental Health Act for hospital or guardianship orders. That is because those orders can be made, as the law now stands, only in the case of what are vulgarly known as imprison-able offences. But if the traffic offences cease to be imprisonable offences, the magistrates will lose the powers to impose these non-custodial orders. I should have thought that community service orders were very appropriate in the case of a number of traffic offences—for instance, the hit-and-run driver who does not report an accident or some of the cases of driving with excessive alcohol in the blood. I should also think that there was a special case for retaining the power to make an attendance centre order.
At Committee stage the Government pointed out that there are only two adult attendance centres in the country. I think not a great deal of use is made of them and there is some uncertainty as to what their particular function should be. But I would remind the House that the Penal Advisory Council, in their Report on Non-Custodial Offences, made a recommendation that one attendance centre, either one of the existing ones or a new one, should be set us to deal solely with motoring offences, and that it should provide a programme of instruction and guidance in motoring law, traffic manners and good driving. That recommendation was not accepted by the previous Government, although most of the Advisory Council's Report was in fact passed into law. So far the present Government have not made any reaction towards it. But it is desirable to keep the power for magistrates to send a motoring offender to an attendance centre, in the event that perhaps we shall some day have an attendance centre which is specifically designed to deal with cases of that kind.
Your Lordships will notice I have not retained from the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Janner a number of items which included custodial treatment. It would be wrong, if we are deprived in the magistrates' courts of the power to imprison persons, to retain the power to send persons to borstal, since one should

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perhaps not use a greater power of detention against young people than is used against their elders. If these Amendments are not accepted then the result will be, unless the same objective is reached by another road, that the magistrates' courts in dealing with serious traffic offences will be able only to impose a fine or to put the offender on probation or, in the case of an indictable offence, if the offender has a very bad record to send him up for sentence to the Crown Court. This seems to me to make the magistrates' function in relation to traffic offences almost ridiculously small.
It may well be that these Amendments are not the right way to achieve the object in view. I have taken over the drafting of my noble friend Lord Janner and accepted this rather roundabout way of achieving his object by saying that, for the purpose of these sentences, and no others, the traffic offences shall be deemed to be punishable by imprisonment—not that they should be imprisonable but that they should be deemed to be punishable by imprisonment, so that these particular types of order might still be imposed. I would add one word about the mental health order which is custodial because that is in a rather different position. The grounds there are different. The grounds for retaining the mental health order in the magistrates' court are that, although this is very seldom used, if it is used it is used in the case of a person whose mental disturbance is very obvious and severe, and the grounds are humane; namely, that in such a case where it is perfectly clear that a mental health order, that a hospital order or a guardianship order is the appropriate treatment, it is not humane that the person concerned should be made to go through the judicial process twice, first before the magistrates' court and subsequently before the Crown Court.
It may well be that the objective can be attained in another way, and if there is another way and the Government will indicate that they have some sympathy with my wish to retain the power to impose community service orders in the case of serious traffic offences, the power to impose attendance at an attendance centre, and the power to impose a hospital order under the Mental Health Act, with the supplementary power to order a remand for mental investigation,
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I shall be happy to withdraw these Amendments. But if they are resisted I would point out the disastrous consequences this would have on the newer forms of non-custodial treatment to which the Government are sympathetic and which have been tried out in recent years, apparently with considerable success. My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 7.
7.5 p.m.
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I will be brief because the Government are prepared to look at this particular set of issues raised by my noble friend in this set of Amendments. It is particularly appropriate that she spoke on this question of community service orders because she was, of course, Chairman of the Sub-Committee of the Advisory Council which recommended the introduction of these orders—a decision which was encompassed in the 1972 Criminal Justice Act and which the Government are considering extending. Given the fact that she was Chairman of this Committee, it is not appropriate for me to lecture her on the purpose of community service orders. I would defer to her rather superior judgment in this matter, except to say that she is aware that normally—and indeed this is the objective of the policy of the Home Office, and in the six probation areas where these schemes exist—this is seen as an alternative to imprisonment. We certainly do not wish to see community service orders as an alternative to probation. Nevertheless, the point the noble Baroness has raised in this debate is right and we are prepared to look at it. I cannot make a final commitment, which she will understand, but we will certainly look at it in another place when this Bill arrives there.
I think I may say the same so far as attendance centres are concerned. The position here is that, generally speaking, these are not available to the Crown Court; and this is one of the rare instances of a lower court having a power which the higher court does not have, largely because juveniles rarely appear in a Crown Court. But once again the noble Baroness has raised an important question here and we will look at it, as we will the question of hospital and guardianship orders—although these are used rarely; but in some situations no

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doubt they are appropriate. Again, without committing the Government finally, we will look at that question, too. The issue of arrest warrants and fine enforcement is a little more difficult, but I would not wish to spoil an otherwise agreeable evening.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I would point out that the particular question of arrest warrants is not in my Amendment.
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: In that case, my Lords, we are in even greater harmony than I thought. On the issues the noble Baroness has raised, the Government will be delighted to look at the matter, although again I cannot commit my right honourable friend in his final judgment.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's reply. I am torn about the basic question of the powers of the magistrates and power to imprison. I am torn between my dislike of imprisonment and my desire to see serious motoring offences treated seriously. I hope that that dilemma may be resolved by the Amendment to be moved next by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. But in view of the generous response of my noble friend Lord Harris to my particular Amendments, which do not imply retention of the power of imprisonment, I beg leave of the House to withdraw Amendment No. 7.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.10 p.m.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 11:
Leave out Clause 25.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like as briefly as possible to raise a point which I raised at the Committee stage and to pursue it a little further than I pursued it then. My object then, as is my object now, was to draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that this clause, No. 25, as it now is, has an effect and a result and a consequence which is not immediately apparent upon the surface as you read it. The apparent purpose, and indeed the real purpose of this clause, is to take away from magistrates the power of imprisonment for
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road traffic offences, with one exception only, namely, in the case of the person who drives while disqualified. That is what the clause primarily does. At the same time it steps up in Schedule 5 the financial penalties that can be imposed by magistrates. Thirdly, it leaves undisturbed and untouched the penalties which can be imposed by the Crown Court when a case is sent to the Crown Court by the magistrates. That is what the clause does and that is what it appears to do. But what I want to draw to your Lordships' attention is that the clause has another consequence. It goes not only to the question of what powers of punishment magistrates should have in road traffic offences but also to the question of when a defendant should have the right to elect to be tried by jury.
For the benefit of those who do not have the point, may I very briefly explain how it arises. For a certain purpose criminal offences in this country can be divided into three categories. First of all, there is the indictable offence which is triable before a judge and jury. At the other end of the scale there is the summary offence which in the ordinary way is only triable by the magistrates. In between there is what we call the intermediate offence which may be dealt with on indictment and, therefore, tried by judge and jury or may be dealt with by the magistrate. The only factor in the situation to which I want to direct attention is that in deciding whether a person is entitled to claim trial by jury, it has long been the basic test to ask whether, if he is dealt with before the magistrates, the magistrates have the power to send him to prison for a period in excess of three months. That has long been the test by which we decide whether a man should have the right to go for trial, and it is embodied in Section 25 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952. My Lords, that may or may not be a good test as to whether a man should have the right to go for trial. Some people may think that it is an arbitrary test and that it draws the line at an arbitrary point. But let us leave that on one side, if we may. That is the test as it stands at the moment.
How does this clause, which takes away from the magistrates the power to imprison for traffic offences, affect that matter of the right of trial by jury? It

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affects it in this way. If you take away from the magistrates all their powers of imprisonment for road traffic offences, except in the case of the person driving while disqualified, you take away those cases where at present the law says that the magistrates have power to send a man to prison for more than three months —usually four months. Therefore, in taking away from the magistrates the power to impose imprisonment at all, automatically at the same time you deprive the defendant, who hitherto has had the right to elect to go for trial by jury, of that right of election.
That is the spin-off effect of this clause which is intended to do something quite different. It has this very material effect. The effect of it is that in a number of so-called traffic offences, which I will not refer to but which are set out in Schedule 5, the law as it stands at the moment allows the magistrates to impose a penalty of four months' imprisonment. If this clause is passed, in those cases the defendant will be deprived of the right to go for trial by jury. I do not imagine that it will come as any surprise to your Lordships to learn that those cases where the magistrates can now impose a penalty of more than three months' imprisonment are exclusively offences of dishonesty. They are offences such as making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining a licence or making a false declaration for the purpose of obtaining insurance. They are serious offences of dishonesty.
My first submission to the House is that it is a serious matter to take away from a man or a woman the right to he tried by jury when he or she is charged with an offence of dishonesty. I suggest that that is a serious step for us to take. As I think everybody will recognise, if a person, especially a young person, is convicted of an offence of dishonesty, perhaps for the first time (indeed it is most serious when it is for the first time) it may ruin his career and may prevent him from ever following the kind of occupation he would like to follow because the occupation that he seeks to follow is one that requires complete integrity and an honest record. Therefore, this is a matter of great importance. I dare say that the House will remember the famous Archer Shee case of years and years ago when the Constitution was almost upset on the question of
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whether a naval cadet had stolen a postal order worth five shillings. However, there was a Bill of Rights in order to put the matter right. To deprive a person accused of a serious offence of dishonesty of the right to trial by jury is a serious matter. Let it be recognised that that is what we are doing under this clause.
The second reason why I suggest that this is a matter of very great importance is that if we pass this clause and deprive these people who are charged with offences of dishonesty which have some traffic connotation of the right to trial by jury, and leave to other people who commit offences of dishonesty in some other field—say, in the field of social security, or the Health Service, or whatever you like—the right to trial by jury, then we are deliberately creating an absurd anomaly, which is, I suggest, quite intolerable. If this clause goes through as it stands, the situation will be that a person charged with making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining an insurance certificate will not have any right to be tried by jury. If, on the other hand, you are charged with making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining a medical certificate, you will have retained the right to elect to be tried by jury. These are absurd anomalies which we are being invited deliberately to build into this Act of Parliament.
The third reason I suggest that we are making a mistake is because for some time past there has been a Committee sitting under the chairmanship of Lord Justice James which has been given the specific task of making recommendations upon the distribution of criminal business in the criminal courts as between the Crown Courts and the magistrates. They published a working paper quite a long time ago explaining the view that they take of their task and duty and what they are up to. They have explained the difficult questions which arise. One of the things to which they have drawn attention, one of the things which they have to answer and one of the criteria to which they have to apply themselves is: when should the decision as to whether a case is to be tried by jury or whether it is to be tried by magistrates be the decision of the defendant?
We are being asked here, in the field of road traffic, to prejudge and pre-empt the very issue that we have remitted to

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the James Committee and upon which we are still waiting for their Report. I should like to ask the Government specifically whether, in introducing this part of the Bill, they had consulted with Lord Justice James to ascertain whether he thinks it is appropriate that the law should be changed in this way in relation to road traffic offences only. Does he think it right and does he think it interferes with his job if the Government pre-empt the situation in this way?
That was the stage which we reached in Committee and, if I may say so, the Government did not make any answer to the case on that occasion; they did not say that they would reconsider it and they did not challenge the validity and the force of the arguments which I ventured to address to the Committee. They did not challenge that it was a serious matter to remove the right to trial in cases of dishonesty; they did not challenge that this was one of the subjects which the James Committee had been asked to look at and to recommend upon; they did not challenge that it would create absurd anomalies if one went about it in this way. But what the spokesman for the Government did on that occasion was to invite me and my friends to see whether, at this stage of the Bill, we could table some Amendment which would perhaps be a cure for the difficulty I have tried to explain. We have done that, but I am bound to say that I can see only three ways out of this dilemma in which we find ourselves. The first of them would be to strike out this clause and Schedule 5 altogether and stand on the status quo; that we should leave things as they are and wait for the Report of the James Committee over the broader field and the broader question of the distribution of business between the Crown Court and the magistrates' court. That is the first course which might be pursued.
The second course which might be pursued would be to retain this clause but, when we come to Schedule 5, to leave in the present powers of the magistrates to imprison and step up the financial penalties, because I think everybody would agree that, with inflation and the rest, the financial penalties are inadequate and there is much to be said for stepping up the financial penalties in
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any event. The third course which occurs to me and which would meet my problem involves what would be a rather tedious and elaborate device; namely, to write a new clause into the Bill. This would mean retaining the present Clause 25 and retaining Schedule 5, but then writing in a new clause to state that despite Clause 25 and Schedule 5 a defendant charged with a traffic offence would continue to have the right to elect to be tried by jury in those cases where, under the law as it existed up to the passing of this Act (as it would then be)—that is, as the law stands at the moment—the magistrates have power to send him to prison for more than 3 months. I hope I have made that clear, but it seems to me to be the only way in which one could meet my point and leave Clause 25 in its present state.
Perhaps I may just repeat that, to ensure that I have it right. I suggest a new clause to state that, although the magistrates have had their powers of imprisonment removed under this Act, in deciding whether a defendant charged with a traffic offence is entitled to trial by jury, the magistrates shall consider whether they would have had power under the earlier law to send him to prison for that offence for more than 3 months; and if they did have that power under the law as it stood before the passage of this Act, they should give that defendant the election to go for trial.
Those are the only three ways in which I can see that this matter can be met and my own conclusion is that the device I have suggested is open to manifest objections. Something that occurs to my mind at once is that it is an elaborate and artificial way of dealing with the matter. Secondly, it would mean that when magistrates had somebody before them charged with a traffic offence, before they told the defendant whether he had a right to trial by jury they would have to look back to the earlier law to see whether under the earlier law they had the power to send him to prison for more than 3 months. This would involve a complicated reference back into a great number of proceedings before the magistrates for traffic offences. I cannot commend that to your Lordships. My solution is that the best way of getting out of this difficulty is to abandon Clause 25 altogether and to abandon Schedule 5 with it.
I should like to make three brief comments that to give three reasons why I suggest that is the best course to adopt. The first reason is that to maintain the status quo, pending the Report of the James Committee, would fully accord with the unanimous view of the Magistrates' Association and the Justices Clerks' Society. It seems to me that when you are passing a piece of legislation specifically dealing with the powers of magistrates' courts, it is a little worrying (to put it at its lowest) that you should be doing this in the face of the united opposition of those people, the magistrates and the magistrates' clerks, who will have the job of applying the law.
We live in days when the Government at any rate, take the view that when you are passing new legislation you ought to do it as a matter of consensus; you ought to carry with you the people who are affected by it. This piece of legislation, so far as it affects the magistrates' courts, is being pushed through by the Government in the face of the united opposition of the Magistrates' Association and the Justices Clerks' Society. It is only in the face of the united opposition of the Magistrates' Association and the Justices Clerks' Society. It is not only in the fact of their opposition, because perhaps it is understandable that people do not like to see their powers being taken away, but surely the objections of the magistrates to their powers of imprisonment being taken away in certain cases have great force. The noble Baroness referred just now to the "hit-and-run" driver. It is a serious offence, and can indeed be one of the gravest offences where somebody has a crash but drives off regardless of what injuries have been caused. The magistrates say, not unreasonably, "Surely we ought to have the right to impose a penalty of imprisonment in cases of that kind", and it is no answer for the Government to say, "No, it does not matter if we take the power away from you because the Crown Court will still be able to impose the same penalties as before". That really is an argument in favour of taking away the powers of the magistrates to punish by imprisonment at all. In any case, if it does not matter whether or not the magistrates have the power to imprison, because there is the "long stop" of the Crown Court, one
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might as well take away the powers of imprisonment from the magistrates altogether. That is the first reason that I would suggest.
There is another reason why I suggest that the best thing to do is to drop Clause 25 altogether; that is, that the two arguments that have been advanced in favour of what is being done in Clause 25 do not appear to me to have any sort of validity. The first argument that the Government used, which was used by the previous Government, was that they were anxious to send fewer people to prison and that this was a contribution towards that end. I am wholly sympathetic to that, but the question is: will it work out like that if you take away from magistrates' courts the powers of imprisonment for traffic offences? I suggest that it may very well work out the opposite way. As everybody agrees, the number of cases in which the magistrates use their powers of imprisonment in road traffic offences is minuscule. These figures have been bandied about on both sides of the House. I cannot myself understand how the Government can use the argument that the magistrates very rarely use their powers of imprisonment in road traffic offences as an argument for taking those powers away from them. Everybody will agree that it will not make very much difference whether you take the powers away from magistrates or whether you leave them.
The second point is that the calculation is that you do not send fewer people to prison if you take away the powers of imprisonment from magistrates, because it may well happen that more cases will be sent up to the Crown Court. In the Crown Court the powers to impose penalties of imprisonment remain the same; they are unchanged. So you may well have more cases going up to the Crown Court and, in fact, more people being sent to prison. If the Government are really engaged in the exercise of trying to send fewer people to prison, the way to do it is not only to cut down the powers of imprisonment of magistrates but also to cut down the length of imprisonment which can be imposed in the Crown Court.
Finally, my Lords, the second argument which has been used is that if you do this you will, in fact, reduce the amount of road traffic cases reaching the

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Crown Court, and will therefore reduce the burden on the Crown Court. In so far as defendants who have previously had the right to elect to go for trial by jury will now be prevented from doing so, you are reducing the number of cases that will go to the Crown Court. On the other hand. because the magistrates are being deprived of their powers of imprisonment, is it not overwhelmingly likely that the magistrates themselves will send up more cases than now to the Crown Court on committal, on the grounds that they consider that their powers of punishment, either to fine or to put on probation—which is all they have as things stand are inadequate? Therefore, the only two arguments that have been advanced by the Government throughout this debate for the provisions of Clause 25 and Schedule 5 are, in my submission, open to the gravest doubt. Even at this late hour I would invite your Lordships to come to the conclusion that the better way of dealing with this matter is to leave things as they are, and we can look at this matter again when the James Committee's Report is available. My Lords, I beg to move.
7.35 p.m.
LORD HACKING: My Lords, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Foot, in his Amendment, I find myself adopting all the points which he made and, perhaps to the pleasure of this House, throwing away about ten pages of notes on points that I was anxious to make in this debate. I particularly adopt the comments which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, made about the James Committee. I am not anxious to develop the argument further here. I have expressed concern at other times, in other debates on this matter on the relationship of this clause in the Bill to the James Committee, and I content myself at this stage with waiting to hear what the noble and learned Lord says in answer to the direct question concerning the James Committee put by the noble Lord, Lord Foot.
I now make one point which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has not made so far in this debate. In my submission to your Lordships, there are wider considerations than simply taking away the power of imprisonment from the justices, and all the important and ancillary results and objections arising from that proposal. As
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an example of the wider considerations, I draw your Lordships' attention to the offence of dangerous driving. Some of your Lordships may recall that at the Second Reading of this Bill I pointed out to the House the lack of definition between the offence of dangerous driving and that of careless driving to the point where dangerous driving, to all intents and purposes, has absorbed the offence of careless driving.
So it is, my Lords, that dangerous driving covers a range of culpability in a driver, from a small misjudgment (where there has been fault and a consequent danger to another person) to the cases of wanton, reckless driving where a car has been used as a weapon of aggression. It is true that a motorist could in certain cases be charged with manslaughter or with causing grievous bodily harm, but that is not the policy of prosecuting authorities to do so. The fault, I must suggest to your Lordships, lies with Parliament which invented an offence which bears little relationship to culpability and which is founded not on the quality of driving, but on the consequences of bad driving.
I refer to the offence of causing death by dangerous driving. So it has happened that distraught husbands have been brought to the ordeal of a trial before a High Court judge for causing a wife's death by dangerous driving arising out of a small error of judgment, with the constituent fault and danger to other road users. So it has also happened that other car drivers, using a car as an aggressive weapon having caused injuries which have not resulted in death—although paraplegia, quadraplegia and many other severe and terrible injuries have resulted —and have only been brought before justices to be punished by them.
My Lords, I argue that Parliament should not start altering the powers of imprisonment until the offences themselves have received proper consideration and have been properly redefined, because we are not ready for these proposals. It is because the present powers of imprisonment, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has argued, are doing no harm, because the proposals will cause trouble without bringing benefit, that I ask the House to remove this clause and the attached Schedule from this Bill.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with the arguments which the noble Lord, Lord Foot has put, more particularly with those relating to the removal of election for trial by jury. I think I am right in saying that while the noble Lord, Lord Foot, argued mainly about those motoring offences which are akin to offences of dishonesty, it would also be true if Clause 25 stayed that persons charged with having excess alcohol while driving, and persons charged with dangerous driving, would also be deprived of the right to elect for trial by jury. It seems to me that this is improper in itself, that this should happen as a sort of incidental consequence of a Road Traffic Bill which is really dealing with totally different matters. Secondly, it is particularly improper, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said, while we are waiting for the Report of the James Committee. Therefore, I should like to support his Amendment.
7.40 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in replying to the interesting speeches which have been made on this Amendment, it may be helpful if I indicate at the outset of my observations what is the object of the Government in making the changes in the law which are contained in Clause 25 of the Bill. They are twofold, first, to replace imprisonment by non-custodial treatment where this can be done without danger to the public—and I am sure that that intention at any rate will appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, to my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and, I have little doubt, to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. That is the primary purpose of the changes. The secondary purpose is to reduce the burdens which road traffic cases of the type we are dealing with impose upon the Crown Court.
My Lords, with regard to the first principle to which the clause seeks to give effect, it is an important principle. I was interested to discover recently, from a questionnaire circulated by the Council of Europe at the behest of European Ministers of Justice, how much more this country uses the method of imprisonment for dealing with crime than most Continental countries of an equivalent standard of justice It is a matter to
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which the Government are seriously applying their mind. I hope to indicate in a moment that the Bill should fulfil that purpose. If it does that, I apprehend that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, will be pleased.
The criticism that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, is this: that the Bill will not achieve the first purpose of reducing the prison population because it will retain the power in the Crown Court to impose terms of imprisonment in traffic cases that are sent to the Crown Court for trial on indictment. But the situation with regard to road traffic offences is as follows. Even allowing for the fact that magistrates' courts have hitherto made little use proportionately of their power to imprison, the volume of road traffic offences is so large that there are still a considerable number of people who are sent to prison for them. In 1972, out of over 1,600,000 road traffic offences tried by the magistrates' courts, about 9,300 resulted in imprisonment, including suspended sentences. I am not including offences of theft and unauthorised taking, which are not affected by the Bill. It is true that the proportion is less than 1 per cent. although, of course, not all road traffic offences are punishable with imprisonment to begin with, and the number of actual offenders involved would be rather lower than the number of offences, but it is still a very large number when one considers that the prison population averages about 38,000.
My Lords, many of these sentences were imposed for offences which could not have been dealt with by the Crown Court because they are purely summary, and they do not confer on the accused any right to elect trial by jury by virtue of the maximum penalty of over three months which they carry. In my submission, there is an important issue of principle here. The provisions of the Bill can make a valuable contribution to penal policy as well as lightening the burden of work of the Crown Court.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, attached great importance to the undoubted consequence that in some of these offences the right to trial by jury will go by reason of the attendant penalty being reduced to below three months. Of course, in the case of offences which will still carry a penalty of more than

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three months, the right to trial by jury will remain.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, I did not wish to interrupt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, but does he know of one single road traffic offence which will continue to carry a penalty before the magistrates, as a result of this clause, of more than three months?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to have notice of that question. I think it is the case that the right to trial by jury in the bulk of the classified road offences cases will go. This is a fact that is, on the other hand, offset by the consideration that the danger of imprisonment will go. That is the benefit that the citizen will gain. In this class of case, he will lose the right to trial by jury, but will gain by being spared the risk of imprisonment. That, I submit, is an important consideration, and is a furtherance of the penal principle that I was mentioning earlier. In view of the figures which I shall give in a moment, it will have the incidental effect of reducing the burden of work on the Crown Court.
Dealing with that matter, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has suggested that by removing the defendant the right to elect trial by jury and leaving it to the prosecutors to determine in which court an offence should be tried, there might well be an actual increase in the number of cases coming to the Crown Court. But I venture to doubt whether that could possibly be right. A Home Office survey carried out last year suggested, for example, that of all the hybrid drinking and driving offences coming before a Crown Court, 96 per cent. did so at the election of the defendant, and for dangerous driving the figure was 100 per cent.—all at the instigation of the defendant. So it would seem very unlikely that these figures would increase if it were left to the prosecution to decide whether to proceed summarily or on indictment. Therefore, in my view the proposals would undoubtedly reduce the burden on the Crown Court, and, as I understand it, are welcomed by all the Crown Court judges who have been consulted.
Now I turn to an aspect of the proposed Amendments which clearly caused
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concern to the noble Lords who have spoken; namely, loss of the right of trial by jury in respect of offences involving dishonesty. I do not think it is right, however, to say that offences of that kind are almost invariably subject to sufficiently severe penalties on summary conviction to enable the accused to exercise the right to elect jury trial. I have been supplied with a long list giving a considerable number of offences involving an element of dishonesty for which no such right exists under the law. There are dozens of them, and they range from the making of false statements, the making of false claims, to various fraudulent activities; and, as a matter of interest, in regard to the precise type of dishonesty that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, referred to, making false statements to obtain benefits under the Social Security Acts carries a penalty of three months.
There is, as I say, in the law at present a wide range of offences where the honesty of the defendant is at the heart of the matter, where the right to trial by jury does not exist. We are not, therefore, embarking on a new and disturbing breach of a well-established principle of our criminal law in the limited field where that will be the effect by reason of the changes in the Bill. There are even crimes involving bribery and forgery which under our present criminal law do not carry a penalty which enables the defendant as a matter of right to claim trial by jury. And I cannot too strongly emphasise the benefit that the citizen will gain by being spared the agony and risk of a term of imprisonment. That is a high positive, I submit, from the point of view of the right of the subject which will flow from the proposals in Clause 25.
I was asked questions about the possible impact of what is proposed upon the work of the Committee presided over by Lord Justice James. I understand that the Government have heard from Lord Justice James and do not believe. and have no reason to think, that he will feel in any way inhibited in his task or or that his decisions may be pre-empted. This Bill takes the law regarding the right to jury trial as it now stands; a right, in other words, existing in the case of offences carrying a term of imprisonment for more than three months. If that law should change following Lord Justice James' Report, then road traffic

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offences will fall to be dealt with like the rest.
Accordingly, I hope that, in the light of what I have said about the likely effects of the changes, the House will feel reassured that the price that is paid for the loss of the right to trial by jury is more than compensated by the result which will flow in reducing the number of people sent to prison and by the result which will flow in reducing the amount of pressure upon the Crown Court. So far as the most serious offences are concerned, of course, these will continue to be tried on indictment on the application of the prosecutor. He, I submit, can be relied upon to see that the more serious offences are tried on indictment, and, of course, that will carry the right to trial by jury.
One of the consequences of carrying the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, would be to remove from the Bill the whole of the provisions regarding the revision of penalties for road traffic offences including an increase in maximum fines which may be imposed on summary conviction. The ability to impose those greatly increased penalties —fourfold increases in many cases—will provide additional sanctions and underline the gravity of these offences, and the scale that is proposed now brings the existing financial sanctions of the law up to date. In my submission, it is important, therefore, that the Amendment should he rejected for that, among other reasons.
7.55 p.m.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for the care with which he has answered the points I have attempted to make. With regard to what he said at the outset about the Government's intentions and the excellence of their intentions, may I say that I do not question those at all. I am wholly sympathetic to the idea of sending fewer people to prison and sending them for shorter periods of time. I am wholly in favour of reducing the burden of work on Crown Courts. All these intentions are things we share in common.
The nub of the matter is really this so far as I am concerned. The noble and learned Lord says that if you take away from a man the right to be tried by jury when he is charged with an offence
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of dishonesty, if you take away a right he has previously enjoyed, you are not really doing him an injury, because you are removing at the same time his liability to go to prison at all if he is tried summarily. I am afraid that I cannot regard that as any satisfactory answer, especially when it comes from the Lord Chancellor, because that is no compensation. If I may take the illustration which I sought to use to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, the other day: supposing a son of one's own in the early stages of his life was charged with the offence of making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining an insurance certificate, would any father regard it as satisfactory that that matter, the question of his son's guilt or innocence for that offence, should be determined by a bench of magistrates, and that he should have no right to elect to go for trial by jury. although the whole of his future life and prosperity and prospects might be at stake? Would it be any satisfactory compensation to the noble and learned Lord, if his son was in that position, to be told: "Oh well, that is all right; he has no risk of going to prison. He may he convicted of dishonesty and that remains a record upon his character for the rest of his life, but he does not stand any risk of going to prison. He may he convicted of dishonesty by a majority of two magistrates to one, but it does rot matter because he is in no risk of going to prison"? I am really astonished to hear an argument of that kind addressed to us from the place from which it has come. That really is the nub of the matter.
The situation under the present law is that every one of the offences, the road traffic offences so called, set out in Schedule 5 of the Bill, that is an offence of dishonesty carries with it to-day a penalty of more than three months' imprisonment if it is dealt with before the magistrates. Every single one carries a penally in excess of three months. In all those cases of dishonesty the effect of this clause is to deprive the defendant, how ever serious the offence may be, of the right to trial by jury. I regard that as wholly unsatisfactory. I do not think the Government ever really intended this to happen. I do not think it was realised when the Bill was framed that this was to be the consequence of it, but it is the consequence of it, and in my view it is indefensible.

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The argument here does not in the last resort turn upon the question of whether fewer cases will go to the Crown Court, whether the Crown Court will, in fact, be relieved of the burdens or not. In my belief, as many cases will go to the Crown Court as before, but that is a matter of guesswork or of judgment. Equally, I do not believe that this will result in fewer people being sent to prison, or sent to prison for a shorter period of time, but that also is a matter of guesswork. My belief is that the magistrates, being deprived of the powers of imprisonment, will send many more cases to the Crown Court where it is a hybrid offence than they are sending now, but that again is pure guesswork.
However, these are practical matters; nothing can escape the fact that what we are being asked to do under this clause is to deprive people who hitherto have had a right of trial by jury for dishonesty offences of that right, and that is something that we ought not to do. I do not believe that the Government ever intended that that should happen, but that is how it has turned out. Not with any great expectations, I shall invite the House to divide on this issue.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if I may be permitted to say a few words, may I say that I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has not been persuaded by the practical assurances that I gave him, on the strength of the best judgment of the Home Office, of the probable consequences of what is proposed in the Amendment. But the major issue that troubles him—and of course I think it is right that this should be raised in the House and ventilated—is that the Bill takes away the jeopardy of going to prison, and the consequence of that is that the right of jury trial is taken away.
That right to jury trial existed in the law because of the jeopardy, the risk of imprisonment, and it existed as a right in order to mitigate that risk. As I have endeavoured to explain, over the vast range of offences of the kind that are troubling the noble Lord (offences affecting forgery, false statements, far more serious matters than the hypothetical case that he gave), for better or for worse the state of our criminal law is that the right to trial by jury does not exist in those cases. I am an impenitent supporter of the right to trial by jury. Almost without exception every barrister in the land is such supporter, because the major qualities and achievements of the Bar and of solicitors, if I may say so, have often been accomplished before juries.
Sometimes it is said in regard to my own Principality of Wales, where I practised, that juries are against crime but they are not dogmatic about it. I am bound to say that is a gross libel on Welsh juries. I share the feeling of concern to maintain the right to trial by jury, but in this class of case, in the grave cases, in the serious cases, the right to trial by jury will remain. As I have said, and I do not suppose that it benefits by being repeated, for the loss of the trial by jury right in the minor cases, the less important cases, there is the important gain of not facing the risk of going to prison; there is the important gain of not adding to the overcrowded prison population, which has reached dimensions where rehabilitation is increasingly difficult, a number of defendants who, but for the proposals in the Bill, would hereafter continue to face that risk.
8.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 8; Not-Contents, 32.

CONTENTS

Atholl. D.

Phillips, B.

St. Just, L.

Foot, L. [Teller.]

Raglan, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Hacking, L. [Teller.]

Rankeillour, L.

NON-CONTENTS

Berkeley, B.

Elton, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Birk, B. [Teller.]

Elwyn-Jones, L. (Chancellor.)

Henderson, L.

Blyton, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Champion, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Davies of Leek, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Maelor, L.

Denham, L.

Hale, L.

Mais, L.

Dunleath, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Newall, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Segal, L.

Tenby, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

White, B.

St. Helens, L.

Snow, L.

Wigg, L.

Sandys, L.

Somers, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 3 [Amendments of Part III of Road Traffic Act 1972):
8.14 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I spoke on this Amendment when I moved Amendment No. 4. I beg to move Amendment No. 12.
Amendment moved—
Page 44, line 33, at end insert—
"7A. After section 94 there shall be inserted the following sections:
Powers of appellate courts to suspend disqualification
94A.—(1) This section applies where a person has been convicted by a court in England or Wales of an offence involving obligatory or discretionary disqualification and has been ordered to be disqualified; and in the following provisions of this section—

(a) any reference to a person ordered to be disqualified shall be construed as a reference to a person so convicted and so ordered to be disqualified; and

(b) any reference to his sentence includes a reference to the order of disqualification and to any other order made on his conviction and, accordingly, any reference to an appeal against his sentence includes a reference to an appeal against any order forming part of his sentence.

(2) Where a person ordered to be dis-qualified—

(a) appeals to the Crown Court, or

(b) appeals or applies for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal,
against his conviction or his sentence, the Crown Court or, as the case may require, the Court of Appeal may, if it thinks fit, suspend the disqualification.

(3) Where a person ordered to be disqualified has appealed or applied for leave to appeal to the House of Lords—

(a) under section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 from any decision of a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division which is material to his conviction or sentence, or

(b) under section 33 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 from any decision of the Court of Appeal which is material to his conviction or sentence,

the Divisional Court or, as the case may require, the Court of Appeal may, if it thinks fit, suspend the disqualification.
(4) Where a person ordered to be disqualified makes an application in respect of the decision of the court in question under section 87 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 (statement of case by magistrates' court) or section 10(3) of the Courts Act 1971 (statement of case by Crown Court) the High Court may, if it thinks fit, suspend the disqualification.
(5) Where a person ordered to be disqualified—

(a) applies to the High Court for an order of certiorari to remove into the High Court any proceedings of a magistrates' court or of the Crown Court, being proceedings in or in consequence of which he was convicted or his sentence was passed, or

(b) applies to the High Court for leave to make such an application,

the High Court may, if it thinks fit, suspend the disqualification.
(6) Any power of a court under the proceeding provisions of this section to suspend the disqualification of any person is a power to do so on such terms as the court thinks fit.
(7) In any case where, by virtue of this section, a court suspends the disqualification of any person, it shall send notice of the suspension to the Secretary of State; and for the purposes of this section any such notice shall be sent in such manner and to such address and shall contain such particulars as the Secretary of State may determine.
Power of High Court of Justiciary to suspend disqualification.
94B.—(1) Where a person has been convicted of an offence by a court in Scotland and the circumstances mentioned in subsection (1) of the foregoing section apply to that offence, any references to any person ordered to be disqualified and any reference to his sentence shall in this section be construed in like manner as in that section.
(2) Where a person ordered to be disqualified appeals to the High Court of Justiciary whether on appeal against a summary conviction or a conviction on indictment or his sentence, the Court, or any single judge thereof may if it or he thinks fit, suspend the disqualification on such terms as the Court or judge thinks fit.
(3) Where, by virtue of this section, the High Court suspends the disqualification of any person, it shall send notice of the suspension to the Secretary of State; and for the purposes of this section any such notice shall be sent in such manner and to such address and shall contain such particulars as the Secretary of State may determine.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
Schedule 6 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 14.
Amendment moved—
Page 71, line 46, at end insert—
("The Criminal Appeal Act 1968
8A. In section 31 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (powers of Court of Appeal on appeals to that court which are exercisable by a single judge) after subsection (2) there shall be inserted the following subsection:—
"(2A) The power of the Court of Appeal to suspend a person's disqualification under section 94A(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1972 may be exercised by a single judge in the same manner as it may be exercised by the Court."
8B. At the end of section 44 of that Act (powers of Court of Appeal on appeals to the House of Lords which are exercisable by a single judge) there shall be added the following subsection:—
"(2) The power of the Court of Appeal to suspend a person's disqualification under section 94A(3) of the Road Traffic Act 1972 may be exercised by a single judge, but where the judge refuses an application to exercise that power the applicant shall be entitled to have the application determined by the Court of Appeal."".—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 15.
Amendment moved—
Page 72, line 21, at end insert
("12A. In section 94 of that Act (appeals against disqualification and power of court ordering disqualification to suspend it pending an appeal) after subsection (3) there shall be inserted the following subsection:—
"(3A) Where a court exercises its power under subsection (2) or subsection (3) above it shall send notice of the suspension to the Secretary of State; and for the purposes of this section any such notice shall be sent in such manner and to such address and shall contain such particulars as the Secretary of State may determine."")—(Lord Gamsworthy.)
In the Title:
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 16. This is an amendment of the Long Title of the Bill made necessary by an Amendment during the Committee stage.
Amendment moved—
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Line 2, leave out ("and operators' licences") and insert ("operators' licences and drivers' hours").—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES) BILL [H.L.]
8.16 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships may remember a phrase of Shakespeare's, "Uneasy lies the head that wears the Crown". I am sure your Lordships can sympathise with me to-night when I say that uneasier still lies the head that wears a hereditary coronet, when preparing a debate on Second Reading of a Representation of the People Bill. I should like to make it quite clear to your Lordships that I am aware that it is slightly incongruous for me to be introducing a Bill of this nature in your Lordships' House when it involves elections by universal suffrage of which I, of course, have no direct experience, not even having had the vote as an ordinary member of the public. But, my Lords, I bring this Bill before you to-night because this House has a fine record for pioneering and for reconnoitring new territory where legislation is needed. We have an equally workmanlike record in discussing, in a calm and dispassionate way, subjects which are in the heat of political controversy, and I feel that we have something to contribute to the debate on this subject if we can carry out our normal role of dealing with these controversial matters in a cool and reflective manner.
My Lords, before getting on to the details of the Bill I should like to say that I have the feeling (it is an impression, and it may be wrong) that throughout the democratic countries, especially those in economic difficulties, there seems to be spreading something of a petulant impatience with Government by discussion and with the traditional democratic processes. It is my intention to attempt to bolster and reinforce those democratic processes in bringing this Bill before your Lordships' House to-night. But, apart from attaching great importance to the Parliamentary system, I am a convinced internationalist. At the same time as

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being one who has by choice turned himself primarily, even if an amateur CrossBencher, into a Parliamentarian of a sort, I am convinced that the world's problems are probably now too big for the individual nation-State to be able to protect its own people satisfactorily on its own and by itself. My Bill is an attempt to resolve these two difficult problems: the maintenance and sustenance of democratic control in a world that is growing more complex, more complicated and more inter-related.
But I am sure that bigger is not necessarily better. The more remote, the more faceless and the more complex the institutions which govern us become, the greater the need for reinforcing the links between those who govern and those who are governed; the greater the need to maintain a society based on consent, and the greater the need for the Executive to be publicly accountable. I submit this Bill to the House in the belief that democratic Parliamentary control is too important a principle to be confined to the individual nation-State. It is my view that the Common Market will not work, will not continue, will not succeed if it does not become more democratic; unless it becomes democratic I am convinced that it will not survive.
My Lords, before trying to explain briefly at this late hour the main elements in my Bill, I want to say why I am asking the House to look at this subject now when, as we all know, this time next year we may not even be Members of the Common Market. Your Lordships may wonder why I bother to keep you up so late now to discuss this topic. I have seen what has happened to our own British E.E.C. Parliamentary Scrutiny Committees, and I read one sentence from the Second Report of this House's Select Committee:
"Terms of reference, 1: the Committee was set up on 7th May 1974, some 17 months after the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities on the 1st January 1973."
My Lords, Parliament failed to act quickly and democratic control is too important for a second delay. That is one reason why I bring this subject before your Lordships to-night. Of course, if we leave the E.E.C. my proposals, or anything like them, are automatically extinguished. The matter will be taken care of in that way. But if
1410
we stay a Member, I suggest to the House that action along the lines of my Bill becomes urgent. I would advise the House from my researches, that within the next year or so the European Parliament, as it has styled itself, will begin to become a real Parliament. As from next year, we at Strasbourg will have the right to reject and alter about one-twentieth of the total budget of the E.E.C., the budget which comes mostly from the pockets of the taxpayers of the Member States of the Community. That budget last year was about £2,000 million.
My Lords, apart from other powers which are already in the pipeline, the European Parliament will be able to cut off the funds which provide the administration of the Council of Ministers. It already has the power to sack the Commission, a power which by itself is a blunt and useless rapier, but which, linked to the new budgetary powers. becomes part of a pair of very powerful Parliamentary pincers. An assembly with this sort of muscle and claws is already on the way to being a real Parliament and with that sort of budgetary grip legislative influence is within its grasp and only around the corner. I suggest to the House that its Members should be able to devote themselves properly to the use of those powers, and should be accountable to the electors whose interests they represent at the European level of democratic control.
My Lords, I turn to the provisions of the Bill. Your Lordships may have seen a Written Answer to a Question of mine on April 4. I shall read it, because it provides the background to the Bill and sets it in its constitutional framework. The Answer that I received was the green light for my preparing the Bill. I asked Her Majesty's Government:
"Whether it is permissible under the Treaty of Rome, for a Member State of the E.E.C. to decide unilaterally to introduce a system of direct election to the European Parliament."
The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, answered:
"Article 138 of the E.E.C. Treaty provides that the Assembly shall consist of delegates who shall be designated by national Parliaments from among their members. A Member State deciding to introduce a system of direct election unilaterally would have to comply with that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4/4/74; col. 1123.]

1411
He went on to say that any specific proposal would be judged on compatibility with the Treaty by the European Court of Justice. That was the constitutional position as explained to me by the Government. I then began to prepare my Bill. I should perhaps say that other countries and Parliamentarians have tried to introduce Bills in the same unilateral manner. The present Belgian Government is supporting a system for direct elections to the European Parliament.
Going briefly through the Bill, your Lordships will see that it lays down a procedure for this country under which people would be elected by universal suffrage to serve as members of the European Parliament. Such people, together with Peers elected to serve as members of the European Parliament, would be eligible to be designated in accordance with the Community Treaties to serve as members of the European Parliament. Perhaps I should say here that your Lordships may have observed —and may have wondered at its omission—that there is no clause in my Bill which specifies how either House should designate members elected under this Bill as Members of their own Houses to be sent to the European Parliament. That is an omission but it is a deliberate one, because I felt it was wrong to introduce into a Bill something that sought to tell either House how to regulate its own procedures.
Clause 1 introduces definitions into the Bill, and that speaks for itself. Clause 2 provides for 36 combined constituencies, each returning one United Kingdom member. Why is it 36? In our Treaty of Accession we accepted what was written into the Treaty of Rome concerning the numbers which are representative of the European Parliament. My Bill aims to work within the Treaty, not to amend it; therefore, whether I like it or not, there are 36 members that we can send.
We have just under 40 million electors and, of course, in ideal circumstances one hopes that there would be more members, but that cannot be done through a Private Member's Bill of this kind. That has to be something decided at Community level. Your Lordships will see that subsection (2) of Clause 2 sets
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out two criteria for making up the combined constituencies. There are two aims here: to ensure that the M.P.s from the various parts of the United Kingdom are fairly represented, and to include a fair representation of the regions. Subsections (3) to (8) are detailed proposals for creating combined constituencies. All I would say about them to-night is that they follow closely the procedure under the 1949 Act for determining ordinary United Kingdom constituencies.
Clause 3 provides that the date of election to the European Parliament should be at the same time as a normal British General Election. I shall come to the reason for that later, but would explain that the sort of procedure one envisages is that the elector in a polling station might be given two ballot forms instead of the normal one, and that they would be of different colours. Then, when he had marked his votes, he would place them in different ballot boxes; and from what I understand of the skill of returning officers and those who supervise elections, their competence would be well capable of dealing with such a small addition to their task. I have omitted to explain that in Clause 2 there is a proposal to set up a separate boundary commission for elections to the European Parliament, but this would be very much on the basis of the existing boundary commissions.
Coming through to Clause 3 again, we see that subsection (2) uses the same lists of electors as for national elections. Subsection (3) lays down the alternative vote principle as the system of voting in this type of election. It is easy to be rude about all systems, and I shall say something about the reasons for my hesitantly choosing this system later on. I would briefly explain that all it involves the elector in doing is marking a first and second choice on his ballot paper. He would simply write "1" and "2" against the two names on the paper. When the votes are counted, any candidate who has more than 50 per cent. of the first choice vote wins, but if there is not such a candidate then the lowest candidate is excluded and the second-choice votes of the people who voted for him are redistributed as their first choice to the other candidates. We are familiar with a variant of this system in the Northern Ireland Assembly Act, so it has a constitutional precedent in this country.

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Clause 4 looks more complicated than it is, and it may be that it is phrased in a rather circuitous manner. It lays down rules on disqualification for the United Kingdom membership of the European Parliament. It aims at making a clear distinction between those M.P.s who are elected primarily to serve at Westminster and those who are destined mainly for Strasbourg. Clause 5 provides that members of the European Parliament are non-voting Members of the House of Commons. This is something which is bound to touch on the deep susceptibilities of those of your Lordships who have served in another place, and I will touch on the reasons for attempting to create this curious animal a little later on. All I would say at this point is that any member of the European Parliament has, under the Treaty of Rome as it works at the moment, also to be a member of his national Parliament. Somehow, the elected members of the European Parliament have to be slotted into Westminster in some way. Whatever way is produced as a solution to the problem, will, I am sure, seem awkward and unwieldy, and perhaps quite wrong, to many Members of another place, and perhaps to your Lordships as well. Clause 6 provides for a system of setting the whole thing in motion by means of Orders in Council, while the rest of the clauses are detailed transitional provisions that provide the working mechanism for so setting it in motion.
My Lords, I thought it right to canter briefly through the provisions of the Bill, but I should like to make it clear that both I and the person who drafted the Bill, Philip Mott, formerly legal adviser to Sir Michael Palliser and his team of our representatives at Brussels, and now a Fellow of International Law at Trinity College, Cambridge, are by no means wedded to the way we have chosen to try to implement the important principle that we are seeking to carry out in the Bill. All we have tried to do is to put forward the clearest and most practical plan for electing the British people's representatives at the Strasbourg Parliament. We do not claim to have worked out the only way; we do not claim to have worked out the best system. There are plenty of other systems: there are those of Mr. Michael
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Stewart and the variants proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood; many other systems. I am quite aware that some clauses may attract deep, perhaps violent, criticism from your Lordships because they touch on matters of great feeling. Perhaps I could make it clear that I am completely open-minded.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for giving way, but he made one point which I think it is very important to clear up. He mentioned that his chief adviser and draftsman here was an associate of Sir Michael Palliser. Sir Michael Palliser is a civil servant. I do not know whether he is under the control of the British Government but he was at one time a member of the Foreign Service. Are we quite sure that this Bill has not been drafted, or has not been prompted, by Her Majesty's Government, and that Sir Michael Palliser, in his official capacity, has not prompted this Bill?
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I can reassure the noble Lord absolutely unequivocally. I think it is something that I myself would never have aspired to. that I should be used by either Sir Michael Palliser or the present Government in the sort of way that the noble Lord seems to be hinting. But to make the point absolutely clear, the man to whom I referred retired from the Foreign Service to take up this position as a Don at Cambridge. I had got to know him previously, but only after his retirement. when I got the Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, did I get in touch with the gentleman to whom I have referred.
LORD WIGG: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. Let me assure the noble Lord that I did not intend to convey any thought of him being used, but I am suspicious of everything connected with the Common Market. It has a pretty murky background. I have studied the methods of propaganda which were employed (if I may use my phrase) to bewitch, bewilder and bemuse the British people. and I wanted to get this point absolutely clear.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I have tried to make it as clear as I can; and if I am a dupe, I am an innocent dupe. My Lords, let me touch on something

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about which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, may also have strong views, and that is the alternative vote system. I did not pick this out as the ideal system. All I felt was that, as we were in a new situation, the reasons that apply traditionally in this country for sticking to "the first past the post" need not necessarily be the same reasons as should lead us to choose the best system of voting for this new type of representative. I wanted to ensure that in these very large constituencies there would be a chance for as many of the electors as possible to have a representative of their political framework in the European Assembly at Strabourg. That is the only practical intention behind my putting forward the alternative vote as a system to be adopted at the moment in my Bill.
Perhaps I should also say, on the question of the M.P.s without a vote, that any system will be objected to, and if I were to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, another system might be such a one as included elected regional Peers in your Lordships' House who were then delegated to Strasbourg, it might be that such a system would attract equal wrath from the noble Lord as any other system I might put forward. So I put forward the system that I have chosen with very great deference and without claiming any monopoly of wisdom in this matter whatsoever.
My Lords, in bringing this Bill before your Lordships to-night I realise that I may be testing the temper and the tempo of this House, since I am asking your Lordships to put aside fpr a little while the very feverish mood that has now gripped the country; because I feel that the issues that lie behind this Bill, whether my Bill is any good or not, are important: that representation of the British people in the Community is something worth looking at. I ask that your Lordships should examine my Bill with calm binoculars, as a basis fcr serious discussion and as perhaps the embryo of legislation which will one day reach the Statute Book. I am not trying to tease the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, or to tease Her Majesty's Government, or to catch out the Opposition Parties and get them into some embarrassing situation in public. I am not trying to play any game of that sort, nor do I come to this House to try to do that sort of thing. My Lords, I
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may be misguided, but I count it as a privilege to be both a Member of your Lordships' House and a Member of the European Parliament at Strasbourg and, looking at the future of my country in the Common Market—if we stay in the Common Market—it is as a loyal Member of both Assemblies that I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord O'Hagan.)
8.42 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, as your Lordships—or as many of your Lordships as are present—are perhaps aware, I withdrew the Unstarred Question which was down on the Order Paper for Answer to-day. I did so because very little interest was displayed in it and, in any case, it would probably, as we see, have come on almost in the middle of the night. It is true that it would probably have been the only occasion on which the rather great issue of Europe could have been discussed in this House in a general way before October. But I am conscious of the fact that the great majority of this House just does not want to discuss this great issue at the present time, preferring, as we have seen, a long discussion on safety belts. They would rather, if possible (and I think this is undoubtedly true), it were put into cold storage, as it were, until the pending Election, there being not much running to be made out of it from a purely Party political point of view. Nevertheless, I welcome very much the opportunity provided by the introduction of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, to say a few words—and I assure your Lordships that I shall be very brief—not only on the Bill itself but also, with your Lordships' leave, cn the background against which it is presented.
The background to the Bill is surely this. The Ministers, by unanimous vote, have recently decided—and I stand to be corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, though I hope I shall not be—in principle, that the European Parliament should be granted considerable additional powers over the Budget of the Community; in other words, in the disposal of what are now known as the Community's own resources—resources propres. These, as I think the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has said, already

1417
amount to something like £2,000 million and are likely in a year or two to amount to considerably more, depending on the extent of the amount of the levies, the amount of V.A.T. which is chargeable to the Community funds, and so on. The chief argument for so doing—for the Ministers' decision, as I understand it—was that, once these very large sums are voted, national Parliaments can have no say in regard to their disposal at all. So this action of the Ministers, from my point of view at any rate, was as welcome as it was in some ways surprising. For it shows that the Ministers are taking the European Parliament seriously and that they presumably want it to progress along the road leading to some sort of European political union.
Here a clear distinction, which I have so often urged myself in this House and elsewhere, must surely be made between the simple desire for "unity", which is all that the Foreign Secretary would agree to in the recent Ottawa communiqué, as we all know, and the positive objective of "union". If indeed the Parliament is to be given real powers it must mean that it is regarded by the Ministers, including the British Minister, as an organic part of some kind of European political structure. There can be no other rational interpretation.
So we are, in other words, even now advancing towards a European entity of some kind in which the power, the authority, the government—call it what you like—will be, to some extent at any rate, controlled by a Parliament. Though I do not suppose the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will do so, I ask the Minister to confirm that this interpretation of the Government's recent action is correct: that they are now advancing towards some kind of European entity—I repeat, whatever you like to call it—in which the authority, the Government, whatever it may be, will be to some extent in the long run controlled by a Parliament.
Whatever the Minister may say, it can hardly be denied that it is the present intention of all the nine Governments concerned to proceed in this general direction. But that does not mean, of course, that their present proposals are inevitably going to come into force. Not at all. They must first be discussed with
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the President of the European Parliament. Mr. Berkhouwer and some other Members of the Bureau are going to see the Ministers, and many of the Parliamentarians want powers of the European Parliament in respect of the Budget to be even greater than those now approved in principle by the Ministers. Since, of course, Treaty amendments will be necessary, the eventually agreed project—agreed, that is to say, we hope, between the Parliament and the Ministers—will then have to be ratified by nine Parliaments, including our own.
Few people seem to think, therefore, that the European Parliament will actually enjoy powers greater than it already has—powers of control over the Community Budget—before January, 1976, when the new financial year starts in Strasbourg. But there is considerable reason to suppose that by that date, that is to say, 18 months from now, it will have such powers. And there are perhaps even stronger reasons for thinking that soon thereafter it will be granted by the Ministers even more far-reaching powers of what is called "co-decision"; that is to say, the right to approve or disapprove various actions of the Ministers such as Treaties, the nomination of Members of the Commission, and so on. All that, as the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, I think is going to mention in his speech, is to some extent examined in the report, now on the stocks, of Mr. Peter Kirk who is the rapporteur for the Political Committee on this important subject.
Anyway, in 18 months from now, or fairly soon thereafter, the work of the Parliament will be, or it is very probable that it will be, both highly important and extensive. That cannot be denied. That being so, it will either fold up or its members will have to be pretty well full-time politicians. Certainly it could not possibly continue on the present lines. For if it did, either all the Members of the British Delegation, apart from Peers, would lose their seats at the next Election or they would be unable to fulfill their functions. Unless, therefore—and this is the conclusion I should like to put to the House—the whole idea of European union is to fade away, some form of direct election in roughly two years' time will, by that time, have become an absolute necessity.

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The so-called "classical" European solution of this obvious problem is, as we all know, direct election on the same day all over the Community of a European Parliament of about 500 to 600 people; over-representation of the smaller members being somehow provided for; the Commission becoming the Government of Europe, dependent on Parliament; and the Council of Ministers being transformed into a sort of Senate, or Chamber of States, each country, as in America, presumably having two Senators. I believe myself that this is no more likely to happen than the intelligent imaginings two centuries ago of the famous Abbé Siéyès, who was always inventing constitutions, as your Lordships will know. But what can be done in practice is for all the countries concerned to elect their own members—36 in our case—by means of their own choosing. And there will be different methods in each country. The only difficulty here is that, under the Treaty, they must be members of their own national Parliaments. It is on this basis, therefore, that we must inevitably start.
There is another, purely pragmatical, reason for so starting. It must be obvious that for many years it is going to be very difficult—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, will agree with me here—to persuade the various national Parliaments that it is in their own interest to delegate some of their powers to a democratically elected European Parliament. If, however, such a Parliament is composed of persons whom the national Parliaments could regard as actual colleagues (for example, colleagues whom they see in the tearooms, and so on) forming part of the national Parliament itself, I think there would be far less grounds for suspicion and for the feeling that the national Parliament was in some way being over-ridden by a mass of foreigners over whom they had no control. For many years, at any rate, there must be what is called in the jargon which is commonly used, "an organic link" between the European Parliament and the national Parliaments if the European Parliament is to develop at all.
Nor would it be in the least "undemocratic" if the European Parliament were formed on this basis for many years to come. The great point is that under
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such a system the various Oppositions in all the Parliaments would be represented in proportion to their numbers, and in the European Parliament the various Oppositions, by combining, might very well constitute a real majority. It is not impossible. In any case, under such a system the European Parliament would undoubtedly be to some extent the voice of the people and could be considered as such. And since it would have real and increasing powers it would be, and should be, a very salutary curb on the powers of the Ministers and on the necessary and inevitable bureaucracy at their immediate disposal —though it must be admitted that hitherto the bureaucracy in the shape of the Commission has, as often as not, sided with the Parliament as against the Ministers. This I know from my own personal experience.
I should like to make one final general point before I come to the specific plan put forward by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. But first I should like for a moment to congratulate him sincerely on his excellent speech, which I thought was full of enthusiasm, beautifully expounded and well worthy of this occasion. If the European Parliament is directly elected, if only on a national basis, and if it has real powers, surely in a few years' time it must be the body which will be primarily responsible for "screening" the European legislation at an early stage and sorting out that which has any contentious political aspect—and I mean "contentious" from the Party political point of view here in Westminster. Even now, the British delegation to the Parliament is quite well placed to perform these functions, though it could not do so completely at the moment. Its members sit on all the various Committees which deal with every aspect of the Commission's work; representatives of the Commission normally attend. The Committee meet in Brussels. You can ring up or see a Commissioner or Member of Parliament any moment of the day—and you do.
Therefore nothing which goes on in the Commission, even at an early stage, is likely to escape the eagle eye of the Members of the Westminster Parliament now active in Strasbourg. The only defect here, of course, is that there are no British Socialists present who could look

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at what is going on with regard to potential legislation from a British Socialist point of view, and report accordingly to their colleagues in Westminster. That is a pity; but eventually if this thing goes on at all there will be a full British Parliamentary delegation present in Strasbourg, or wherever the Parliament may have been transferred to in the interval. Indeed, now that the British Government have agreed in principle to the grant of what are after all real powers to the European Parliament, it would seem impossible, or at least highly paradoxical, for them not to nominate Labour members to the European delegation. But presumably that is something that must wait until we know the results of the next General Election.
For these reasons, it would look as if in a year or so the two Committees now engaged in screening the potential European legislation would become, by the nature of things, largely functi officio—there would not be much reason for their existence for more than two years after that. I would ask the Government to say whether they regard that as a possibility in the next few years. Surely they would not be in favour of the same work being done by British Parliamentarians in two places—or rather in three places—at one and the same time.
So we approach the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. So far as I can see, unless I have got it wrong, this is a dressing-up in beautiful legal form (thanks to his intelligent legal friend) of the well-known "Stewart Plan", which was advanced one and a half or two years ago by Mr. Michael Stewart. I may be wrong, but I believe substantially it differs only in not arranging for representation of this House in the directly-elected Parliament which he imagines, but rather in allowing Peers themselves to stand for the European Parliament if they so desire. I have always thought that there is much to be said for this plan. But since it was originally formulated there have been, as we all know, rival plans, including a highly intelligent and very different one associated with the name (or rather the ex-name) of our new colleague. Lord Chelwood, whose maiden speech (on this subject or on others) we are all eagerly awaiting. If put into legal form, this last plan might well seem to be equally or at least as impressive as that
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put forward by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan.
Nor can we ignore the fact that the whole problem of direct elections to the European Parliament has been turned over for a report by the Political Committee of the Parliament, of which I am Vice-President, to a highly intelligent and able young Dutch Socialist called Patijn, who is due to submit a draft report in the autumn for discussion by the Committee. I very much doubt therefore whether pending a study of this report—and indeed of a Report which I believe is now being drawn up by a British all-Party unofficial committee—it would be necessary for your Lordships to carry on very much further an exhaustive examination of the project of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. In other words I am all for the Bill having a Second Reading but I do not think one ought to let it go further than that, or devote too much time and attention to it. We ought to take note of it, put questions about it and try to improve it; but that is all. I repeat the noble Lord is to be congratulated on the enthusiasm with which he has advanced the Bill, but I can assure your Lordships that equal enthusiasm animates the members of the other bodies with which I am concerned who are at this moment poring over this admittedly very difficult question.
It is evident in any case that no serious and considered project for direct elections to the European Parliament, even on a national basis, is likely to be put forward by whatever Government are in power before, shall we say, some two years from now, when, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, we shall be obliged to do something about it. Whether it comes forward at all will depend on whether in the interval the Community folds up, which it may do, or whether the present Government decide to proceed with a Referendum on the question of continuing British membership of the Community, and what happens in that consultation with the people.
We must indeed cross these little bridges before we can discuss intelligently how best the European Parliament, if it is still to function as a democratic brake on the activities of Ministers, should best be constituted. One idea is, as your Lordships know, that it might to the

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extent of one half be directly elected on a European basis and one half nominated by the national Parliaments. I do not think that I would favour this solution myself; but this possibility, among others, will be examined intelligently by Mr. Patijn. The great, overwhelming issue before us to-day is how to curb inflation and thus to preserve the democratic nature of the free societies of Western Europe. It was, after all, a runaway inflation which broke the back of the so-called bourgeoisie in Germany, with subsequent vast unemployment, and it was responsible for Hitler and World War II. Mutatis mutandis, as they say, that situation might occur again. Many hold—and I certainly always have held—that the only sure way of avoiding such horrible prospects is for us to combine as closely as possible with our democratic European neighbours. That means not only monetary union, but also combining in the organisation of Western European conventional defence within the framework of the North Atlantic Alliance. This is a problem with which I am directly concerned as Rapporteur for the Political Committee of the European Parliament on defence.
But I seem to be embarking on a speech at this point that I would otherwise have delivered, so I will only end on this note. We can only hope that the Government, which from my point of view seem to have seen the light as regards the future of the European Parliament, and are apparently prepared, as Mr. Peart has shown, to argue out their case within the existing machinery of the Community, will at least do nothing to impede what I regard as a natural and beneficent process; and after the impending Election we may have a Government, whatever their precise political make-up, which will continue in the right direction. These are the general thoughts which I felt bound to bring to your Lordships' attention in your consideration of Lord O'Hagan's intelligent but, as I think, rather premature Bill.
9.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has moved the Second Reading of this Bill to-night, for although I cannot go all the way with
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him in its precise terms (nor can I agree altogether with the timing of its presentation in your Lordships' House) the time is coming when direct elections to the European Parliament or Assembly—call it what you will—will become necessary. I am all for some such Bill being discussed, not only in your Lordships' House but also in another place, although the likelihood of the present Government accepting it, or giving it sufficient time to go through either place is small. The fact that the Labour Party is not itself represented in the Parliament makes it seem unlikely the Government will be interested in the way in which Members of this Parliament should be designated or elected to a body to which they do not belong. If the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is to be pacified, clearly the whole idea must be pie in the sky.
However, I am interested to know from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, whether the whole question of membership of, or indeed, elections to the European Parliament is one of the questions which is being considered in connection with the overall so-called renegotiation. I think direct elections should come, if they are to come at all, at the same time as increased budgetary powers for the European Parliament. Since increased powers, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn has indicated, are now in sight—even if the Council's proposals do not go so far as Parliament might like—the time would certainly seem to be broadly right for both Houses to give serious thought to the whole question of direct elections in order to test the temperature of the water, and this Bill seems to me to give us an opportunity of doing this. In connection with budgetary powers, these are indeed being discussed to-day in Luxembourg by the Council of Ministers and a delegation of the Parliament. This is the very first and purely preliminary meeting—I hope not premature—now proposed under the proposed conciliation procedure which is designed to iron out differences of opinion between the Council and the Parliament.
On the details of this Bill, speaking personally, I might accept at this stage the principle of 36 United Kingdom Members—like France, Germany and Italy, this is our present allotment. I think the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, may agree, however, that ultimately the

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European Parliament should be a considerably larger assembly with each Member representing, perhaps, 400,000 electors instead of over a million on the electorate which voted in 1974—over a million voters in each of these groups of constituencies or combined constituencies, as the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, describes them. If we were to have something more like 400,000 electors, then that would double the number of members of the present European Parliament and make it more like the Congress, the House of Representatives, in the United States, or even, perhaps—I hope I shall not be misunderstood about this—more like the Supreme Soviet, where I think one member (and of course we know there is only one Party there) represents about 360,000 voters.
LORD GLADWYN: They do not represent anything.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: At any rate it seems to me to be rather more important to have an electorate in each constituency somewhat smaller than you would have with only 36 United Kingdom Members of the Parliament.
Direct elections might provide a somewhat different Party group pattern than exists in national Parliaments. On the other hand, we know that national Parliaments are not always a perfect mirror of public opinion; nor, indeed, are those Member-State Governments which do not have fairly representative Coalitions. However, the main reason why I think that the present system of indirect election or designation is not now appropriate is that it means that Members of both national Houses of Parliament have to exercise this dual mandate, which, as I said in the debate on scrutiny procedures last December, is in my view an intolerable strain, certainly on Members in another place but also to a considerable extent on some of your Lordships who are trying to do this double job.
Meetings of the European Parliament have now become so frequent that it has become impossible to remain a satisfactory Member of this House. So far as I am concerned, on nearly every occasion when I was anxious to speak here on one matter or another I found that I had meetings in Brussels or some other capital of the Community. For example, I was attending meetings in Brussels all yester
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day; gave a reception to the President of the Commission in the evening; and should to-day have been travelling from Brussels to Luxembourg for a plenary session. But when it was suggested that I should speak here this afternoon I decided to return, and shall in consequence go off to Luxembourg first thing tomorrow morning, spending the rest of the week there—all day and maybe some of the night in committees or plenary sessions. It is a hard-working Parliament. Whether it was worth returning to your Lordships' House this evening, with such a thin House, and with clearly so little interest in these matters, I rather doubt. But on this whole question of the problem of the dual mandate I think my noble friends Lady Elles and Lord Reay, who I am glad are with us this evening, and who are both, I may say, conscientious and assiduous attenders of the European Parliament, must feel rather in the same way as I do.
Before concluding all I should like to do is to pay a particular tribute to our Leader, Mr. Peter Kirk, and his deputy, Mr. Scott Hopkins, and their colleagues in another place for their tremendous efforts which bring them sometimes near to the limits of exhaustion. I am sure that if the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, were here—he asked me to say how much he regretted that he could not be with us this evening—he, too, would confirm that we lead a very difficult life. Having mentioned Mr. Kirk, I would also say that he has produced an important draft Report on the Powers of the European Parliament on behalf, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said, of the Political Affairs Committee. I hope that noble Lords in this House—and I understand that this document is available to your Lordships—will have an opportunity of studying it. For it seems to me that the powers of the Parliament are considerably more important than the precise method of designation or election of its Members.
I would therefore support the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, in his general views, and if renegotiation is successful I would hope that a Green Paper, or maybe a White Paper. would be quickly prepared. and that in this there would be a discussion of alternative methods of electing or designating this Parliament which would certainly include all the main features of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan.

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Upon so important a constitutional matter, I think that the Government and the Opposition should agree on a consensus Bill which could be put before both Houses. From this, my Lords, you will see that I certainly do not want to discourage the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan; I welcome his initiative. But I hope that this evening he Mill see fit to withdraw the Bill, which has indeed proved to be a very useful subject for discussion.
9.16 p.m.
LORD HALE: My Lords, the House will be grateful indeed to the noble Earl who has travelled so far in these last few days, and who has been so fully occupied. I have been privately playing hell outside and talking about walking home to Dulwich and not waiting any longer, and must therefore pay him a special tribute in admiration of his obvious devotion and sincerity. We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for his exposition of principles. However, I must point out that the two noble Lords to whom I have so respectfully referred opened by saying that this is not the moment to talk about that subject, and then went on to deal with it in much more detail than I had contemplated would be necessary on my part if I made some observations.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I did not say that this is not the moment to discuss it. I said that it was obvious that noble Lords would not want to discuss it, which is a different thing.
LORD HALE: My Lords, I regard this as a discussion document, and I thought that it had been presented as such. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, to whom we are indebted for presenting this Bill with his customary clarity and modesty, said, as I understood him, that the Council has six alibis and that you have only to use one in the end. In the meantime, you can have a discussion about which is the most suitable alibi—either attending the funeral or going to the races—according to the composition of the jury. The noble Lord said that this is not necessarily the best plan, but that this is the plan which has been drawn up. I am bound to say—and I say this without promising that I will continue to say it indefinitely on other occasions when we discuss it—that, looking at it, I like it very much.
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I have said before, and I apologise for repeating myself, that when I was a member of the Council of Europe we found something there which was really inspiring. It was a Labour Party rule that members did not stop more than two years and I had two very happy years there. I was Chairman of the Human Rights Sub-Committee and rapporteur on penal reform. I visited prisons all over Europe with members of all the nationalities in Europe. I had to preside over a Committee on Human Rights which contained a Greek Monarchist and a French Socialist and I never knew which was the more Right-wing of the two. However, we had a considerable degree of amity and gradually, although we were always complaining about being frustrated through not being able to do anything, the Council of Europe had a considerable record of achievement to show for its labours.
They were done by consultation; they were done by advisement; they were done by debates; they were done by committees; they were done by Government recommendations; they were done by summoning the Council of Ministers in a manner analogous to that used by the Parliament of Europe to-day, although the Parliament of Europe at least possesses a vital delaying power which can cause it to be a nuisance to unaccommodating Ministers. Therefore, I found myself wondering how far the legislative power really would help. After all, legislative power for Parliament means re-negotiation. The word is getting rather unpopular and rather less used, but legislative power obviously means a reconstitution of the institutions as they are established at the moment.
The second point I want to make about the discussion group, as we are Members of the Common Market whether we like it or not—quite a number of us, like me, are not sure whether we like it at all; we realise that it may crash at any moment and that the crash may not at all come from any events involving us—is that it has been said that the Germans know the rules and try to observe them, that the French know the rules and do not try to observe them, and that the Italians have not yet taken the trouble to find out what the rules are. How far that is fair I do not know, but it is idle to say

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that a universal law is being implemented and applied. I happen to be a member of the Select Committee on the E.E.C. documents, and therefore I cannot pursue that point because we agreed, willingly and properly, that we would not pursue our discussions impinging upon the matters that we were discussing with our colleagues upstairs, and I entirely agree with that.
But we can generalise, and no one would in the least object to saying that the institutions are often admirable, that the documents are often admirable, that they are drafted with a very obvious desire to secure the maximum consensus of opinion. They do not seek to be arbitrary and they do not seek to be oppressive. But, over and about it all, there is the money problem, and mankind, which talked about its Frankenstein, has created a Frankenstein that it cannot control, does not know how to control, which threatens this country and Western Europe with ruin. I cannot find anybody who is prepared to say, "This is how we must deal with it". Indeed, so far as this country is concerned economically, almost every Chancellor has had to say for years that we do not control our own affairs; that we have to depend upon international finance; that we are bound by international prices. I have never suggested that we should consider these matters in the light of pure self-interest, but we are now reaching the stage when we have to consider very little but self-interest for the time being, because self-interest is pre-eminently necessary to our preservation.
Basically, I profoundly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that in the end, if we tread this road, it must be the road to an increasing measure of political union and, most certainly, to a common currency and a common economic policy, and, in my view, unless that is the objective the objective is hardly worth while. Can it be achieved under present circumstances? The advantages of the common policy are very great, and as it has just occurred to me that I really should be speaking about the noble Lord's admirable Bill, I will divert my attention back to the Bill and deal with it.
It is an admirably drawn Bill and an admirably drawn discussion measure, and I really feel that we should seriously consider the advantages. After all, as we
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said the other week, the final legislative power in this country is in Parliament but is basically in the Cabinet. Basically, under a Party system—unless the Party system breaks down, as it has not yet done—the decisions are made by the Cabinet and the legislation is dealt with by the Cabinet. The House of Commons has only the residual power of forcing resignation upon the Government and that power, despite some recent decisions made irrelevant by the special circumstances, still subsists. That is its residual power.
A Parliament of Europe which did not have legislative power could exercise great influence. It would not be split by unnecessary divisions; it would not do the one thing that at the moment makes democracy so much a subject of re-thinking. All of us passionately believe in democracy, although we have never really had it. We have had as great a measure as anybody, but the price you pay for democracy when you are competing with dictatorships or oligarchies is the price of delay. It is the price of producing plans and seeing, under an inflationary system, the cost going up after each and every reconsideration. It is the cost of consulting with the local authority, with this, that and the other, the cost of giving righs of appeal, the cost of delay, which has probably contributed more to our public expenditure than any other single item; that, and interest rates.
Thus, I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has done a considerable service in presenting to us an admirably drawn Bill which deals with all the problems. Again I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, in the point he made, and, in fact, both noble Lords made the point about the difficulty of having a Member of the House of Commons as a member of the Parliament of Europe. If we get into the full stream of the Common Market, if we settle our present problems, if a measure of renegotiation is successful, it is impossible for anyone to be effectively a member of both. I know that the one Englishman who succeeded most in impressing the Members of the Council of Europe was John Edwards, who served as President of the Council for a year or more, to everyone's satisfaction except that of his constituents who defeated him at the next election almost certainly because he had not been able to spend sufficient time in his constituency dealing with its problems. If

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you have elections, whether there are a million votes or 400,000 votes there may still be control by the Party system. I do not much mind if there is not. We are always hearing about a business man's Government. I have not much faith in any Government. In its battles I think this Government have done very well indeed and I am not stinting my praise or approval. As I have said time after time I still think the Government are facing problems which are virtually insoluble, and will soon be under criticism for not having achieved the impossible.
Meanwhile, Governments have deprived themselves of the right of arguing that membership ought really be for Members of Parliament or Members of either House, Peers of Parliament, because ever since 1918 Governments have had a habit of often introducing, straight into the Cabinet, men who have had no political experience, men who have never taken part in a Parliamentary debate. We have had scores of them over the years. I do not say they were outstandingly successful. One I remember particularly was Walter Monckton who won the House of Commons in five minutes by sheer charm, and kept them charmed all the time he was Minister of Labour. He achieved some astonishing successes without—as one whom I knew well enough to respect and to speak to on friendly terms—knowing much about politics even at the end. He knew how to make people love him and how to make people listen to him, and he enjoyed a degree of affection which few Ministers have ever enjoyed. As for the rest, I do not think they have been terribly outstanding, probably no better than the other Ministers. Really outstanding Ministers have been few and far between.
Therefore, what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, does with the Bill at the end of this debate is a matter entirely for him. I would have welcomed, had there been time, a Committee discussion. I disagree with two noble Lords on one point. I think it is a good time to talk it over, cheerfully and frankly, and without being too much distressed by the later implications. I think we can say what we really think, and say that we are still prepared to look at their proposals. I hope that the Government will reply kindly and sympathetically. I am
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very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, for introducing this debate to-day.
9.30 p.m.
BARONESS ELLES: My Lords, may I first say what a great pleasure it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hale, who, while not being a member of the European Parliament, nevertheless brings his experience of the Council of Europe with great feeling to our debates. He has also put forward a very fair and penetrating assessment of the attempts that the Communities are now trying to make in order to solve the very many problems which face us in the Western world. With his legal expertise, the noble Lord is obviously doing an excellent job on the Select Committee dealing with E.E.C. procedure. The House is very fortunate in having the benefit of his wisdom and experience to-night, and I know members of the European Parliament who are here will be grateful for his intervention.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, for producing this excellently drafted Bill for discussion tonight. There are many reasons why I particularly welcome this opportunity to discuss this Bill. First of all, I think it is a very valiant attempt to democratise a international institution. At the present day, we havea great many international institutions, both functional and multipurpose. They are always filled by delegates and not by democratically elected representatives. So far none of those international institutions which develop close contact at regional level for political, economic and commercial reasons has elected representatives. This Bill is now attempting to make a positive contribution to associate the peoples of the nine Member States, including the British, to bring them into closer contact with each other, to share common problems and to seek some common solutions.
My Lords, I welcome this Bill for another reason. In this country, we are suffering from a certain disillusionment with democracy. This was shown in our own last General Election. There is a slow evolution from a long-established two-Party system which is gradually changing into another kind of system. People are somewhat sad to see the developments that are happening all over Western Europe. There is not one Government in any of the Member States

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which does not now have a minority. I am not saying this by way of any criticism; this is just one of the political facts with which we are now faced. There is growing disproportion between the way electors vote and the results, and therefore between the express wishes of the people, in that one is left with minority governments because of the votes cast by electorates and the consequences of seat distribution—as, indeed, we had in our own last General Election.
I should now like to turn to one or two points in relation to the Bill before your Lordships' House. There is general agreement between all the Member States that direct elections will not be held on the same day by uniform methods for some time to come. It is inevitable that one will have to wait for some time before we reach that situation. But every Member State has been encouraged to so organise its direct elections in accordance with national legislation, or modified legislation. This Bill, which puts forward some very interesting proposals, is on the basis of what is not forbidden, while observing the only condition laid down in the Treaty of Rome—that Members of the European Parliament must be Members of their National Parliaments, and this, of course, the Bill manages to do, admirably drafted and thought out as it is.
Although elections fall within the competence of the Member States during this transitional period, there are certain common principles which were laid down in the draft Convention of 1958—a Convention which was drafted by a Working Party from the Political Committee of the day. These common principles were contained in this Convention which was, in fact, passed by the European Parliament and submitted by the Commission to the Council for a decision. I think we are still waiting for that decision. But I should just like to draw attention to the fact that some of the common principles which were stated in that document do not appear to be adhered to in this Bill. I do not say this in any spirit of criticism, but merely to point out that, excellent as the Bill is—and indeed as Lord O'Hagan himself has said—there are many alternatives to the solution of the problem of how we are to organise our direct elections.
I think, in particular, of one point; the question of the date on which the
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election is to be held. Article 14 of this Convention says quite clearly that an election to the European Parliament should not be held on the same day as any other national election in the Member States; whereas Clause 3, if I read it correctly, states that the election to the European Parliament should be held on the same day as a General Election throughout the United Kingdom. I can see a great many reasons why it is not at all a good idea to have it on the same day as a General Election. Certainly, the first time there will be untold confusion. It will be very difficult for political Parties—and I regret, for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that in his eyes it is bound to be propaganda—to put the European case to the electorate at the same time as discussing local domestic policies. Therefore, it will be very difficult for political Parties to keep these discussions clear and to present their ideas clearly and honestly to the people at one and the same time. So I think some difficulty might arise on Clause 3.
Another point in the Bill which leaves some room for doubt—and I quite understand the reasons why Lord O'Hagan has followed this line—is the consequence of having only one Member per constituency, instead of possibly having a system of multi-Member constituencies with a list from which a proportion of the candidates could be taken. I am not saying it is the best method, but it is one of the alternatives which might be considered at a later stage. Thirdly, and not to over-emphasise the point, there is the question of the voting system. The Royal Commission on the Constitution made what was one of their very few unanimous recommendations, which was contained in paragraph 788 of the Report. They suggested that the single transferable vote was the one most likely to give Parties representation in proportion to their support in the regions. This may also be true if you use this system on a larger scale.
I am not sufficiently expert in this form of science to give any sort of answer or make any sort of comment, except to say that it might be a better way of doing things than using the alternative vote; the system proposed in the Bill before your Lordships' House. As I understand it, it has the advantage that no candidate who has a minority vote can be elected.

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Nevertheless, it has certain disadvantages. I think it leads to a much greater variety of Parties, possibly with independent candidates being elected and in the end it still means, as in our own system, that you have only one Member representing the views of an enormous constituency. On the basis of the 30 million who voted in our last General Election, it would be something like 800,000 electors per representative. Therefore, we are not necessarily getting the best way of achieving a democratic representation by the methods proposed in the Bill. It is in no way a criticism, but merely to suggest that there are other ways of looking at this problem, and the ones in his Bill, as he rightly says, may not necessarily be the right ones.
There are many considerations to be given if we have direct elections. Very close consideration must be given to the liaison that will be necessary between the European Members of Parliament and their own Back-Benchers and Ministers when speaking in the European Parliament, because although some doubt the relevance of the problems which are discussed in the European Parliament, in fact the problems we are discussing are the same problems as national ones, but viewed, some may say, through a looking glass; we are looking at them at a different level and in a different way. Nevertheless, the problems are the same, and are very real.
Despite the fact that the European Parliament has no legislative powers, let us have no doubt that our representatives, both of this House and from another place, who represent this country in the European Parliament indeed discuss very many problems of great relevance to the people of this country. If I may, without taking up too much time, I would give your Lordships a very short list of the kind of subjects that we are discussing, and the effects that the contributions of the British delegation have made to improve and amend, and at any rate put forward the views of the British people in order that their wishes, needs and demands should be met. The first is the Common Agricultural Policy, which was modified very considerably by the contributions made by your representatives in the European Parliament debate, so much so that Commissioner Lardinois was moved to reconsider the whole system
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of the Common Agricultural Policy and made proposals to the Council which would save the agricultural fund £400 million annually up to 1978. I think everybody will agree that that was some achievement.
Others of our Members proposed methods to have a public accounts system to control the expenditure. This again was accepted. The sugar producing countries of the Commonwealth had renewed mandates to import their 1·4 million tons of sugar to this country during the transitional period. This was an undertaking in the treaty of Accession, and it was repeated again in the European Parliament quite recently, due, I would say, entirely to the efforts of one of our Members and the support he got from his British colleagues.
We have been discussing continually—and here I would welcome members from the trade unions to help in our deliberations—for the last few years worker participation, mass dismissals, supervisory boards, and only recently passed a resolution for the 40 hour week and four-week holiday for all workers throughout the Community. We have been discussing the application of the European Social Fund, which is going to be used partly to help the shipbuilding industry, and we alone had £24 million paid to activities in this country. Only to-day—and I end with this shopping list, so to speak, of activities that we have been embarking on in the last year—it was announced that over £500,000 is going to be paid by the E.C.S.C. under finance available under that Treaty for British research projects to study safety in the health and mining industries.
I wanted to list these merely to show that we are engaged in real problems and we try to seek solutions which are for the good of our people, and that the whole thing is not just a myth, something that happens in vacuo. There are, however, certain implications of a general nature which I should like to mention briefly. First, there will be a new responsibility for all political Parties in this country as to information, organisation, selection of candidates and the formulation of European policies. Secondly, there must be a clear defining of the responsibilities between local or regional Government, national Government and the European institutions. Thirdly, the power of the

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European Parliament must increase to enable its Members to exercise their democratic rights, once they are acquired, in the decision-making processes of the Community. Fourthly, the site for the European Parliament must be fixed eventually, because although it has been mentioned that the dual mandate will no longer exist if we have direct elections, it must be made perfectly clear that one of the main problems will still exist for members of the European Parliament.
At present, the continual moving from Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg doubles the work and expense, and also halves the time of the members. Being directly elected will still entail this travel, whether or not you have a mandate in your own House. Indeed, you will have to go to your enormous constituencies at the week-ends, or whenever it is, in order to explain your European policies to your constituents. At the moment, Members of the other House go to their own constituencies at least every weekend to keep in contact. But the problem of travel is not removed by having direct elections. Like my noble friend Lord Bessborough, we are all engaged in travelling the whole time; and for the Record, and I know my record is no better and no worse than that of anybody else who serves in the European Parliament, in the last five months 52 days have been spent on the Continent. involving 38 flights, each flight entailing four or four-and-a-half days in daylight, travelling in coaches or cars to the airport, hanging around for tickets, going through the passport control, having luggage searched every time by the Customs officials, waiting for planes, hanging around in planes because they take-off late, and so on and so forth.
If anything positive were to come out of this debate it would be a request to the right honourable and noble Lord opposite that he should see whether something could be done to enable those Members who serve as delegates to the European Parliament to have some degree of immunity and speed in order to pass all these tiresome formalities to which we are subjected; and it is not only for ourselves that I ask it, my Lords, it is also for our fellow Members who will be coming from the Benches opposite in due course.
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Coming back to the immediate effects of the Bill before your Lordships' House, we have to remember that the European Parliament is a unique institution. It is the only one in which Members from the nine Member States have any opportunity to express the voices of the public opinion of all the peoples in the Communities. It therefore deserves the consideration of your Lordships as to how to make this unique institution as democratic as possible. If we say in this House, and in the country, that we believe in Parliamentary democracy, it is up to us to support the Bill before your Lordships' House, and to give it due consideration. It may not be the right answer, but it is an answer; and I warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, for having produced it to-night.
9.48 p.m.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, I probably strike a discordant note, but on one point I can join with every speaker in the debate, in paying tribute to the diligence of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, which has led to the introduction of the Bill. If he will permit me to say so, he has found the secret of being an effective Parliamentarian. What matters is not inspiration, but perspiration.
When I first became a Member of the House of Commons, in this Chamber, I quickly spotted something. There was a noble Lord opposite, the late Lord Winterton, whom I had always thought of as an object of fun, because the Press frequently treated him as such, but he was a very great Parliamentarian. I do not think that he was a man of first-class intellect, but he had gone into the House of Commons as a very young man. He came to love the place. He spent innumerable hours there, and he did what Lord O'Hagan has obviously done, and what I have tried to do in my humble way: he did his homework, and there is no substitute for that.
I wish all the speakers to-night had done their homework. Regarding the noble Baroness who has just spoken, just imagine a Labour Minister of the House of Commons coming down and giving a catalogue of all the things that had been done in the House of Commons, and then going back to his constituency, meeting his political opponents and giving a list which could be a list much more

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formidable than that promised by the noble Baroness. What would the answer be? In every newspaper that deigned to write about it would be the slogan that the "gentlemen in Whitehall know best". Or, again, imagine that she made an appeal to my noble friends to provide facilities or an exemption from formalities for Conservative Members of Parliament travelling abroad.
BARONESS ELLES: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? It was not for Conservative Members of Parliament; it was for a delegation which will go there in future, including Labour Members of Parliament.
LORD WIGG: It was for Conservative Members of Parliament because Labour Members do not go, thank God! I am just putting the supposition that a Labour Minister made a concession on the same grounds, which could be done very easily, for Labour Members of Parliament. Just imagine the outcry ! Imagine the cartoons in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, that a Labour Minister, let alone a Member of Parliament, should dare to want to travel in a first-class carriage so that he could do some work. We should be reminded about democracy.
Then the noble Earl, Lord Bess-borough, talks about representation of constituencies of 400,000 people. In answering that point may I say a word to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, about what being a Member of Parliament really means? When you become a Member of Parliament you hardly realise it. You are there; you are a Member. Then, almost as if something has hit you, you quickly find out. Through your postbag, which will dwindle or grow according to the extent to which you do your job, you discover that you are a link between the old lady who cannot read or write, the young couple who are bewildered, the man who has gone to prison—and of course all those who go to prison are innocent; all my constituents were, anyway. They are coming to you. You are the only link betwen the small man and the big world and the resources of Parliament. It is not merely a question of representation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, talks about Members of Parliament going back to their constituencies every week. Stuff
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and nonsense! They go back every week when they think there is going to be a General Election; but the idea that Members of Parliament go back every week and talk to other Members of Parliament about policy is absurd. They are far too busy for that. But for a Member of Parliament who is really active the House of Commons is a grinding place, and Parliamentary democracy as it functions will not function as expressed through Lord O'Hagan's Bill, complimentary as I am about it.
I turn to another point of the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough. I am surprised because obviously serving in the European Parliament, which is a stage beyond such institutions as the British Parliament, those who go there will know all about procedure; yet the noble Earl— and I do not doubt his sincerity—says that what happens to Lord O'Hagan's Bill depends upon the Government. Of course it does not. The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, knows perfectly well—he will have done his homework—that the Rules of Order in the House of Commons limit the Peerage. That is laid down not by the Labour Government but by the House itself. That is an institution that has some Rules. You know where you stand. You are not at the beck and call of the opposite side of the House. If the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, does not get a Second Reading for his Bill by June 28 it is a dead duck. I can tell him before he starts that it is a dead duck anyway. It will not get a Second Reading in the House of Commons. It will not get there in time. Even if it did there are plenty of my friends who are waiting around the corner to cut its throat.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, all I wanted to say to the noble Lord was that while, like the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and the rest of your Lordships, I think this is a very well-drafted Bill, I think that on such an important constitutional matter it would be desirable to produce a consensus Bill preceded by a White Paper or a Green Paper.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, if there is one thing I am suspicious about it is this consensus Bill and what is called "moderate opinion". Moderate opinion simply means Tories who have not got the guts to call themselves Tories. That is moderate opinion in this country.

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The point I am making for Lord Bessborough's consideration is that he is wrong when he suggests—I do not suggest that he knew it; it was just ignorance on his part, being very charitable—that the future of Lord O'Hagan's Bill depends upon right honourable Members sitting on the Government Benches in another place.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I did not say that.
LORD WIGG: It does not. This Bill will make no progress. If I may say so to him, I am delighted that Lord O'Hagan is serving his apprenticeship by introducing a measure as diligently, as courteously and as lucidly as he has done this one, but I am also delighted that he is not going to make any progress—and I for one will have blood on my hands because I hope I will help cut its throat. My argument is not with Lord O'Hagan. I want to hear from the Government, because there are plenty of people who are watching and who are suspicious about the Government's intentions in relation to the Common Market. I am not one of them, because some of the senior Members of the Government are very able Parliamentarians, and they can read the signs as well as I can.
Let us get one or two things clear. The Labour Party's Manifesto at the General Election was quite clear in committing the Labour Government to halt any further progress of British integration pending the outcome of renegotiations, and to a submission to the nation in an Election on a consultative referendum. If there is any doubt about this, let us remove that doubt from the minds of our own people. But it is equally important to remove it from the minds of others; and here the members who, at the country's expense, go backwards and forwards to Brussels or Luxemburg can perform, as they say, a good service, because they can try to convince their European colleagues that the British people mean business. In these matters I speak clearly for myself. At the last General Election, to the limit of my physical ability, I spoke in as many constituencies as I could, and I emphasised two key points. The first was that a Labour victory would restore to the British people the right to accept or reject the renegotiated terms of the country's membership of the Common Market;
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and, secondly, that a Labour victory would, if the renegotiations were judged by the people to have failed, free the Government of the day from the obligations imposed on them by the Treaty. That is what I stand for; and, as I say, I campaigned with all the diligence I could. But if there was any sign of the Government going back, even by a jot, on the clear implications—not implications; it is quite explicit—contained in the Manfesto, I for one will campaign against it with as much enthusiasm as I campaigned for it at the last General Election.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would not the noble Lord admit that, in spite of his tremendous effort, only 37 per cent. of the electorate voted for the policy described in the Socialist Manifesto?
LORD WIGG: I am sorry, my Lords; I did not catch the first part of what the noble Lord said.
LORD GLADWYN: Would the noble Lord not admit that, in spite of his own efforts, only 37 per cent. of the electorate voted in favour of the Socialist Manifesto?
LORD WIGG: You know, this is from a man who would claim to be intelligent, and therefore I cannot, I suppose, charge him with stupidity; I have to charge him with the opposite. When it suits him and his friends—
LORD GLADWYN: The noble Lord has not answered the question.
LORD WIGG: But the argument is not based upon the counting of heads; it is based upon how many Members there are. The claim of the Heath Government was an utterly dishonest and dishonourable claim, but he got the full-hearted consent he said he would get because he had a majority in the House of Commons. Now the argument goes against them, and we fall back. I do not expect anything better from the noble Lord than such nonsense. He has been blinded so much by his own nonsense that he has come to believe it. Therefore I regard him as an innocent and perhaps he would let me continue with my speech.
The undertakings at the General Election were perfectly clear. I want to tell noble Lords of my own experience, just as a by-the-way so that we understand where we are. I went last

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Wednesday night to a little place in Yorkshire mid-way between Bradford and Leeds, out in the country, a civic centre, no bus service, a hall holding 800 people. It was crowded. It was not crowded because of me. I was only one of three speakers: Mr. Enoch Powell was one and Jack Jones was the other. We certainly did not consult with each other as to what we were going to say, but we all said the same thing, that what we want, what the British people demand, is the right to exercise their sovereignty.
What I would say to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, is this: what he is doing in his Bill is putting the roof on before he has dug the foundations. His Bill will he all right and will make sense when the British people have been consulted—not bulldozed as they were bulldozed by the Heath Government—when they have given their full-hearted consent, when they know what they are doing, and I will be as enthusiastic for their decision as I am opposed to it now. I do not want to discuss, and never have wanted to discuss, the Common Market or entering the E.E.C. in the nonsensical, farcical propaganda terms which have been put to the British people because I know full well, as any other commonsense person—I am claiming no more than that—that all the things we want from an economic point of view could be obtained inside a Free Trade Area.
LORD GLADWYN: You cannot have a Free Trade Area.
LORD WIGG: In a moment. The noble Lord must learn a little patience and just occasionally a little Parliamentary courtesy. In a Free Trade Area: that is one. The second is this: any co-operation—and as an international Socialist I am in favour of it—could be obtained on a functional basis. You do not need the cumbersome, corrupt, amorphous, unwieldy, bureaucratic set-up that you have in Brussels in order to do all the things that you want. They can all be done except one. There is something outside that cannot be done. I watch the cloven hoof of his Lordship. Oh yes! I know about him back to the early days of NATO. I have even talked to the late General Eisenhower about what he thought about him but I will not humble the noble Lord, it would not be fair.
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What it is really about, and always has been—and this comes out in Mr. Heath's Godkin Lectures, what he wants and what he is not going to get—is a full economic and political union having its own independent deterrent. That is why I am opposed to it in the ultimate.
What I am saying is this. I am a democrat. I believe in my fellow countrymen. I trust my fellow countrymen. I will accept my fellow countrymen's decisions. But for me the keynote is very simple. To me, government by consent is an essential part of the democratic process and that consent must be won not by propaganda, not by false promises nor untrue assertions. That consent must be won by an honest statement of the facts. For British people can be trusted to face reality, however grim that presentation may be, but they expect their Leaders in both Government and Opposition not to be afraid to tell them the plain, unvarnished truth. They will demand the right to control their own destiny. They are going to be ruled not from Luxembourg, not from Strasbourg, not from Brussels; they are going to be ruled by a freely-elected Government, meeting here in Westminster, responsible to the people who sent them here. That is the foundation upon which the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, should build a Bill at some time in the future—and it may even be that I shall support him.
10.5 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, for his skilfully-drafted Bill which has, in the form of a precise proposal, given us the opportunity to have a discussion on this matter. I think we may probably need to make up our minds quite quickly on this matter if and when the renegotiation question is successfully out of the way. I agree completely with what the noble Lord, Lord Hale, said about how apposite it is to start a discussion on this matter and I think it is entirely appropriate that we should now do so.
I believe that the demand for a dual mandate, particularly for those in another place, will surely require a step to be taken in the near future in the direction of establishing, as my noble friend Lady

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Elles said a single seat with directly-elected Members who have only the one mandate. I agree with my noble friend Lady Elles about the waste of time, energy and money which is involved in all the journeys that have to be made. Plainly not all of these can be removed in the future if a more efficient system is established. Nothing can alter the fact that this country will remain an island, but I think it will be possible to remove some of the inconvenience my noble friend described. Certainly there are great obstacles to be overcome before we arrive at a final system of direct elections in Europe. There will have to be increased numbers in the Parliament, based on an increased representation for the larger countries, which are at present relatively under-represented—but of course we have neither the staff nor the buildings to accommodate larger numbers.
There will need to be a uniform system of elections as provided for in the Treaty, and I am quite sure that elections would have to be independent of national elections: otherwise it will be impossible to build up stability in the voting balance within the Parliament. So therefore the question arises as to whether an interim solution is possible. I think that it may very well be and that there could be a considerable advantage in introducing some system of direct elections, not going so far as was ultimately envisaged in the Treaty, but allowing considerable discretion for variation to the Member States during this interim period to have their elections to the European Parliament at the same time as their national elections. In such a way, the principle of direct elections could be introduced and the progressive transfer of powers to the European Parliament could be made more acceptable.
However, as I understand Article 138 of the Treaty, even such an interim system with some latitude allowed to Member States, while quite compatible with the Treaty, would require unanimous recommendation of the Council. It is for that reason that unilateral action by a Member State, such as a Bill of this kind (if enacted) would entail, is only compatible with the Treaty if the principle of nomination in fact by the national Parliament is maintained at the same time. Hence, the ingenious and rather legalistic solution of nominating those Members who have
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already been directly elected. But I wonder whether this would really meet the legal requirement. Can delegates really be said to be directly elected if, between the moment of their election and their entitlement to assume the seats to which they have been elected, they require nomination by the national Parliament? I wonder whether this could still be called direct election? It will be interesting to have the view of the noble Lord who is winding-up from the Government Front Bench to-night. If this is not possible, it looks as if it will be impossible for a Member State acting unilaterally to introduce a system of direct election for its members. It will have to be by a uninimous decision of the Council which will presumably lay down guide lines for Member States, and the limits within which they can use their own discretion.
I should like to say something about the method of voting which the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, chose. It looks as if he tried to combine our traditional single member constituency system with some element of proportional representation. I believe that this system is called the single transferable vote, as opposed to our single non-transferable vote—the system we have at present. I am not sure whether this system is very satisfactory. I am not sure that a system which gives a value to the second choice of voters, where the least popular candidate is equal to everyone else's first choice, is really an improvement on our present first past the post system. We shall have to break further from our tradition and have multi-Member constituencies, which is something my noble friend Lady Elles touched on. I am sure that any uniform system throughout the Community will have to be on the basis of proportional representation. Proportional representation is the rule on the Continent, and experience is providing us with arguments to support their point of view rather than the reverse.
But the only satisfactory basis for proportional representation is multi-Member constituencies. I know that the argument is that this would remove the element of direct contact, the direct link, between a Member and his constituents. But it must be remembered how much larger those constituencies would have to be. A European Parliament of the Nine—and that is leaving out the possibility in

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the future that there might be other European countries joining the Community—with just over 500 members, which is more than 2½ times its present size, would mean an average constituency electorate of about 350,000. As the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, pointed out, under Lord O'Hagan's Bill the average would be about a million. I am not sure whether Members would welcome, or be able to make much of, the opportunity for direct contact with a million electors, or even 350,000, particularly if their Parliamentary work were to be in Brussels. I should have thought that when you moved on to figures of that size there was no longer much to be lost by having constituencies of, say, 1½ million with five candidates, or 3 million and ten candidates. Then you would have the advantage of being able to give better and more accurate representation of the electorate's choice of Party taken as a whole.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? I have the figures here of the average British constituency, American constituency and, indeed, Russian constituency. The average American constituency in 1962 was 465,000 voters. I think the average member of the House of Representatives would say he was able to represent them and keep in touch with his constituency. The numbers my noble friend Lord Reay has proposed would be even smaller. He suggested 350,000. I do not think that it is beyond the realm of possibility for a man to represent those numbers.
LORD REAY: My Lords. I am not proposing anything that I wish to be taken as a definite and final conclusion as to the system we should choose. I am introducing for discussion another possibility. What has been said about the United States may well be correct, although it is well known that they have substantial staffs to enable them to handle the communications with their constituents while they remain in Washington. I am sure we would need to be prepared for substantial public expenditure to cover this. But I still think that when you move on to constituencies of that size you are losing the great distinction between the multi-Member and the single-Member constituency, and you
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may not be changing things so very much from the point of view of proper representation of your constituents if you introduce multi-Member constituencies.
My Lords, I would end by saying that this Bill must plainly be seen as simply an opportunity for us to discuss a matter which is likely to become important in the future, and I understood that this is the way in which it was seen by the noble Lord who has introduced it. For my own part, I should be quite happy to support a Second Reading of this Bill in the traditional manner, but plainly it is up to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, to decide.
10.16 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): My Lords, before I address myself to the prescribed subject of this debate; namely, the noble Lord's Bill, perhaps I may refer to the main points made by other noble Lords in the course of an extremely interesting and useful debate. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, raised a number of points, which however turn upon his concern that this country should as soon as possible move on to some form of constitutional union in Europe. My right honourable friends and I from this Box have repeatedly said that such a proposition must of course await for consideration the results of the extensive and fundamental renegotiation which is now proceeding.
The noble Lord particularly asked me if the lifting of certain reservations which we had means that we are moving towards such a political union. He referred to our lifting reservations on June 1, I believe, which would enable the E.E.C. to proceed with its ongoing business. We have done this in accordance with our undertaking soon after the Election that, without prejudice to the effective renegotiation of certain terms which we regard as being absolutely essential to the viability of this country, we would not do anything to hinder what is called the on-going business of the E.E.C. It is in that spirit that we co-operated by lifting these reservations. The noble Lord is entitled to interpret this as being favourable to his central and strongly held belief and hope, but I am bound to put it into perspective so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned.

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The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, in what I regarded as an extremely prescient and cogent contribution to this very important discussion, put his finger on the main point. This kind of Bill, a massive Bill with ramifications and detailed provisions, must of course be the result of considerable preliminary examination and preparation and represent a consensus approach to the provisions which we may indeed wish to introduce. Consensus is all in Bills of this kind. This is a Bill which would enable a marriage to proceed and it depends, as all marriages do, on the utmost consensus during a fairly long period of preparatory engagement and finally during the marriage itself, and certainly on the marriage settlement.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, in a speech which I found extremely attractive, analysed, among other things, the electoral methods, of which there are an intriguing number to hand and which will need to be compared and contrasted before finally we introduce into a Bill one preferred solution. The noble Baroness said that there are many alternatives. Of course there are, and I shall come to that point when I address myself to the Bill of the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, raised the question of the Labour Party and the Labour Government's intention to give to the people of this country "the right to accept or reject the terms as they emerge from the process of renegotiation". As my right honourable friends in the other place and here have repeatedly given, I can give a categorical assurance that in no way will this Government depart from that pledge.
The noble Lord, Lord Reay, like almost every other noble Lord who has taken part, quite rightly pointed to "the great obstacles to be overcome". They are the difficult preparations of examination and of comparison that must be carried out before, as a Parliament and a people, we can consider a properly devised and a properly comprehensive scheme for elected representation in an outside international body. The noble Lord referred also to one aspect of the Bill which I, too, found rather more unacceptable than other parts of it; namely, the suggestion that nominations should be restricted, albeit to Members of Parliament. I am not at all sure that any country which may be participating in this arrangement at
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a later time would find that acceptable. As an old-fashioned Liberal, if I may so describe myself for a moment, it seems to me that universal suffrage goes hand in hand with universal entitlement to he nominated to seek that suffrage and I find it a little unacceptable. Have I misunderstood the intentions of the noble Lord?
LORD O'HAGAN: I am afraid that I failed to explain myself when introducing the Bill or that my partner in crime failed to explain to me the Explanatory Memorandum. Certainly I should not have brought before this House a Bill which suggested that anybody should be restricted in standing for election to a European Parliament. It is not part of my intention that that should be so. I think that anybody with suitable qualifications for standing for membership of another place should be able to stand for membership of the European Parliament. That is certainly my intention, if it is not spelled out in the Bill.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sorry if I misunderstood what the noble Lord said and, indeed, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, says about the intentions of the Bill. It is what I would expect from him. The section which deals with this is somewhat difficult to understand, but that is not a peculiar feature of this draft. We are familiar with this difficulty of clarity of language so far as laymen are concerned in various Statutes.
LORD REAY: My Lords, the point I was trying to make was that it appears to be the case that if a Member State introduces unilaterally, without having the prior agreement of the Council, a system of direct election it cannot do so and stay within the Treaty unless it preserves the principle of Member States nominating the Members of the European Parliament from the membership of their own Parliament. Therefore, as I understood it, the device that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, was proposing was that after Members, according to whatever criterion he was proposing, had been elected out of the constituencies they should be nominated by the Parliament in order to deal with this objection. I was raising doubts as to whether this would really satisfy a proper description as to what would constitute direct election.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, who has put the point with great clarity. Indeed Article 138 and the sub-Articles 1, 2 and 3 bear out what he has said explicitly. I now turn to the Bill presented by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and I shall deal with it as briefly as possible, the hour being so late, and indeed the debate having proceeded in a way which gave the Bill a proper hearing and an effective discussion. Like other noble Lords I wish to compliment the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, on his initiative in raising this important matter and thus enabling your Lordships to discuss the ideas which the Bill contains. The fact that the Bill is not acceptable to Her Majesty's Government, and I do not think that it is acceptable in this form to most noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, and indeed it might not prove to be practicable to be processed as a piece of legislation, does not in the least detract from the fact that hard work has clearly been put into it as a document for discussion. Indeed, as the noble Lord explained in his excellent speech, that was his intention and to-day's debate shows that he has attained his objective.
While, of course, this discussion cannot be the last word on a subject of this importance and wide-ranging complexity it is a useful part of a process of discussion which must continue for some time. Having said that, may I briefly indicate why, in our view, the Bill is not acceptable. The first reason—and here I come to the central point of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn—is that Her Majesty's Government are seeking to renegotiate certain of the terms of British membership of the E.E.C. The outcome will be put to the British people for decision. Policy towards the European Assembly—and I would add towards the process of constitutional union—will naturally be decided in the light of that outcome. So the Bill is premature in that sense. As we see it, a Bill should be prepared and should come forward if the British people have accepted the terms of continued membership in the E.E.C.
Secondly, if and when we come to that —and we shall come to it, I repeat, if the renegotiated terms are acceptable to our people—the way to decide the method of our electoral participation will clearly not be on the basis of a Private Member's Bill.
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I do not intend to detain your Lordships with a detailed analysis of the Bill before us but obviously the electoral and indeed constitutional changes and innovations which would be necessary are complicated and detailed and would need considerable preparation in depth and detail. Even comparatively minor changes in our electoral laws, as noble Lords will know, while involving mere changes in boundaries of constituencies, require the most careful and detailed preparation, involving carefully drafted sections and subsections, and indeed Schedules.
Any measure dealing with the entire field like this one would need very careful and detailed preparation indeed. There would have to be examination of a mass of practical questions—the method of voting (and the debate has shown how necessary it would be to examine the whole field of alternatives in this respect), the whole question of dual membership, the question of constituency boundaries, of single member representation for rather large segments of the population, or whether, in order to overcome this, one should increase the totality of membership of the Assembly, so that in each country there would be more members available to break down the pro rata representation, although I incline to the view that the noble Earl presented, that if we come to decide this kind of point, the American example should encourage us to believe in the efficacy of quite large constituencies. But all these things need to be considered before a Bill is brought forward for consideration as a Statute.
The document before us, of course, does not do this. That was not its purpose. It fairly sets out one set of suggestions which appeal to the noble Lord and his friends who assisted him in this drafting; one set of suggestions illustrative of the way in which a direct election to an international assembly might be effected. These suggestions are eminently arguable; they are not demonstrably preferable. They should be argued over a very long period of time on the basis of the fullest possible information and expert advice and opinion, and popular opinion. Then, in a consensus Bill the preferred solutions, point by point, clause by clause, should be

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examined by Parliament through the successive processes of Parliamentary treatment.
If I may briefly delay the House, let us take the method of voting. This is almost the touchstone. The suggestion of the noble Lord is the alternative vote, presumably on the Australian analogy. It is one arguable suggestion. Some of us may feel that if one is venturing into the sphere of proportional representation, then the single transferable vote is obviously the right one to adopt. I see one or two noble Lords blench, but I can assure them that S.T.V. has a mathematical beauty, if not a complete utility. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, understands perfectly what I mean. However, these systems are arguable up to the point of presenting Parliament with a Bill. In that Bill there must be a preferred solution, as the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, said, and this applies to the method of election and to how we vote.
Then there is reference in the Bill to a composite Boundary Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and I were Members of another place when the Acts of 1949 and 1958, which really effected quite radical changes in the electoral law of this country, went through the other place, and through this noble House. Of course, in regard to the Boundary Commission, the four Boundary Commissions were carefully provided with detailed criteria on which they had to work from the start. This Bill inadequately mentions the criteria on which the Boundary Commissions operate, as to either the constituency, the attainment of a quota, or coming somewhere near a quota, which are laid down precisely by Parliament to the Boundary Commissions. Parliament must form a view and give clear directions to any proposed Commission.
As I have said, the Bill is unacceptable to Her Majesty's Government. I really do not think it was intended as such. The noble Lord indicated that he hoped this would be the vehicle of ideas and suggestions which could be constructively discussed. If they have been, I believe he has attained his real purpose. Our discussion to-day advances our thinking, and, in that sense, the noble Lord has indeed rendered a service. I hope that, having attained his object, he
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will respond to the invitations made by his noble friends, and indicate in his winding-up speech his intentions in regard to the Bill. I do not think he thinks the Bill should proceed, but the discussion should proceed, and he has signally helped to start it on its path.
10.37 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I should like to thank everyone who has spoken in the debate for their varied contributions, which have been excellent in different ways. Whether the participants came from Dulwich, Brussels or Dudley, they all added something to the discussion to-day and I am grateful that we have had such a penetrating examination of my Bill—too penetrating in many respects, in revealing the many defects in the Bill that I have brought before the House. As to the future of the Bill, I am in the hands of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, quite rightly pointed out that the life expectancy of this Bill is very low, whatever happens to-night. The noble Lord. Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has indicated that many of its propositions were eminently argued, and that it served a useful purpose in providing a forum for discussion. As I understand the normal practice of this House on Private Members' legislation, we often do not have a vote on Second Reading. If everyone in your Lordships' House felt now that we should proceed with this Bill and continue the useful process of discussion on this subject, then I would not seek leave to withdraw the Bill.
I should not like to make this evening less constructive at the end than it has been through the day, by introducing a contemptuous note at the conclusion of our proceedings. I should like to catch the feeling of the House as to whether, as its head is on the chopping block with the henchmen of the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, waiting in another place, it really is incumbent on me to withdraw it now, or whether, in the sense that it has provided a useful form of discussion pending negotiation, it might be useful to keep it on the stocks in this House and let it rumble through, because people can always amend it and cut it to pieces on Committee. If everyone feels, bearing in mind it has a very tentative future life in another place, that it might be a good idea to allow Private Members'

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legislation, as is usually done, to ramble through Second Reading without a Division, then I will not seek to withdraw the Bill. But if any noble Lord feels I should withdraw the Bill, I will happily do so.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
10.40 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do resolve into Committee on the Bill. In doing so, I should like very briefly to say why. I have tried the suggestions made by the noble Lords, Lord Derwent and Lord Sandford, at Second Reading of the Bill, to no effect; and, secondly, there are many other parishes throughout the country—my file is full of them —who will, I am sure, be encouraged by our perseverence to the Committee stage, and it will be a forward step, I hope, to assist hamlets and small communities to retain their own centres. I beg to move.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD CHAMPION in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Option to purchase property of educational foundation by local communities]:
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: This is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move the first Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert—
("1.—(1) In section 2 of the Education Act 1973 (special powers as to certain trusts for religious education) after subsection (3) there shall be inserted the following subsection:—") —(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 18, at end insert—
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("(a) their open market value with the permitted user at the time when they cease to be used for a voluntary school; and

(b) such evidence (if any) as he shall consider sufficient of").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, and at the same time speak to Amendments Nos. 3 and 4. They are designed to meet some of the objections raised by the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, at the Second Reading. For example, at column 837 he criticised the way the Secretary of State was to arrive at the price to be paid. Paragraph (a) deals with this point. So although we feel that in our case, having given the land and built the hall ourselves, we should get it for "nowt", this would be at least a compromise. The noble Lord's criticism was that we were seeking to buy trust property at less than its full value. What is full value? Surely this depends on planning permission. In particular leaving out the last three lines (Amendment No. 3) and substituting something far more easily ascertainable is much less mandatory. Amendment No. 4 is meant to meet the charitable point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and to incorporate the idea of administration under the Charities Act. I beg to move.
BARONESS BIRK: May I say right away that I think the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, has been having rather a difficult time. I think I am now the third Minister to answer on this Bill. To the first Amendment there was no objection. To the next Amendment, dealing the market value, and the ones that the noble Lord has taken together with it, the Government have an objection. The first part of the Amendment requires the Secretary of State, in fixing the price or rent, to take into consideration the open market value with the permitted user at the time the premises ceased to be used as a voluntary school.
The trouble with this Amendment, as I understand it, is that it would not be open to the Secretary of State to take into account the price which the premises might fetch on the open market if they were sold with planning permission to develop them. While I quite understand what the noble Lord has in mind, having read the previous debates on this Bill, nevertheless, it is wrong in principle, because it is surely the duty of trustees to

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obtain the best possible price when they sell trust property and, where possible, this must mean the price which the property will fetch with planning permission for its development.
The Amendment, as it stands, would make it impossible for them to fulfil this duty. The effect of the Amendment would also be to transfer to the representatives of the community the increased value of the premises if planning permission was obtainable, for if permission could be obtained to develop the land and thus to enhance its value it might well be in the best interests of the trust to sell it and apply the proceeds of the sale to the purposes for which they had acquired the land by virtue of any scheme made by the Secretary of State under the new subsection. Therefore, I am afraid that the Government have certainly these objections to this particular Amendment.
The second Amendment to which the noble Lord spoke at the same time appears to be designed to meet a point raised on Second Reading, concerning the amount of the contribution to the endowment made by the members of the local community. The Amendment attempts to do more, and to improve on what was in the original Bill. It is a minor point and it does not really deal with the very realistic objections to putting this into practice. As it stands, it certainly is an improvement I appreciate that the noble Lord has made a valiant attempt to deal with the objections raised on Second Reading, and I do not propose to take that any further.
On these two Amendments—and it is rather difficult to separate them from the substantive Amendment that follows—I suggest that because of the objections that I have made (and I have tried to keep them brief because of the hour) the noble Lord should reconsider and perhaps make an improvement on them if he wants to take the matter any further.
10.48 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the understanding way in which she has treated my case. I have taken careful note of what she has said, and there are one or two points we could alter on Report. For example, perhaps a slight confusion could be avoided by sub
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stituting "including" for "other than" in line 7 of Amendment No. 4. If the statement that I have made is agreeable to the noble Baroness, I will again get together with my advisers to see whether we can put right on Report anything that has been pointed out as being wrong. On that basis, I beg to move.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION): Do I understand the noble Lord is withdrawing his Amendment?
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: No. On the basis of what I said, that I have taken note of what the noble Baroness has said and the one suggestion I have given already for overcoming some of the difficulties, I beg to move the Amendment.
10.50 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I beg to move Amendment No. 3.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 21, leave out from ("subsequently") to end of line 24.—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
BARONESS BIRK: I can certainly whole-heartedly agree to this Amendment, because the noble Lord has made a substantial improvement on the way the Bill was drafted on Second Reading.
Loan CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 24, at end insert—
("(3B) Any order made under or in accordance with subsection (3A) above may establish a scheme or schemes for the land or property to which the order relates to be used for such appropriate charitable purposes such as but not limited to, a village hall or community centre for the benefit of the community, as appear to the Secretary of State to correspond to the use, other than religious or educational use, to which the land or property was put prior to the order, and any such scheme or schemes shall be administered in accordance with the provisions of section 18 of the Charities Act 1960."—(Lord Clifford of chudleigh.
LORD CLIFFORD or CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD or CHUDLEIGH moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("subsection (3A)") and insert ("subsections (3A) and (3B)").
The noble Lord said: This is purely a drafting Amendment consequential on Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
BARONESS BIRK: Due to my newness—if you like my virginity—in answering on Committee stage, I have probably caused a certain amount of confusion. The noble Lord spoke to the Amendments and I replied by breaking them down into the first two or three. It would be only fair to him, although I do not intend to resist the Amendment to the point of a Division—there would be insufficient Members, anyway—if I commented on what is the substantive Amendment, which is to insert subsection (3B), and the one that follows is consequential to it.
One of the problems is that, in the first place, the Amendment as it is now drafted, states that the Secretary of State "may". This is permissive and it would be helpful if the noble Lord would consider making that mandatory, because although it enables it does not compel the Secretary of State to make a scheme regulating the use of the premises. It requires that any such scheme "shall be used for charitable purposes." Secondly, the Amendment would require the premises to be used for charitable purposes, but it would not require them to be used for denominational or educational purposes. Indeed, it could be read in one way as if the premises could not be used for purposes which are neither religious or educational, which I am sure the noble Lord does not intend. If he does not, then I think it is a drafting point of which he should take cognisance However, there is a serious objection of principle to the Amendment as it stands, since the noble Lord's Bill amends the Education Act 1973 which is concerned by definition with endowments held wholly or partly for, or in connection with, the provision of a school of religious education in accordance with the tenets of a particular religious denomination.
As was pointed out on behalf of the Government on Second Reading, it is a fundamental principle of the law relating to charitable trusts that a gift once given for a charitable purpose must be applied as a gratuity for that purpose, or when the fulfillment of that purpose is no longer practicable for purposes as reasonably near to it as they may be, and these in this instance must be religious
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and educational. The Amendment appears to be based on the view that the miscellaneous minor uses of the school outside school hours are uses properly covered by the original trust deed. However, this would be most unlikely. A trustee of charitable property may properly allow the property to he used for other purposes when it is not required for the primary purposes of the charity, although in some circumstances it may be his duty as a trustee to make a charge for that use.
Thus it means that a church hall may happily be used for purposes which have no direct religious significance at all, but this does not mean that those other uses are to be regarded as purposes of the trust. As well as this, there is a further objection to the clause which relates to that part of the new subsection which provides that any scheme made by the Secretary of State under the subsection shall be administered in accordance with the provisions of Section 18 of the Charities Act 1960. Schemes are administered by trustees, but Section 18 of the Charities Act is concerned with the making of schemes by the Charity Commissioners, not with their administration. This, again, I imagine, is another drafting point.
However, the Bill as amended goes some way towards meeting the Government's objections of principle to the Bill, as given on Second Reading, and it would enable the Secretary of State to ensure that the property is applied for exclusively charitable purposes, although I think it is arguable whether in this instance the Secretary of State for Education and Science should have the duty to make a scheme for the application of property for purposes which really are not educational at all. I think this is a matter to which the noble Lord might like to give further thought between now and Report stage. However, as I have already said, since it goes some way towards meeting past criticism, I do not propose to invite the Committee to reject the Amendments at this stage, but I do suggest that Lord Clifford should consider very carefully the objections of principle between now and Report stage. The Committtee should look at the drafting of the provision where the words appear to exclude religious and educational uses of the premises in the future. Nevertheless, it was signified by this

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House on the two previous Second Readings that there is a great element of social justice in the motives underlying this Bill. I think that, with those words, "Godspeed" is all I can say on it at this moment.
LORD SANDFORD: I am glad the noble Baroness ended on that note, because I am sure she will recognise if she thinks about it that it really is a legal quibble to say, on the one hand, that the original charitable trust can be extended from the village for which it was originally set up to cover religious education over a whole diocese, and then, on the other hand, to say that, although it was established for religious purposes generally, it cannot be extended for community purposes. If it can be extended in one way it can be extended in another.
LORD RAGLAN: May I say one word about the Bill, which I have been following with interest through its stages, although I have not spoken on it yet? I have greatly admired the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, in his efforts to put right an injustice, and obviously the Government are giving it, I think the noble Baroness said, a fair wind. The noble Lord now finds himself in the position in which a great many private Members here and in another place have found themselves that is, with a lack of expert advice on how to draft a Bill. I have been in this position before now, where I have brought forward an Amendment which I have thought was perfectly adequate and had it torn to pieces. We have all had our own fun, too, at the expense of Parliamentary draftsmen and their devious methods in going a long way round to produce what we all think ought to be a much shorter draft. But they are extremely expert. The Government have much collective knowledge among their advisers. It would be a tremendous help now, I am sure, to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, if he could be given some direct help by the Government, through their advisers and their draftsmen, so that we do not spend another long Report stage putting right what may be mistakes which the noble Lord will undoubtedly make if he does not have the advice of the Parliamentary draftsmen.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: I am not quite certain exactly where we
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are at the moment, but I should like to thank the noble Baroness for what she has said. I am particularly grateful that she did come back, because it is now on the Record as to what principles are worrying the Government, and this will help me, or anyone who comes along, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, to see that we do not make any more mistakes on the Report stage. I am not quite sure what stage we have now reached: I thought we had taken Amendment No. 4, but if we are back there again, I beg to move.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION): The Committee had accepted Amendment No. 4, and the noble Lord had moved Amendment No. 5, which has been put to the Committee. It is true that perhaps the discussion ranged (shall I say?) a little wide. In the circumstances, I now put the Question, That Amendment No. 5 be agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: This is a general Bill, right across the board and it comes about because our local hamlet of Ideford is about to lose its only community centre—a circumstance which I now know from my correspondence applies to places all over the country. I should like to say that I cannot understand why the diocesan boards of finance seem to want to squeeze the pip till it squeaks. As in so many other cases I know of, we have within the limits of our size, numbers and wealth, collected as much as we can to try to purchase what we think is ours by right anyway. I should just like to say that, as regards the Bill as a whole, it seems to me rather unreasonable that people will not agree to negotiate on what we can afford, and so avoid all this legalistic business.
BARONESS BIRK: I think it is important that I should get this point correctly on the Record because, as the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, kindly pointed out in regard to the last Amendment, it is important for him to know the points to which the Government object. Over the specific case of Ideford, to which the noble Lord is now referring, I think he should be well aware that the Order made in respect of

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Ideford was made not under the Education Act 1973 but under the earlier Act of 1950. If it had been possible to consider it under the 1973 Education Act—which is not possible since it came up too early—the position would be different. The 1973 Act makes specific provision for a division of the endowment to take into account its use as, for example, a Sunday school. So there is a difference in the situation now compared with what it was when the problem of Ideford arose. Nevertheless, I think the noble Lord, in raising the whole question, has succeeded in drawing publicity to the present situation, has given a public service in this way, although I really must repeat again, and it would not be fair if I did not, that this Amendments, as they stand, are really not acceptable.
11.05 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: The noble Baroness has raised a very interesting case. I should be grateful if her Department could look into what I call the subsidiary part of the original trust. There is the question of the Sunday school. For the Record, and hoping she will be able to do something for me. I should like to take the opportunity of pointing out to her that, following the closure of the school, the rector wrote to the Diocesan Board of Finance and asked them to look at the original trust deed. He said:
"As I understand it, on closure of the day school the trust purpose will not have wholly failed but should then revert to the secondary purpose, i.e. the Sunday School. In anticipation of possible closure, could the diocesan legal department look into this and inform me of their opinion?"
The reply that the rector received from the diocesan legal department was that the secondary trust, the Sunday school, was, "By way of being a bonus" and did not affect the legal position. I wonder whether there is any chance that that advice was wrong, because the whole of our case, and our little battle, arose on this very point. The rector went on the local television and said that he thought there might be a legal case, but that he was a poor man himself, his parish was very poor and could not afford the legal advice. I wonder whether I could take up the point raised by the noble Baroness
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and ask if between now and the Report stage we might get some expert legal advice, free of charge, to have something else to fall back on.
BARONESS BIRK: The noble Lord was kind enough to tell me about these points, in advance of this Committee stage. I made inquiries, and although I am not a legal expert, what I said earlier, as I understand it, is so. It was in a way unfortunate that the instance he gave of the village with which he was concerned and which led to his bringing forward the Bill in the first place, did not come under the 1973 Education Act. Therefore, it could not be dealt with in this way. There may have been other difficulties also. I will go into the matter further and make sure that I have the right form of words and will write to the noble Lord about it.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
THE LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House that Her Majesty had (by Commission) revoked certain Letters Patent and had appointed the Chairman of Committees for the time being, the Earl of Listowel, the Lord Rea, the Lord Amulree, the Earl St. Aldwyn, the Lord Airedale, the Lord Jessel, the Lord Douglas of Barloch, the Lord Strang, the Viscount Goschen, the Lord Grenfell, the Baroness Wootton of Abinger, the Viscount Dilhorne, the Lord Champion, the Lord St. Helens, the Lord Royle, the Lord Beswick, the Baroness Emmet of Amberley, the Earl of Shannon, the Lord Derwent, the Lord Henley, the Lord Gardiner, the Viscount Hood, the Lord Alport, the Lord Maybray-King, the Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, the Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, the Lord Nugent of Guildford. the Lord Segal, the Lord Popplewell and the Lord Diamond, Speakers of the House in the absence of the Lord Chancellor. The said Commission was read.
GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
  THURROCK DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL
  Examiners' Certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable: Ordered to lie on the Table.