Lords Sitting of 16 December 1975

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Wool sack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.

FIREARMS REGULATIONS
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: 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 propose to take steps to tighten the regulations relating to the possession of firearms by private individuals; and, if so, when may these be expected.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, within the framework of the Firearms Act 1968 there is very little scope for tightening the existing controls on the possession of firearms. As I told my noble friend in answer to her Question on 1st July, the main improvements in the existing controls which we contemplate will require legislation. This will be introduced as soon as an appropriate Parliamentary opportunity arises.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, I suppose I must thank my noble friend for the latest in a long succession of Answers and of unfulfilled promises, spread over the past four years, regarding fresh legislation. But perhaps I might ask him whether he is aware that since the latest of these promises of fresh legislation (which was made when I asked my last Question in July) the national Press have reported 33 shooting incidents on the mainland of Great Britain, all causing personal injury and including 15 fatalities, but excluding cases of suicide or accident, and an additional 32 cases in which firearms were used as a threat, though not actually used, in the course of another type of crime? Would my noble friend perhaps find his sense of urgency stimulated by
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those facts, and would he include in the Official Report a summary of these cases which I hold in my hand?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, regarding the general purport of what my noble friend has said, I do not quarrel with it in any way. I accept that this is a serious matter, and the Government so regard it. Nevertheless, legislation of this character is substantial. It is also clearly highly controversial, as was demonstrated when the Party opposite were in Office. All I can say is that we are working on this at the moment, but I can hold out no hope of a Bill during this Session of Parliament.
Regarding the latter point raised by my noble friend, the Home Office has asked chief constables fairly recently to provide details of all cases in the year ending March 1976 in which a weapon subject to certificate control has been used in crime, or found in circumstances suggesting that it was held for criminal purposes. As soon as that information is available, it will be made available to my noble friend and to the House.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, having regard to the offences to which the noble Baroness has drawn attention, is the noble Lord in a position to say how far they relate to firearms which are properly in somebody's possession—if the noble Lord understands my meaning—and how far to firearms, whether shotguns or rifles, which are properly in nobody's possession?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, obviously it would be rather difficult for me to answer a question of that character because it was in fact based on a statement made by my noble friend. As I have indicated, we are trying at the moment to improve the statistical data available and when this has been done I will make the data available to the House as a whole.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that tightening up on firearms regulations is likely to have the effect of merely making it much more difficult for the godly and not affecting in any way the ungodly?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: No, my Lords, I would not agree with that view.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, when he comes to consider legislation, to make sure that it is a condition of the licence that firearms, when not in use, are kept firmly under lock and key? Presumably the noble Lord will be aware that it is the theft of shotguns, rifles or handguns which enables such weapons to get into the hands of what used to be called "the criminal classes"?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords, that is an important point, which we recognise.
The Earl of SWANSEA: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government have come to a decision about the setting up of an advisory committee through which the views of interested parties could be obtained when legislation is in draft, so that a Bill, when it is finally produced, is in a form which is likely to be acceptable?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, we have considered this point but at the moment we are not persuaded that such a committee would be helpful.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, would my noble friend confirm that there was a Working Party of chief constables on this matter which reported about three years ago, and that subsequently a Green Paper was issued by the previous Government, on which no action whatever has ben taken?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords; I can confirm both those points.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, would my noble friend confirm the truth of certain Press reports to the effect that he is contemplating tightening the regulations concerning fireworks? If so, could he say on what grounds he gives priority to fireworks, admirable though the proposal may be, over firearms?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH?My Lords, that question goes slightly wide of the original Question asked by my noble friend, but I will look into it.

GREEN HOWARDS BANDSMEN'S EQUIPMENT
2.41 p.m.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what compensation has been offered ill respect of the loss suffered on 11th June 1974 by the Green Howards, who were then serving in Northern Ireland, from the destruction of their band equipment and personal effects as a result of a terrorist attack on Strensall Camp.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the Green Howards band was at Strensall Camp, York, when the terrorist bomb attack occurred, and the band's instruments and equipment, and individual bandsmen's own instuments and private property, were lost. Her Majesty's Government paid £2,484 to the bandsmen. I understand that £9,100 was received by the band from its insurers. In addition, the Army Central (Non Public) Fund has given the band an interest-free loan of £7,500 repayable over eight years beginning in 1978, to be used to pay outstanding bills and to make good the losses of music and accoutrements.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I ask him to explain why it is that when regimental property, of a regimenton active service in Northern Ireland, is on protected and occupied Ministry of Defence premises in the United Kingdom and is there destroyed by IRA terrorist attack, Her Majesty's Government have not given one penny of compensation for its loss and does he not think that mean?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I said that Her Majesty's Government have paid £2,484 to individual bandsmen who lost some of their equipment. May I say that this is not a closed matter. At this moment three Members of Parliament and the Colonel of the Regiment are seeing my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence to discuss various other aspects of the question.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that it would be a very small thing to Her Majesty's Government, but a big thing to the Green Howards, if we met the cost of the loss of their instruments through defending honour and integrity in Northern Ireland?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord is, of course, expressing the feeling of us all. However, the situation is that the estimated cost of replacement, if all the instruments were bought as new, is £00,000, but many instruments can of course be bought for less money than the figure in question. It is the view of Her Majesty's Government, as it is mine, that they have not been ungenerous, and further funds may be available following upon the discussions which are taking place at this moment with the Secretary of State.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, does this mean that those who have to use machine-guns and rifles against terrorist attack, or in anticipation of terrorist attack, should insure them, because there is some danger of the Government's not compensating them in the event of loss or damage? After all, is not this equipment which is regarded as quite regular in the Forces? In those circumstances, why are the Government so mean about this matter, when they are contemplating spending vast sums of money for Chrysler? Why cannot they spend a few shillings in order to compensate these men?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are paying a few thousand pounds to compensate individual bandsmen. The regiment as a whole is receiving funds partly from its insurers and partly from the Army Central (Non Public) Fund. In fact, at the end of the day, I do not think they will be out of pocket.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord prepared to go to the Secretary of State to tell him the feeling that there is in this House about this quite small matter, and the feeling, also, that the noble Lord is the only one who thinks that Her Majesty's Government have been generous?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am certain that my right honourable friend's sense of generosity and sense of
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duty are greater than mine and he will be dealing with this matter in 10 minutes' time.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, will the noble Lord take into account the good morale effect of the fact that the Green Howards band was able to carry on with all its engagements, and also the adverse morale effect on the IRA of the fact that they were not able to knock the Green Howards band out of action, which, in itself, is a very good reason why compensation should be given?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, all of us who have marched behind military bands know their importance.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether Kneller Hall is not now regarded by the Ministry of Defence, as it was regarded by the War Office in days gone by, as an integral part of the Service; and can he recall any circumstances in the past when bandsmen had to insure their instruments? Certainly, in my time that never happened, but of course things are changing.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, in view of the penultimate reply of the noble Lord will he reconsider the question, since the regiment is more than £10,000 out of pocket?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this matter is not yet closed. I shall make certain that the noble Lord is informed of the outcome of today's discussions.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, as a matter of urgency, will the Minister within the next 10 minutes—if that is when the Secretary of State is to consider the matter —convey the feelings of the House to him?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Only by telepathy, my Lords. I cannot do it in any other way.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, having served in the 50th Tyne and Tees Division with the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, in which Division there were no less than three battalions of the Green Howards, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware that there are a large number of people with connections with the whole 8th Army, who served with the Green Howards in the Middle

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East, who will consider it mean and spiteful if there is not full recompense?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, obviously the House feels very deeply about this Question. I am in the hands of the House, but we have gone on for rather a long time and we have a lot of business. We have, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Denham, agrees, an extremely important debate in front of us. Perhaps we might pass to the next Question?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, can the noble Baroness remind the noble Lord, Lord Winter bottom, that there is a telephone?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I already have.

NATO AND WEU COMMITMENTS
2.48 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: 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 restate briefly the United Kingdom's commitments to NATO and WEU and give an assurance that there has been and will be no failure to meet them in full without the consent of our allies.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, as we made clear in our recent Defence White Paper, the Government are fully committed to maintaining an effective British contribution to NATO, which remains the first and overriding charge on our resources available for defence. Our commitment under the Brussels Treaty, as subsequently amended, is to maintain 55,000 men and a tactical air force on the mainland of Europe. If there were any question of important quantitative or qualitative change in our contribution to NATO defence we should, of course, as in the past, consult our allies.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply, the very last part of which seemed to be somewhat evasive.
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Bearing in mind the fact that some nine-tenths of Britain's Defence Budget is related, directly or indirectly, to NATO, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can give an assurance that when any further cuts in Defence are agreed there will be no diminution whatsoever in Britain's contribution to NATO in the immediate or foreseeable future?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, indeed, my Lords. The last occasion on which there was a diminution in our commitment to NATO was in 1958 when another Government were in power, when there was a reduction in manpower while the tactical air force was maintained. We have maintained that position until today and we shall not change it in any way without full consultation with our allies.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it is quite obvious from the reply he has given to this Question that we are not running away from our commitments so far as NATO is concerned. Could he inform the House whether the French Government have given any further consideration to making an application to rejoin NATO?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I could not speak for the policy of the French Government in relation to this or any other matter, but I can assure my noble friend that the position of France is fully understood by her Allies in NATO.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the cuts that were originally proposed, which were frightening in their size, could not possibly have been tolerated by the Chiefs of Staff or by our NATO Allies.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord is speculating about possible cuts that may be now being considered. I can best answer that question and reassure the noble Lord by referring him to the words used by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Defence on 10th December in another place when he said:
"Any current review of Defence expenditure is no more than part of the usual annual public expenditure survey conducted by successive Governments at this time of the year when the future programmes of all spending departments are subject to close scrutiny".
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I take it that the noble Lord is referring to the Minister of State who said that he would resign if cuts on the scale first proposed were made.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think that my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Defence said anything of the kind and I refuse to follow the noble Lord into speculation as to what other Ministers may have said, according to the Press.

INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY INQUIRY: MEMBERSHIP
2.52 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am afraid that my attention was diverted when the noble Baroness asked her Question. May I ask her whether she was addressing her question to me or whether she was asking the next Question on the Order Paper?
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I was asking the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether an appropriate woman is to be appointed to serve on the inquiry on industrial democracy appointed by the right honourable Mr. Peter Shore.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I apologise for an excess of zeal. May I say that a message is going down from this House to the Secretary of State on the subject of the Green Howards band. My Lords, the Answer to the noble Baroness is that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced the composition of the Committee of Inquiry on Industrial Democracy on 3rd December. He does not intend to make any further appointments to the Committee.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I do not need to thank the noble Lord for his Answer. In view of the fact that the Equal Opportunities
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Commission has recently been established by Her Majesty's Government and that an office, with a full staff, has been set up in Manchester, is the noble Lord aware that that Commission will have power to act against the discrimination against women? May I ask the noble Lord whether he will kindly convey to whoever has appointed the Commission the fact that it will look rather ridiculous if at the first opportunity that occurs the Equal Opportunities Commission proceed against their own Government? I shall enjoy it but the House may not.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I will indeed convey the views of the noble Baroness to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. However, the position is that the people who were appointed to this Committee were chosen not for their sex but for their particular qualifications. These qualifications were in no way related to the fact that they happened to be men rather than women. They were professional qualifications rather than the other variety.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, following that statement, may I ask whether the noble Lord does not believe that there is any woman in the country who has the qualifications to serve on a Committee of Inquiry on Industrial Democracy, a committee which is just as important to women as it is to men?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely correct. Women were not ignored. It just so happened that the outcome was that they were not either willing or able to be appointed. In fact, it is an unhappy accident that the total hand to be played is male.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that women comprise nearly half the labour force in this country—
Several Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: My Lords, I think that my noble friend may be allowed to put her question.
Baroness SUMMER SKILL: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend. In view of the fact that women comprise nearly half the labour force in this country, is it not curious that the Government were

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unable to find one woman who was fitted and able to serve on this Committee?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am afraid that I have to tell my noble friend that it is indeed curious, but that it is a fact.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, is not the Minister really ashamed, either for himself or for the Government? Is he aware that every time appointments are made—for example, in the case of British Airways and British Transport and now in the case of the committee that has been raised in her Question by the noble Baroness, Lady Ward of North Tyneside —we always get this kind of answer? If the Government are not to show an example, what on earth can be expected of industry? May I have an answer, please?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I thought that one of the end results of our decision to have equality of the sexes was that the statutory woman might die out—that in fact she might cease.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I am not thinking of the statutory woman? Members of boards should be at least 50 per cent. women.
Lord ERROLL of HALE: My Lords, is it not the case that no woman was prepared to serve on a Committee whose terms of reference were so dishonest and biased?
Lord SLATER: My Lords, in view of the many questions which have been asked on this occasion by the female of the species, may I ask my noble friend whether he can tell the House what is an appropriate woman, so that when I return to the North I shall be able to tell my spouse what is an appropriate woman and whether she fits into that category?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, perhaps I might call myself an appropriate woman, because at the moment I am wearing the cap of the Chief Whip, and say that as we have taken nearly half an hour on Questions we ought really to proceed to the next business of the House.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that there
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is a large number of noble Lords who wish to put additional questions on this important matter? May I ask my noble friend whether or not it is a fact that the large majority of those employed part-time are women? Therefore, is it not desirable that somebody with experience of part-time work should be on the Committee?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, my noble and learned friend may indeed be right but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State does not intend to make any further appointments to the Committee. It may be undesirable but that is the state of play.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, since my noble friend has referred to the statutory woman, may I ask what is the logic that leads the Government to replace the statutory woman, which means perhaps one woman, by six men?
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, the noble Lord has spoken about the appropriate woman, but there ought also to be appropriate men on such committees, and sometimes there are not. The noble Lord may be interested to know that I am not a member of "Women's Lib".
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, thank goodness that quite often there are appropriate men in all spheres of life!

BUSINESS
2.59 p.m.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Shepherd will repeat a Statement on Chrysler UK Limited.

ENDANGERED SPECIES BILL [H.L.]
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to control trade in wild animals and wild plants, and their parts and products. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.— (Lord Wynne-Jones.)
On Question, Bill read la and to be printed.

SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make provision as to the powers of the Law Society of Scotland to intervene in the professional practice and conduct of solicitors, to make provision for the appointment of a lay observer to examine the Society's treatment of complaints about solicitors and the appointment of lay members of the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal; to extend the powers of that Tribunal; to make provision as to the indemnity of solicitors against professional liability; to amend the Solicitors'(Scotland) Acts 1933 to 1965; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.— (The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

STATUTE LAW (REPEALS) BILL [H.L.]
3.1 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. The Bill proposes the repeal, on the ground that they are no longer of practical utility, of 92 whole Acts of Parliament and one Church Assembly Measure, and the partial repeal of 211 other Acts, all of which were passed into law between 1694 and this year. The enactments proposed for repeal are listed in the Schedule to the Bill by categories, which range from alcoholism and animals, through medicine and money, to war and emergency. The Bill gives effect to the Seventh Report of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission on Statute Law Revision. I am sure the House will be grateful to the two Law Commissions for their valuable and continuing work in this field.
This Bill contains some interesting repeals. One historic Act that is to go is the Treaty of Peace Act 1919. Its function, which was to enable the Treaty of Peace concluded at Versailles on 28th June 1919 to be carried into effect, is
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now spent. Another, rather older, Act included in the Bill is the Isle of Man Purchase Act 1765, which gave effect to the contract for the sale of the Isle of Man to the Crown, by the Duke of Atholl and others, for the sum of £70,000. It would be interesting to reflect on what it would fetch today. Finally, I would mention a group of enactments now proposed for repeal which have been the subject of comment by noble Lords when previous Statute Law (Repeals) Bills have been before the House. These are obsolete enactments, listed in the Schedule under the heading "Road Traffic", regulating stage carriages and London hackney carriages. They are part of a complex code of old legislation governing the London cab trade and include, for example, a provision in Section 51 of the London Hackney Carriage Act 1831 —a particular favourite of my noble friend Lord Janner in this field—requiring a proprietor of any hackney carriage who feeds his horse to do so
only with corn out of a bag, or with hay which he shall hold or deliver with his hands ".
The penalty for failing to comply with this provision was a fine of 20 shillings.
My Lords, I do not think there are any other points on the Bill that I ought to draw to your Lordships' attention. Its provisions are explained in the Law Commission's joint Seventh Report, and if it is given a Second Reading it will be referred to the Joint Committee in the usual way. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I say how pleased I am—as I am sure are not only the lay people of this land but particularly the solicitors and the barristers—by the removal of so many obsolete Acts from the Statute Book. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was good enough to refer to a matter I have raised on a number of occasions. I have not yet had an opportunity of examining closely the provisions of the hackney carriage Acts which are being repealed at the present time. There is a provision that every hackney carriage must have a bundle of hay inside the carriage, which of course would include taxicabs, and I hope that that provision is

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no longer to prevail because I am afraid our friends who drive taxi-cabs have been rather remiss in not observing this particular regulation which required them to have hay in their cabs.
Speaking seriously, my Lords, I think it is tremendously important, both from our point of view and from that of the community as a whole, that as many obsolete Acts as possible should be removed from the Statute Book. They are a great impediment to the possibility of finding out what the real law is in various matters.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, may I add a word or two of commendation for the work of the Law Commissions. They go on surprising me every day. Having already produced reports repealing so many Acts on the Statute Book which they deem have no useful purpose to serve, the Commission go on finding as many as they have on this occasion, which only shows what an awful lot of junk there was originally on the Statute Book. If they can continue like this, and can increase the speed and bring in Consolidation Bills, we may yet live to see a Statute Book of which we can be proud, instead of feeling it to be a disgrace.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, while endorsing what has been said, I can only say as a matter of experience that our Statute Book is becoming less and less a matter of which we can be proud.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful for the commendation the Bill at any rate has received. I have little doubt that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, will recollect his distinguished role in the mass of legislation which was introduced by his Administration. However, I am not a man to make a Party point on this issue, as your Lordships may have observed. At any rate, the happy position is that we are slowly winning the battle. Gradually as the years go by there are fewer Statutes than there used to be on the Statute Book.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

HARE COURSING BILL [H.L.]
3.8 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is the second time in a period of only six weeks that I have moved the Second Reading of this Bill. It is identical with the one which your Lordships agreed should be given a Second Reading on 7th November. For that reason, I do not think I need spend much time explaining its provisions. It is a simple measure of two clauses. The first gives effect to the single purpose of the Bill. It makes hare coursing illegal and provides appropriate penalties for a breach of the law. The second is largely technical.
My Lords, the House will not wish me to take up too much of its time in recapitulating arguments which have been deployed at such length and so recently, both here and in another place. However, I should like to refer briefly first to the history of inquiries into this subject, and in particular to the Report of the Scott Henderson Committee. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Denham, will applaud this feature of my speech if no other, because he felt I had spent too little time on the background of inquiries when I last addressed the House. Therefore, I thought it appropriate to deal with this particular matter of the Scott Henderson Report. Of course, the purpose of the interest of the noble Lord in this matter is that he believes this Report provides ammunition for his cause. I am not quite so sure about that as he is.
The Scott Henderson Committee was set up in 1949 to inquire into possible cruelty to wild animals, including any which might occur in their pursuit for sport. The Committee reported two years later. They undertook a full investigation of the facts of hare coursing. Their conclusions, however, showed some inconsistencies. The definition of cruelty adopted by the Committee was that of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. In the case of field sports generally the Committee appear to have formed the view, though it is not argued in the Report, that such sports were acceptable but that they should be conducted in such a way that the killing was

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accomplished without avoidable suffering. The Committee were evidently influenced by the consideration that field sports often secure the purpose of pest control and that this is the necessity of the killing. The Committee do not appear to have asked themselves, however, whether killing in field sports could be regarded as necessary at all when there was no purpose other than that of the sport itself.
When the Committee came to consider hare coursing in isolation, they concluded that, despite what they had said generally about field sports, this particular activity, when conducted as it is at Altcar, came within the definition of cruelty they had adopted. It might have been thought that from this conclusion the Committee would have been led to recommend that hare coursing should be prohibited by law. But they did not. Their reasons are set out in paragraph 281 of their Report. I am afraid I do not find those reasons particularly convincing.
The Scott Henderson Report was followed more recently by the Stable and Stuttard Report. This was an exhaustive study of hare coursing commissioned by the British Field Sports Society. I do not think it can be reasonably argued that there are any facts about the activity which we are debating today which are not widely known or cannot be readily obtained from one or other of these two documents.
Against the background of the information provided by these two Reports the issue arises whether this activity should now become a criminal offence. My Lords, the Scott Henderson Committee concluded that hare coursing came within their definition of cruelty. A clear majority in another place, composed of representatives of all political Parties, consider hare coursing to be cruel, and the Government believe it is cruel. We believe that hare coursing is cruel because it constitutes unnecessary suffering; because it involves putting animals in fear of their lives, and in a significant number of cases leads to their losing their lives for no better reason than the enjoyment of the onlookers.
I must make it absolutely clear that it it not the suffering, in isolation, which is at issue under the Bill. We recognise, of course, that animals suffer in nature,
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sometimes more indeed than in hare coursing. But what is at issue is the necessity and the avoidability of that suffering. The supporters of hare coursing do not, indeed cannot, argue that coursing is needed to control hares, or even to lead to their conservation. The patchwork pattern of the activity would dispose of both these arguments even if they were to be advanced. The only argument of the Bill's opponents, therefore, is that Parliament is unjustified in interfering. The Government do not believe that such an argument can any longer be sustained. Hare coursing is cruel, there is no necessity for it, and it is clear that its continuance is widely regarded as an affront to public opinion.
That brings me to the Bill itself. During its consideration by your Lordships on 7th November a number of criticisms of its drafting were made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, who I am glad to see here this afternoon. I undertook last time to have them examined, and I have carried out this undertaking. I have to inform the House that it is the Government's view that the drafting of the Bill is satisfactory for its purpose and that the criticisms made by the noble and learned Lord are indeed not justified.
I do not propose to deal in detail with the points made by the noble and learned Lord. That would, I think, be inappropriate to a speech made on Second Reading. It is enough to say that the bulk of the noble and learned Lord's criticisms turned on the definition of the word "competition "in Clause 1 of the Bill. He suggested that Clause 1 would not give enough guidance to the courts to enable them to determine in any particular case whether or not there had been a competition. The Government's view is that none of the elements mentioned in the speech by the noble and learned Lord—which included, as the House may recall, a judge, a prize, a bet or rules—is an essential prerequisite for a competition, though each might be evidence of a competition. The intention in the Bill is that the word should be given its normal common sense meaning in the light of all the circumstances hence the deliberate omission of any definition in the Bill.
As I said earlier, the Bill is aimed at the coursing of hares for sport. It is not

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aimed at the control of hares with dogs. A competition is an essential ingredient of coursing for sport, and, despite the apparent difficulties of applying the Bill to hypothetical situations, we believe that the courts should, in practice, have no difficulty in construing the Bill in cases which come before them.
I should like at this stage to mention one other aspect of the Bill, again one to which I referred on Second Reading on 7th November; that is, its application as far as Northern Ireland is concerned. The House will observe that the Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland. As I explained briefly in the last debate, animal welfare is a matter which was formerly within the competence of the Stormont Parliament and then the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is, therefore, dealt with in a separate body of legislation which differs from the comparable provisions which apply in Great Britain and which takes account of both the administrative differences and the different circumstances prevailing in Northern Ireland. The Government take the view that it is desirable to preserve the distinction between the two bodies of law, if only to avoid confusion as to where the relevant law is to he found. This can be done by using the Order in Council procedure provided for that purpose. Accordingly, the Government, once this Bill reaches the Statute Book, propose to produce for Northern Ireland an Order in Council along similar lines. This will permit a similar measure to take its place with the rest of the Northern Ireland animal welfare legislation, as well as ensuring that local interests in Northern Ireland are given adequate notice of the Government's intention.
My Lords, I turn finally to the Motion on the Order Paper in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, which he proposes to move if this Bill is given a Second Reading, that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord was good enough to give us advance notice of his intention when the Bill was last before us. I said on that occasion that I could hold out no hope that the Government would favour the setting up of a Select Committee. However the rights and wrongs may have been obscured in the minds of some of the protagonists, as indeed I recognise is so in a number of
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cases, the facts are, as I have tried to indicate, readily available to all concerned. There have been two major inquiries into this matter; there have been a series of significant debates in both Houses. Nevertheless, I recognise that the noble Lord is persuaded that it would be right to appoint a Select Committee to go into this Bill again. As I have indicated, I do not believe that the appointment of a Select Committee would tell us a great deal more than we know already. The disagreement between the noble Lord and his friends and those who favour the Bill appears to be on a central question of principle. Nevertheless it would be wrong for me to imply that the Government had anything to fear from the appointment of a Select Committee. We believe that the facts, and the conclusions to be drawn from them, speak for themselves. We shall listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Denham, says this afternoon in seeking to justify the view he has of this matter, and we will consider the matter then. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
3.20 p.m.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I should like to start with a word of support for this Bill. Not from me, but from an even more unlikely source, that eminent, though fictional, Master of Foxhounds, Mr. Jorrocks of Handley Cross. "Coursin'", he said, "should be made a felony". Admittedly, it was after a very good dinner that he said it, and he was prompted to do so by a sense of outrage that coursing should be mentioned in the same breath as the noble science of foxhunting; but, even so, I hope it may be of some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, because when all the facts about coursing are known, I cannot think that this well-meaning but misguided little Bill will arouse a great deal of enthusiasm elsewhere.
My own position about coursing is this: I was taken to coursing meetings as a boy and I was usually bored to tears, on one occasion literally. Ten days ago, in preparation for this debate, I went again and, while I saw nothing to convince me that coursing was objectionable, I equally found no great reason to revise my early

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impression. But not to enjoy doing something one self is by no means the same thing as condemning other people for enjoying it. And field sports, coursing in particular, seem to be the one subject on which people feel entitled to pronounce judgment, without taking the trouble to find out what it is all about. "We know enough", they say, "to know that it is wrong". My Lords, do they?
One of the first conclusions reached by the Scott Henderson Committee in their meticulous investigation into field sports was this, which appears in paragraph 7 of their Report:
"It has become apparent to us that many people who think they know what takes place obtain their information from propaganda issued by organisations who, in turn, rely to a surprising extent on Press reports of particular incidents which, in their turn, are based on misconceptions."
This was never truer than with the sport of coursing, whose opponents imagine it to consist of practices and attitudes of mind, which the people who course would be the very first to condemn, and this Bill has largely been designed, therefore, to prohibit a sport the like of which does not exist and, under the rules of the National Coursing Club, could not exist. This is the principal complaint I have to make, that your Lordships are being asked to legislate on supposition and on prejudice, without the slightest effort having been made to establish the truth.
The matter is further confused by the fact that, as with other field sports, there is not just a single clear-cut case made against coursing. Opponents to field sports fall roughly into three groups, each of which has a separate and distinct charge to lay and each of which, therefore, places a different emphasis on the facts—or on what they believe to be the facts. None the less, they are serious charges, made with sincerity, and it is right that we should consider how the sport of coursing stands up to each of them.
The first group of opponents to field sports object to a particular sport because they believe it to be cruel and would like to see it banned for the protection of the animal pursued The noble Lord, Lord Harris, based his speech on the assumption that coursing was cruel, but he did not advance any arguments to support this premise. I shall give your Lord-
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ships the reasons why I believe the reverse to be the case. In doing so, I make no apology for the fact that I shall quote the Scott Henderson Report. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, sought to write off the—
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, if I may just take up that point, the noble Lord is about to address himself to the Scott Henderson Report, and he said that I had not given any evidence in the matter in terms of cruelty. No doubt when he discusses the Report he will address himself to paragraph 281, and in particular the first sentence, which makes the position of the Committee quite clear on this point.
Lord DENHAM: Certainly, my Lords, I shall do that. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, sought to write off the Scott Henderson Committee as almost irrelevant. Admittedly, they reported 25 years ago, but they produced the only official, independent study of the subject, and, unless and until some new inquiry is set up, their findings must stand.
The Scott Henderson Committee defined cruelty slightly more broadly than the definition quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in relation to field sports, in paragraph 11 of their Report:
"If in pursuing or destroying a particular animal in the course of a sporting activity the degree of suffering reasonably necessary is not more than would be involved in the use of other methods likely to achieve control or provide food with the least amount of suffering, that particular sporting activity should not be regarded as cruel. But, however justifiable a particular sporting activity which involves some degree of suffering may be, the infliction of more suffering than is necessary in the pursuit of that activity should be regarded as cruel."
The first requirement for a field sport, therefore, is that the object of pursuit must be one that needs to be killed anyway, either because it is a pest needing control or because it is a source of food. Of course the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is right when he says that no animal should be killed for purposes of sport alone. But, my Lords, apart from certain types of coarse fishing, this has always been an unwritten law of the countryside; and it does not apply to coursing, because the hare is both pest and food.
Two questions remain to be answered. First, is the degree of suffering, reasonably

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necessary in coursing, no more than would be involved in other methods likely to achieve control of the hare or to provide food from it? For all practical purposes, the alternative to coursing is shooting, and, while for a hare that is coursed there are two possible results, it may he killed or it may escape unharmed, for a hare that is shot at there are three. It may be killed, or it may escape unharmed, or it may get away to die of its wounds later.
While the Scott Henderson Committee recognised in paragraph 253 that it would be impracticable to prohibit the shooting of hares, they were quite emphatic about the relative degrees of suffering involved in coursing and shooting, which they summed up in two short sentences at the beginning of paragraph 280:
"Our conclusion about coursing is that it involves no more suffering than the shooting of hares as ordinarily practised. Indeed there can be no comparison between the lingering death of a hare that is shot at and wounded and the quick death of a hare that is coursed and caught."
The other question that must be answered is this. Is there any particular aspect of the sport of coursing that inflicts more suffering than is necessary in the pursuit of that activity? The Scott Henderson Committee had only one reservation on this point. They felt that when an owner or trainer reached the dogs, at the end of a course, before one of the official pickers-up, appointed for the purpose, although, in those circumstances, it was his express duty to satisfy himself immediately that the hare was dead, he might be more concerned about the welfare of his dog and look to that first. The Committee therefore recommended that the National Coursing Club should take steps to see that what had hitherto been an unwritten rule was strictly observed. As soon as they could reasonably be expected to do so, the National Coursing Club introduced a written rule to comply with this recommendation. They made it the personal responsibility of stewards at each meeting to ensure that its provisions were meticulously complied with. They extended it to cover any of their members while attending private meetings, even though such meetings do not come under the direct supervision of the National Coursing Club. And they decreed that
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any breach of it should rate as "discreditable conduct", an offence that carries disqualification from the National Coursing Club.
In more recent years, the British Field Sports Society commissioned a review of coursing—which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, hadmentioned—from Mr. Owen Stable, Q.C., and Mr. R. M. Stuttard, one of the main purposes of which was to find out whether changes in the pattern of agriculture and in the countryside had, made any further amendments to the rules of coursing desirable, so as to minimise suffering. The Stable Review was published in May 1971 and included nine recommendations, every one of which has since been implemented by the National Coursing Club. I cannot see what more could have been done by the National Coursing Club to ensure that no unavoidable suffering takes place.
The Scott Henderson recommendations about coursing have been described (as they were described by the noble Lord, Lord Harris) as indecisive, ambiguous and even contradictory. My Lords, I believe them to have been none of these things. The Committee said that they made no specific recommendation as to the continuation of the sport and this has been taken as an indictment of coursing or, at best, as sitting on the fence. But the terms of reference of the Committee instructed them:
"To make recommendations as to such legislative measures as may seem to them desirable in relation to the practices and activities into which they have inquired."
They made no such recommendation for a Bill as this to prohibit coursing. Indeed, they categorically stated that they did not do so. Where the confusion has arisen is this. When they considered deer hunting, fox hunting and hare hunting, not only did the Committee refrain from recommending that these sports should be abolished, they positively recommended that, for the sake of the deer, the fox and the hare, they should be allowed to continue. But when they came to consider coursing they withheld this positive recommendation, for the reason which they explain in paragraph 274 of their Report.
Hares are preserved for coursing, in the sense that they are not shot hares are sometimes imported at the beginning of the breeding season, to improve the stock.

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The National Coursing Club admitted quite frankly that the main purpose of coursing is not to kill hares but to test the speed and stamina of the greyhounds; and, therefore, the Committee concluded, coursing under National Coursing Club rules could not be regarded as a method of control. For this reason, and for this reason alone, the Scott Henderson Committee felt that coursing fell technically within the definition of cruelty they had adopted, and, for this reason, and for this reason alone, they withheld the positive recommendation that the sport should be allowed to continue.
My Lords, I believe that having established the facts they had, and holding the views they did, the Committee were mistaken in withholding this positive recommendation. They seem to have overlooked the alternative justification for a field sport in their definition of cruelty: that of providing food rather than that of achieving control; and, while the hare is only in some places regarded as a pest, it is everywhere regarded as food. Until this country becomes a vegetarian nation it will continue to be so regarded. The fact is therefore indisputable that where a hare is no longer at risk from being coursed, it will be at risk from being shot; and if any of your Lordships still believe that, of the two, shooting provides the preferable death, I can only say this. In addition to having attended coursing meetings I have hunted deer and I have stalked deer; I have been joint-master of a pack of foxhounds; I have whipped in to a pack of beagles; each with a clear conscience, and each, were the occasion to demand, would I with confidence justify to your Lordships; but I do not, and will not, ever shoot a hare. My Lords, hares have to be killed and it just is not possible to substantiate the charge that coursing is a crueller way of doing it than other methods that are available.
But the second group of opponents to field sports are those who may be prepared to be convinced that a particular sport is not cruel, but who still object to it because they believe it to be sadistic and would like to see it banned because they are more concerned over what they imagine to be the mental attitude of the people who take part. My Lords, I know this charge too to be wholly un-
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founded. There is as much, if not more, informed concern for the welfare of wild animals among those who take an active part in field sports as in any other group of people in the community.
The Scott Henderson Committee considered the charge of sadism in paragraph 142 of their Report.
"It is sometimes alleged that the majority of the followers of field sports are ' sadists 'who revel in the infliction of suffering on defence less animals…we are convinced that very few people, if any, delight in seeing the animal they have been hunting captured and killed. The death of the quarry is the necessary and logical outcome of the sport, but it is not its sole purpose and the followers do not go out just to see an animal killed. Although this charge has been made against the supporters of field sports by many of the witnesses who had given evidence for the abolitionist organisations we do not think that it is justified and we arc not prepared to accept this view."
Indeed, when they came to consider coursing specifically, it was the very lack of emphasis that was placed on the death of the hare that led the Committee to consider that the sport might fall technically within the definition of cruelty they had been adopting.
The third, and probably the largest, group of opponents to field sports, and it is into this category that I think those of your Lordships who feel sympathy with this Bill may fall, are those who may be prepared to be convinced that a particular sport is neither cruel nor sadistic, but who still feel that there is something a little distasteful about people getting pleasure out of a recreation that involves the death of an animal. My Lords, is a feeling of distaste about someone else's recreational activity enough to warrant banning that recreation by making it an offence under the criminal law? And, if it is, how far and in what directions is this principle going to lead us?
The Scott Henderson Committee considered this viewpoint too:
"Several witnesses have expressed the view that it is ethically wrong to pursue or kill an animal for sport if the infliction of any degree of suffering is involved."
I am quoting from paragraph 140 of the Report.
"But, while we appreciate this view and have great sympathy with those who hold it, we think, after very careful consideration of all the evidence, that it is indefensible."

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Further more, I would ask your Lordships to consider this. Can it be right for anyone to seek to spare himself such a feeling of distaste, if it is to be done at the expense of the hare? Because more suffering and not less will be the direct and lasting result of the passage of this Bill, in that, in the areas where coursing now takes place, more hares will be shot at and wounded than are at present coursed and caught.
My Lords, on each of the charges laid against coursing I believe this Bill to be totally unjustified. Nevertheless, I would advise your Lordships not to refuse it a Second Reading. For this reason: there are sincere, but, in my view, mistaken, people to whom coursing is particularly abhorrent among field sports and who, for years, have been pressing for a Bill such as this. But there are a larger number of equally sincere, but, in my view equally mistaken, people who object to other field sports, perhaps more than coursing, but who see, in the abolition of coursing, the most likely first step towards achieving their real objective and who have, therefore, been lending their support to a Bill such as this. I make no complaint about this. Holding the views they do, it is a perfectly legitimate Parliamentary tactic. But it has meant that, over the last nine or ten years, the sport of coursing and those who take part in it have been subjected to the major part of all the attacks and vilification aroused, not only by their own but by each other field sport as well. It is more than time that the record should be set straight.
Whether or not this Bill reaches the Statute Book, whether or not it is right that it should do so, it is only common justice that these people should have the opportunity to clear their names and to demonstrate that they are not the sadistic monsters that they have been freely accused of being, and that the passage of this Bill into law would, otherwise, be seen as confirming them to be.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has mentioned the Motion down in my name on the Order Paper, to the effect that, if this Bill receives a Second Reading, it should be referred to a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. As I told your Lordships last Session, this is not a device to delay the Bill. If Her Majesty's Government
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should turn out to be right and I, and some of my honourable and noble friends, wrong, it need not of itself prolong coursing for a single day.
But a quarter of a century ago, the Scott Henderson Committee was set up, by a Labour Administration, to examine field sports and to make recommendations. The recommendation the Committee made about coursing was that the degree of cruelty involved was not sufficient to justify its prohibition. Now this Bill has been introduced, as a Government Bill, in direct conflict with the Scott Henderson Report and without any form of official inquiry having taken place, to seek to disprove or to bring up to date its findings. It was to repair just such an omission as this that Select Committees of your Lordships' House, of the type for which I am asking, were designed.
The Companion to Standing Orders has this to say on page 106:
"A Bill may be referred to a Select Committee when a more minute investigation or the hearing of evidence is required before coming to a decision."
If ever there was a case when a more minute investigation of the subject of a Bill, and the hearing of evidence, was required, this is it. Have the facts about coursing, established through months of painstaking inquiry by the Scott Henderson Committee materially changed since the publication of their Report? And (if they have) are the conclusions of that Committee, based on those facts, no longer valid? Has the climate of public opinion as to the acceptability of coursing indeed undergone a change in the intervening years? And, if it has, is such a change based on the facts, or on what the general public believes to be the facts?
May not Her Majesty's Government themselves have been misled by the very pitfall warned against by the Scott Henderson Committee?—
"It has become apparent to us that many people who think they know what takes place obtain their information from propaganda issued by organisations who, in turn, rely to a surprising extent on Press reports of particular incidents which, in their turn, are based on misconceptions."
If Parliament is to take the right decision over this matter and is to be seen to have taken the right decision, we must have the answers to these questions before we proceed to the next stage of this Bill.

CHRYSLER UK LIMITED
3.41 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will repeat a Statement which is now being made in another place in regard to Chrysler, and in doing so I will use the words of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry:
"As the House knows, Her Majesty's Government first learnt of the possibility of Chrysler withdrawing from this country from reports of a Press conference taken by the Chairman, Mr. Riccardo, at the end of October.
"This was despite the approach made to him by my predecessor, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy, in January and the very closest contacts maintained through the year with the senior management of Chrysler UK.
"I at once wrote to Mr. Riccardo to seek clarification.
"On 3rd November he and his team told my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, myself and other colleagues that his Board had decided they would provide no further funds for Chrysler UK.
"From the time Chrysler Corporation took over in 1967 to the end of this year Chrysler UK was expected to have a cumulative trading loss of £80 million, with the expectation of losses continuing at a substantial rate next year.
"The Board of Chrysler Corporation had decided they could not continue to meet such losses from their own resources. Accordingly they told us they would start liquidating Chrysler UK from the end of November—that was in under four weeks' time from that meeting—unless Her Majesty's Government in the meantime took it over.
"This is the fearsome choice we have been wrestling with ever since.
"Liquidation would put 25,000 people out of work in Chrysler, with at least as many more in supplying and related industries.
"We should lose the important contract to supply car kits for assembly in Iran, with all the effect this might have
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on our prospects of further trade with that country. We should lose other exports.
"The gap left by the disappearance of Chrysler from our own market would cause serious damage to our balance of payments.
"On the other hand, just to take over Chrysler UK completely—even with a £35 million payment which Mr. Riccardo subsequently offered us in later intensive negotiations—would have passed over to us very substantial existing liabilities and heavier still prospective financial commitments.
"We should have had to take direct responsibility for heavy redundancies whatever happened—heavier than those which, as I shall tell the House later, will now have to be faced.
"We should have become responsible for the direction of the United Kingdom operation even though Chrysler offered to provide the necessary managerial, technical and distributing skills and facilities in this country and abroad and the necessary design assistance for a new model range.
"We should have been dependent on them, but they would have had power without responsibility and without the incentive to minimise losses and maximise profits and to make a real success of this difficult operation.
"We did not consider that this would be a satisfactory or indeed tolerable situation for the Government to be in.
"We have studied many schemes with the Chrysler team.
"Ministers have had 11 meetings with Mr. Riccardo and there have, in addition, been many meetings with officials.
"I am now able to tell the House that in the end we have achieved an agreement.
"We were prepared to accept an alternative solution only when Chrysler eight days ago made it clear that they would now be prepared to remain in this country, and that Chrysler UK would have their full support.
"They will streamline their operations by moving assembly of the Avenger car from Ryton to Linwood.

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"Of their present 25,000 employees, there will have to be some 8,000 redundancies; but the stark choice is between keeping this opportunity to maintain these 17,000 jobs or losing not only the full 25,000 but also many others in firms which depend on Chrysler.
"The Chrysler management are now telling representatives of their workforce how this necessary rationalisation will affect them.
"The redundancies will fall most heavily in the Midlands, where we have the best prospects of providing other work as trade picks up.
"The employment and training services agencies stand ready to help in all possible ways.
"Because the Chrysler Corporation made clear throughout that they were not in a position to advance the necessary further funds to the United Kingdom company, we have devised with them a scheme to share risks and expenditures.
"For next year they forecast a loss of £40 million.
"We have offered to meet this, in addition to meeting half of additional losses, if any, up to limits of a further £20 million next year; £20 million in 1977; £15 million in 1978; and £10 million in 1979, making a total commitment to provide up to £72.5 million over these four years.
"But together, we aim to turn these losses into profits; and we shall share equally with them in any profits which accrue in these years.
"We have also undertaken to provide a loan of £55 million to finance capital expenditure on plant and model development.
"This loan will be at a rate of interest no less than the Government lending rate.
"The Chrysler Corporation in return will guarantee the first half of this amount, amounting to £28 million.
"They will also provide £10 million to £12 million for the first stage of a programme to enable the C6 Alpine model to be assembled at Ryton from kits imported from Simca in France; and if this enterprise is successful—as we must all endeavour to see that it is
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—later stages to be considered would provide for the United Kingdom supplies for these cars to be increased from rather over 50 per cent. to 100 per cent.
"This would involve a further capital development programme for Chrysler UK of about £23 million.
"The effect of this scheme is to provide work at Ryton in place of the Avenger assembly.
"In the early stages there will be 2,500 redundancies there; there will also be substantial loss of jobs initially at Linwood.
"Chrysler UK has not been able to convert its short-term liabilities into medium-term finance.
"The London and Scottish Clearing Banks have agreed in principle to provide a medium-term loan up to £35 million against the guarantee of Her Majesty's Treasury, which would be counter-guaranteed by the Chrysler Corporation.
"All these measures of financial support have of course been offered subject to our obtaining Parliamentary approval.
"The total potential commitment will be £162.5 million, but this includes the maximum guarantee liability for the £35 million medium-term loan, the full £28 million of capital development which is counter-guaranteed by Chrysler Corporation and the maximum possible loss payment year by year.
"These guarantee commitments are payable only if Chrysler Corporation were to be unable to honour them. That is the maximum extent of our commitment; it is important to make clear that it is not open-ended; it is clearly defined.
"The responsibility for the success of the operation is also Chrysler's.
"As activities in this country have been running down for some weeks, it is essential to get work started as soon as possible.
"I shall therefore be laying the necessary Order in this House"—
that is, the House of Commons—
"later today.

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"The House will thus see that the situation has changed dramatically since November. The Chrysler Corporation instead of pulling out completely, as was their earlier intention, are now prepared to increase substantially their financial commitment in this country.
"They also intend that Chrysler UK will now an important and expanding role in their worldwide activities.
"And that will be fully integrated into their overseas market structure.
"In addition, the Board of Chrysler Corporation have approved an important declaration of intent about the long-term future of Chrysler UK. Copies of their declaration of intent are available in the Printed Paper Office.
"So we have the basis for a continuing operation into the 1980's; which will provide jobs for 17.000 out of the present 25.000 workforce, not counting many more jobs in related firms.
"We have safeguarded the important Iran contract and avoided further damaging consequences to our balance of trade from the disappearance of Chrysler production in this country.
"We shall be appointing two directors to the Chrysler UK Board and will be developing a planning agreement with the company.
"The whole future of this operation depends on the fullest co-operation of the workforce in accepting redundancies and the movement of work between plants and in collaborating to improve productivity.
"I have kept in touch with the trades union leaders and with members from Chysler constituencies and further necessary consultations are now in train.
"It will not help to try to allocate blame for all the industrial relations troubles of the past which are highlighted in the Central Policy Review Staff Report which has just been published.
'We must all—Government, management and representatives of the work-
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force—ensure that industrial relations are put on a sound basis so as to secure the future of this operation in the United Kingdom with all that this implies for jobs and the balance of payments."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.53 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for repeating the Statement made in another place. Taken with the British Leyland scheme, it means massive support by the British taxpayer for a large part of the British motor-car manufacturing industry. Does the noble Lord agree that this requires the most careful examination as to whether this is the best course in the circumstances from the standpoint of prospects for the car industry—that is, the prospect of pulling itself out of its present depressed state and returning to a competitive, healthy condition? Is not this a very expensive way for the country to remedy a bad record, internationally, of labour disputes as the CPRS report, published only today, now shows? Can the Government tell us whether any assurances have been given by the trade unions concerned that working methods and productivity will be improved as part of the plan, including acceptance of the proposed redundancies? This is a crucial point, in view of the difficulty in this field which the noble Lord, Lord Ryder, appears to be having with Leyland. It also accords with the recommendation of the CPRS report that requests for financial assistance from car manufacturers should be dealt with on the basis that provision of capital is dependent on achieving specific improvements in productivity.
Does the noble Lord also agree with Conclusion No. 5 of the CPRS Report; namely, that investment alone is not enough to improve productivity? Lastly, what consultations, if any, have the Government had with Chrysler dealers?—because it is on their efforts that a great deal in these proposals will depend.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for repeating that Statement, I must at the outset express our doubts as to whether this is the right long-term solution either for the country or for Chrysler workers. Of course, we

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shall study the reports in detail, but one thing is clear—that is, that the industry is patently over capacity. Yet we are trying to protect existing jobs instead of using every means we have to create new jobs in industries which have a potential for expansion and which are not in the declining league. As I see it, all the Government are doing is to try to keep in being four car manufacturing companies when the market does not justify more than three. I cannot help feeling that we shall rue the day when that decision was taken.
I would ask, if Chrysler is successful, what will be the future for British Leyland in this very restricted market with four companies operating? I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in asking the Government, as I did after the Leyland announcement, what guarantees will be sought not just from the unions but from management as well to ensure uninterrupted production by getting the procedures right and greater productivity, both of which are vital to the future of the car industry, whether it be Chrysler, British Leyland, Vauxhall or Ford? I feel, as I stressed on the occasion of the Leyland announcement, that this is the key and that if we are to follow the route which the Government have outlined it will not be a successful operation unless we get a guarantee now—and not just pious hopes—that we shall have productivity. It must, however, be a guarantee by both sides of the industry.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I cannot complain about the way in which the noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Croy and Lord Byers, have commented on this important Statement. For some weeks now, we have been wrestling with this problem and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that this proposal of the Government requires most careful examination, such as it has received from the Government during these very difficult weeks.
It is not solely a question of saving jobs, though, God knows! that is important enough, particularly in Linwood in Glasgow. It is also a question of fulfilling a commercial undertaking to Iran, where they have assembled a plant for Avenger kits which have been supplied from here. There are many other factors that we
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have had to weigh in the balance in arriving at this decision. I shall be quite frank with the House in saying that, had the Chrysler Corporation of the United States not been more forthcoming in the very last stages of these negotiations, the proposals of the Government could well have been very different. But the Chrysler Corporation have committed themselves to some £63 million of new investment and new confidence in the Chrysler organisation in the United Kingdom and I believe that this is a factor which we should all bear very much in mind. True, it is being matched with very large sums by the British taxpayer, through Her Majesty's Government, but the amount is relatively small if the Chrysler Corporation remain in business and particularly, too, if the operation is successful. But even if the operation here was not successful, the amount that would be involved would be approximately half of the total sum that would be involved in the first 12 months by way of redundancy pay, loss of tax and many other factors that would arise as a consequence of putting perhaps some 55,000 men out of work.
However, these are matters which clearly must be part of our careful examination, and I wonder whether—particularly when noble Lords have read the distressing report of CPRS—this is a subject which we could debate in the New Year. I think that there are many lessons to be learnt. Certainly in regard to labour relations—and here I agree with the noble Lord—one of the factors of the motor industry (and I suppose it is true of many of our industries) is that the weakness is not that of investment, although investment has its part to play; it is the failure of this country consistently over very many years to be able, through managerial arrangements, or through workmen's co-operation, or because of a multitude of factors, to earn the necessary return on the capital invested.
Here I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. The noble Lord asked me whether we have received specific assurances from the trade unions in regard to this matter. We have been negotiating with the Chrysler Corporation, and I fear that too much about those negotiations has leaked, and some of the leaks have been ill-informed. But we have

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sought to keep this matter on a confidential basis. Therefore we have not at this moment been able other than to discuss it with the trade union leaders. But at the end of the day what really matters is the arrangements that are made, the understandings that arc arrived at, with the work force in the factories. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, will remember that I spoke about the planning agreements. One of the essential factors of the planning agreements will be an agreement by management, Government and the work-people as to the manning of these factories. Part of that planning agreement and what may flow from it will depend not only on the agreement as to the manning, but also on the way in which that figure is brought down, so that we can at least match the productivity of our Western European competitors.
I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that because there is excess capacity in this country it is necessarily right immediately to reduce productive power. We are going through a period of recession; there is excess capacity throughout the world. But unless we at least seek to conserve what capacity we have, and to modernise it and make it virile, there will be no future for this country; certainly no future for the aspirations that we have.
The management of Chrysler are now discussing this subject with the leaders of the work force at Chrysler. There will be great anxieties, worry and concern by many within the industry. But I hope that there will be a realisation that we shall not get dramatic change. The view of the NEB has, I think, been well illustrated by the attitude of Mr. Whitaker at British Leyland; by the unwillingness to provide new capital until some improvement has been made in terms of productivity. We must bring this home to our work force. I believe that we still have time, although I agree with so many that perhaps time is now becoming very short indeed.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord the Leader of the House explain to the House why, in the light of the CPRS Report and the views of every single informed commentator, the Government think that Chrysler UK is a viable concern?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, Chrysler UK. as a separate United Kingdom company, would have no viability at all. But there is a real hope, there is a belief—at least by the Chrysler Corporation—that by integrating Chrysler UK more fully (as it was not in the past) within the Chrysler overseas organisation, there is a chance of this company's becoming viable and making a major contribution to Chrysler as a whole, and of course to this country in particular. There are risks here, but bearing in mind the certainty of what would have happened had this company gone into liquidation, I should prefer to run the risks of the probable rather than of what may have confronted us.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many others will sympathise with any Government who have to deal with the paradox of a sick industry which nevertheless plays a vital role in our export markets and in the levels of our employment at a time like this? Nevertheless, this industry has been sick for very many years. Is my noble friend aware that there are still grievous faults on both sides of the industry which, as the Report of CPRS has mentioned, have resulted in productivity in the British industry being no more per man than some 50 per cent. of the productivity on the Continent?
Is my noble friend further aware that we are extremely worried because huge blocks of public money are now at stake at a time when what I may describe as more deserving industries also need to be looked after? Therefore this risk is made the worse, I suggest, because the over capacity mentioned in the Report may well have an effect on our investment in British Leyland, which is of huge proportions. Thus I feel that nothing short of a direct ultimatum from the Government to the industry that the degree of public investment will be conditioned by the resolution with which all in that industry now proceed forthwith to put their house in order should satisfy anyone.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I could not disagree with the sentiments of my noble friend. But when one looks at the motor industry, and at Chrysler in particular, one sees that perhaps the greatest weakness is that there are some 450 separate suppliers of parts to a Chrysler

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motor car. One only need imagine the problems and difficulties which could arise in only one of those 450 companies to see the ravages that could affect the assembly of motor cars. The Government have placed this money as an act of faith. So far as the Government are concerned, it is certainly our intention to see, with the Chrysler Corporation of the United States, that this is made a viable company. There are risks, indeed. But I suggest to your Lordships that it is better to run those risks than to face the inevitability that would have arisen had we taken a counter decision with all that that would have involved, not only in terms of the immediate need of the Government to find money, but also in terms of the ravages of unemployment, especially in certain parts of the country where it could then have been running as high as 17 per cent.
Lord BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I take decided objection to public money being given to American capitalism? So far as the jobs are concerned, there was not much of a cry when 500.000 men were thrown out of the pits.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the reason why we did not seek equity in this company is very simple; namely, that had we sought equity we should then have been immediately committed to the very considerable deficit in which Chrysler UK has already involved itself. We have therefore taken the view that this is the best way to proceed if we are to seek to save this company.
Lord ROBERTHALL: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal can say a little about a point that was raised by both the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and the noble Lord, Lord Byers; that is, the relationship between the Government's policy towards Chrysler and their policy towards British Leyand. That is the new factor about the situation: that the Government will be supporting two competing firms each of which is competing with firms in the private sector. It is extremely difficult to make out what the Government's industrial policy is without some indication about the relationship between these two companies, which are very nearly subsidiaries.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the facts are (are they not?) that for one reason or another we are taking into this country, through imports, certain types of cars, mainly because they are small; and, as the CPRS paper unfortunately says, overseas cars have certain material advantages. If the British car industry was able and willing to produce the cars that the market demands and cars of such a quality that the public themselves would wish to buy them because they had confidence in them, then there is room for all the four companies and there are also very great opportunities for sales in the export markets. There is no reason to believe that the four companies cannot survive in this country if management, designers and workpeople have the will to go out and fight, not only to protect their markets but also to make inroads into the overseas markets, as foreign companies have done in this country during the last two or three years.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, since my noble friend has suggested that there will be a debate on this subject, when obviously we can expect further clarification, may I ask him whether any action of a constructive and positive fashion will be taken before a decision has been taken in another place and, presumably, in your Lordships' House? That is my first question. The only other question I wish to put, on the assumption that there is to be a debate, is this. Has there been any discussion with the unions concerned on the subject of redundancy and an assurance conceded by the unions that the redundancy proposition will not be countered by objections of a destructive character and that, even after an agreement has been reached and the proposition of the Government implemented, there will he no action taken by the unions officially on the subject of the amount of redundancy that occurs?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, in regard to the first of my noble friend's supplementaries, it is a question for another place whether it approves the Order that the Secretary of State will be laying in another place tomorrow. I have no idea, because it is not my responsibility, as to when that Motion will be taken, but until that Motion has been approved there can be no full assurance

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to Chrysler that the Government are able to undertake their side of the agreement. I would take the view—and this is clearly in the interests of the Chrysler Corporation—that an early debate and an early Resolution will be necessary in the House of Commons.
In regard to consultation with the trade unions, as I said earlier one of our difficulties is that we have been negotiating with the Chrysler Corporation and we have not been in the position to consult the trade unions, the men on the factory floor, first as to the proposals and, secondly, as to the questions of redundancy and the transfer of work. If we had had more time, my Lords, it may be that we could have entered into that matter, but we have not been able to do so.
Clearly, however, this has got to be done by the management, because the Chrysler Board is still responsible, not the Government, although obviously it is for the Government themselves to give what encouragement and advice they can to the trade unions. But plainly it is a matter of supreme importance, if this agreement is to be proceeded with and if there is to be any real hope that this company will survive, that it has the fullest co-operation. Whatever hardship may be felt by some, I hope there will be a recognition that, instead of some 50,000-odd, perhaps, losing their jobs, we have at least been able to limit the number to about 8,000 within Chrysler.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, having regard to the immense amount of taxpayers' money which appears to be going to be involved, may I ask the noble Lord whether, when arriving at their decision, the Government took into account the fact that there is a tremendous problem arising in the steel industry and a tremendous problem arising in the railway industry? May I have an assurance that when the problems of those industries come to be discussed we shall not be told that all that has been done for Chrysler really affects the future of the steel workers and the railway workers, who have quite as many problems to cope with as Chrysler? I do not myself feel that we ought to give more to Chrysler than we are able to give towards looking after our steel workers, who also have problems all over
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the country, and to our railway workers. What I really want to know is whether the Government looked at these three problems in relation to the money which they are going to take from the taxpayers in respect of the Chrysler matter.
Lord SHEPHERD: Most certainly, my Lords. This has been part of the rather agonising consideration that we have gone through during the last few weeks. But the noble Baroness, I am sure, is appreciative of the very considerable sums of public money which have gone into both the industries to which she has referred. Both have their problems; but I could not go any further into that matter than I have done today.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of how much sympathy we have with the Government in the decision they have had to take in this matter? Noble Lords will be aware that the Hillman people failed miserably in 1967, and had to bring Chrysler UK into existence. This was a failure of the structure of the industry at that time, and was an indication of how sick this industry really is. When we look at the manufacturing side of industry as a whole and see that the disputes in the car industry outnumber those in other industries three to one, does this not indicate the real problem that is involved? Is my noble friend therefore able to give us an assurance that it will be part of the specific task of the two directors who are to be appointed to ensure that the labour relations in Chrysler as a whole are dealt with more adequately in the future than they were in the past? Other industries have a disciplinary code which has obviated these disputes. Chryslers seem to have ignored that completely, and so we have the awful position that there is, which might have had a big effect upon the availability of investment. In view of the huge sum that is now going to be put into Chryslers, or which is to be guaranteed to Chryslers, will my noble friend give the House an assurance that it will be part of the specific duties of the directors so appointed to look after our interests?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, in reply to my noble friend I may say that one of the great difficulties which beset the Leader of the House when dealing with Statements that he has made is when he should seek to bring the discussion to an end; because

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it may appear that he is seeking to bring it to an end for (shall we say?) his own comfort. We have now been on this matter for some 39 minutes. It is a subject which is in itself worthy of a debate, and if the House wishes it I will provide an opportunity for a debate after Christmas. I make only one qualification now; for I know that there is a Scot who has been trying to get in; and, since Scotland is involved I hope that the House will allow my noble friend to put his question. To my noble friend Lord Popplewell I will only say that when you place directors on a board they are not necessarily placed there for specific purposes. To my mind, the best solution, not only for getting an agreement on manning but also for monitoring the programme and seeing that it is being accomplished is through the planning agreements which the Corporation and the Government have agreed to enter into.
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, having regard to what my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal has said about both the possibility of a debate and the time factor, I will confine myself to a single question on the Scottish position. My noble friend said that there would also be a substantial loss of jobs initially at Linwood. I presume that the insertion of the word "initially "has to do with the subsequent transfer of Avenger jobs. Can my noble friend tell me what is meant by the substantial loss of jobs in the first instance and the extent to which it may be expected to be mitigated by the transfer of the Avenger jobs?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is the intention that the Avenger production, particularly that intended for export to Iran, shall be transferred to Linwood. This means that the phasing out of the Imp and the Hunter will cause initial redundancies. When the Avenger is moved and is in full operation at Linwood it is estimated that there will be a shortfall of some 1,500 from the present 7,000-odd workforce. If this could be made successful then, of course, there may be further opportunities for expansion; but that is the present assumption—made not by the Government but by the Chrysler Corporation itself.
My Lords, we have now spent 42 minutes on this matter and I wonder whether we should not now proceed to
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the other debate in which I know a great deal of interest has been shown.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: My Lords, surely if the noble Lord the Leader of the House allows a noble Scot exclusion, will he not allow a noble retailer one word on this very important matter? —because Chrysler retailers have very little confidence in the Chrysler situation as they have read it and have taken little more comfort from the Statement. Chrysler have gone too far back. Chrysler's moving the Avenger to Linwood (with the Linwood reputation being what it is ever since it started) will hardly enhance their reputation with the dealership. Have the Iran authorities given Her Majesty's Government any assurance that they are going to continue with that programme, and increase it; for that is all that is left of Chrysler UK at the present moment?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Government of Iran have been consulted and it is their firm wish that the contract for the Avenger kits should continue as before. Clearly there must have been disquiet and uncertainty among Chrysler dealers, but I hope that what has now been announced, and particularly the fact that the Chrysler Corporation of the US are prepared to back the project with their own money, will be a sufficient inducement to the dealers to go out and sell those cars against foreign imports.

HARE COURSING BILL [H.L.]
4.25 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, perhaps I should start by saying that I am a president of a coursing club and have been so for the last 30 years. I feel therefore that I can speak a little about this subject with some first-hand knowledge, and even perhaps with a little authority—which is perhaps more than some of the honourable Members in another place can lay claim to. This, I am afraid, also includes the right honourable lady the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department and, in particular, the honourable gentleman the Minister for Sport who, by his own admission, did not believe that coursing was a sport.

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This history of the various coursing Bills in one form or another that have been born and then died had left behind many false scents. As a result, the whole issue has become shrouded in mystery and fog, much of which is intentional. I shall endeavour therefore to clear the air a little so that your Lordships can look at the picture in a clearer and, hopefully, better perspective. Irrespective of Government Bills there have been in the last ten years seven Private Member's Bills. I think that it is interesting to note that these have come from honourable Members of the following constituencies: Liverpool (Walton); Ashton-under-Lyne; Ilford, South; Kingston-upon-Hull (Central); Rugby; Swindon; and Lambeth Central. These Bills, unless I am mistaken, have all come from constituencies which are urban. Is it not perhaps a strange fact that no honourable Member for a rural constituency over the last ten years has felt it his or her duty to do the same thing?
Baroness BACON: My Lords, is the noble Earl not forgetting that the Waterloo Cup is run at Liverpool?
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right. In the majority of cases (both now and in the past) the object of coursing Bills is far more devious than it appears on the surface. I should be the first to agree that many would-be abolitionists of this and other field sports very sincerely think that they are right; but, unfortunately, ignorance plays a large part in their belief—ignorance which is enlarged out of all proportion to the truth, largely due to false representation by the media, as the noble Lord, Lord Denham, so ably put it. In spite of factual evidence to the contrary, coursing is still thought by many to be a sport or diversion of the so-called upper class. It is interesting to note that an average coursing crowd consists of: rustics, 43.5 per cent.; Oppidans, 22.6 per cent.; farmers, 18.3 per cent.; professional breeders and trainers, 8.3 per cont.; and landowners, 7.3 per cent. I am sure that your Lordships would agree that this comprises a very fair cross-section of the community.
My Lords, continuing on the same theme, why should the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the House in
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another place state—and I quote from Hansard:
"I am afraid that one step at a time is enough for me. If we can get the legislation on hare coursing through the House during this Session it will be a major step forward, and we could then look towards dealing with other sports."—[Official Report (Commons), 7/11/74; Col. 1254.]
I cannot believe that any of your Lordships can be so naive as not to think that the abolition of coursing is not only the thin edge of the wedge but well on the way to being the last blow of the axe that fells a mighty oak under which shelter all the other field sports of this country. These sports not only give pleasure to many thousands of people in a variety of different ways, but also conserve and protect wildlife in its many and varied forms.
One should also consider the statement made in another place by the honourable member for Liverpool (Walton). Again I quote from Hansard, of 13th June, 1975. at column 837:
"It is an uncivilised practice carried out by a minority and should be dispensed with at the earliest moment."
I begin to wonder, if it were not for your Lordships' House where would democracy be? Surely, one of the prime duties of Parliament is to look after and defend the interests of minorities.
It has been said that the Government should get their priorities right. That has been said many times. With the vast amount of legislation which was ploughed through in the last Session of Parliament, it has been suggested it was not right to waste much time on coursing. It is interesting to note that 16½ hours were spent in Committee on coursing, 13 hours 57 minutes debating in another place, and 3 hours 41 minutes in your Lordships' House. Many noble Lords will agree with me that the time taken in another place over the last coursing Bill could well have been shortened, as far too much time was taken up in discussing irrelevancies in the Bill. Nevertheless, when the rights of a minority group are threatened it is right and proper that all the aspects of the Bill should be properly aired and debated. I shall not go into the details of whether or not coursing is cruel. It has been referred to in the Stable and Stuttard Report and the Scott Henderson Report. It is there for anybody to read who wishes to do so.

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I am afraid I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, when he says that coursing does not conserve hares, because I believe categorically that if coursing were abolished within a few years on intensively-farmed land the hare will become almost extinct. Because of coursing the hare population. is conserved. That is a simple fact of which the majority of people are in complete ignorance. The abolitionists are proud of the 1 million signatures they have produced. Alas! in spite of certain publicity, many people today do not realise that a great number of these signatures were obtained by spurious means. Comparisons can be odious, but I often wonder what the emotions of the adult animal-loving British would have been when myxomatosis was introduced into this country 20 years ago, if the victims had been not "Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton Tail" but the common rat.
We should take a long, close look at ourselves. How much have we changed in our attitudes to each other in the thousands of years that we have been on this planet, countrymen to townsmen, religion against religion, one political ideology against another political ideology? We are far kinder to animals than we are to our fellow men—take, for example, battered babies and battered wives, torture, war all of which go on unceasingly. In my humble opinion, this Bill is far more damaging and dangerous to democracy than many realise. In its nucleus, which is so well hidden, lies the danger. It is a Bill designed to try to drive yet another nail in the coffin of your Lordships' House, through the medium of saying that this House is undemocratic in going against the wish of the electorate. Another place went against the wish of the electorate over capital punishment last week.
This is a Bill which is full of emotion and which completely camouflages the true motive. It is the usual ploy which the Left-Wing always tries to produce to get its own way, by making other middle-of-the-road-minded and fair-minded people do its dirty work for them through propaganda and misrepresentation. The right honourable lady the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office said on 13th June at column 912 of Hansard:
"The Government totally refute the fallacious and spurious allegations that have been made by the Bill's opponents, that this
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Bill is being introduced either for spite or for reasons of class prejudice, or even that it is a subtle Left-Wing plot against the privileged few."
I do not doubt the right honourable lady's words, or her integrity or sincerity; but I feel that somewhere along the line perhaps there may be just a small touch of naïvety.
My Lords, if we pass the Second Reading of this Bill this afternoon without referring it to a Select Committee, it will be a bad day indeed for the liberty of every private, law-abiding citizen in our country.
4.35 p.m.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, pointed out that we had had a very full discussion on this Bill only about six weeks ago, and therefore I do not see any necessity to go over everything I said on that occasion. There are, however, one or two things I should like to say. I would start by making some comments on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Denham. He referred to the fact that statements made by those who wished to abolish cruel practices are made from the hearing of propaganda. I would say that that is about 25 per cent. true, but no more than that. A great deal of our knowledge and attitude is taken from reports that we hear from other people about subjects on which they are more expert or have had more experience than ourselves. I have no doubt that the noble Lord forms his opinions on some aspects of his political life on which he is not personally an expert but because he knows others who, from what they say, are, and he naturally trusts them.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, if I may interrupt, I have taken the trouble to go to a coursing meeting to see what happens. Can the noble Lord say that he has done the same?
Lord SOMERS: No, my Lords: I cannot. I have tried to do so, but unfortunately time and distance did not permit it. On the other hand, I was going on to say that I know a great many people personally who have done so and they arc people whose opinions I can trust, and who are not fanatics. They have reported exactly what they have seen. Therefore, I do not think I am any more unreasonable in accepting what they say than the

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noble Lord is in accepting what his political colleagues may say.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I am sorry, I hate to interrupt the noble Lord again. The noble Lord is getting at me for quoting the Scott Henderson Report. That is the only official, independent inquiry into the subject that there has been. What I said came from that Report, and not from any friend of mine who may or may not have known.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, indeed, the noble Lord based a great deal of his argument on that Report. There have been several reports of this nature, the Brambell Report, the Little wood Report, and many others. In general, they are partly right and partly wrong. There are very few—if any—that are entirely right or entirely wrong. Therefore, I accept with reservations what the Report says.
There are two points that I wish to raise. First, there is nothing glorious or of splendid tradition in killing a wild animal or causing its unnecessary pain and suffering. That wild animals must be killed in order to control their numbers cannot be denied by anybody, but if we arc to regard ourselves as higher than animals we must act in the most humane way possible.
The second point I wish to raise is this: I do not claim for a moment that regrettable incidents such as those described by people who have seen them, occur at every meeting of a hare coursing club, though it cannot be denied that they do sometimes occur and not so infrequently as to make them unworthy of consideration. The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, said, very truly, that he spoke with authority as president of a coursing club; but one must remember that speaking from that position, his motive must obviously be to defend it—as mine would be if I were in his position.
The last time we discussed this Bill the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, and also the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, spoke about its legal deficiencies. I sincerely hope they will do so again tonight and that, if they do that, the Government will pay great attention to what is said, because if one is to pass a Bill of this kind it is absolutely essential for it to be legally workable. I do not think that anybody can accuse me of being a fanatic
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over these matters, but I do not believe that one should shut one's eyes to matters which arc causing a great deal of concern among the public at large and which are also causing a great deal of unnecessary suffering to animals which cannot defend themselves. To cause suffering to a defenceless animal is, as I said before, every bit as bad as causing suffering to a mentally defective child.
4.43 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, those of us who have taken part in previous debates in your Lordships' House on this topic must necessarily, in speaking today, be somewhat repetitious, although we need not be expansive. I shall endeavour to avoid that particular sin. I suppose there may be a few who will be changed in their views by the hearing of the arguments which have been deployed in the previous sessions dedicated to this theme, but I doubt it. I venture to hope that the noble Lord, Lord Paget of Northampton, who last time talked with equanimity about the prospect of losing his head in the hunting field may have taken a second opinion in the interim. But, generally sneaking, people will have made up their minds, and therefore I can only repeat, by way of witness, what I have tried to say before in opposition to hare coursing.
I want to take as my text, if you like, the reverence which purports to lie behind the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, for the Scott Henderson Report and its importance for those who would seek to make up their minds on this issue. It reminds me somewhat of ecclesiastical dependence on another document, and I think that in some cases the same failures are evident. One of the ways in which the infallibility of Holy Writ can be sustained is by the simple expedient of not encouraging those who are invited to sustain it to read the document in question. I believe the same is probably true of those who would cite the Scott Henderson Report in the hope that people will not peruse its contents too carefully. I say, I hope without impertinence, that there maybe those in your Lordships' House today who have listened to what has been said about the Report as though it were some simple and conclusive document, whereas as a matter of fact it is quite confused and says contradictory things on subsequent pages.

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I should like to refer to one of these, which seems to me to be very important. The following appears in paragraph 280:
"Consequently the suffering which is caused by hare coursing at such meetings comes within the definition of cruelty which we have adopted".
I think it is a little factitious of the noble Lord to say that this is a technical addition. It is of the very substance of the argument. The argument, therefore, which I would deploy on the question of cruelty is substantially that which is advanced in this document. It expresses the belief that hare coursing at such meetings is definitely cruel, but goes on to say—and I do not differ here—that in many respects it is no more cruel than other forms of cruelty. Let us accept that. Cruelty is inevitably the association of the infliction of pain with the pleasure or satisfaction of those who inflict that pain or watch its infliction. That is cruelty; and it can well be argued that there are many inflictions of pain which certainly are not cruel —for example, the surgeon's knife or the conservationist's bullet, I suppose, could not be called cruel, though it does necessarily inflict pain.
This is not the argument, because the Scott Henderson Report is about cruelty, and the main substance of the argument against this particular evil of hare coursing is not that it causes pain but that the kind of cruelty involved is the kind of cruelty which in total, I think, should be rejected by people who want to live in a civilized society. Furthermore, the argument about conservation or control is deliberately and comprehensively rejected by the Scott Henderson Report. The Board of Coursing does not claim that it is a form of conservation and does not pretend that it is a method by which control can be effected. Moreover, if I may turn to the animadversion that we should have gone to see particular events before daring to speak about them, I see no reason to go to a bullfight in order to comprehend its enormity. And I see no reason, particularly when I have the Scott Henderson Report at my elbow, to go to see hare coursing, when there is a most comprehensive and copious description of what happens—a description with which, again. I have no disagreement as to what in fact takes place in this evil so-called "sport".
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The real argument against hare coursing is not so much the infliction of pain or cruelty on animals: it is the totally undesirable and, I think, impermissible enjoyment of human beings in such a savage exercise. Here is one of the aspects of a violent society from which I believe we suffer in increasing degree. It does not provide any elevating or conscientious increase in human happiness. It is subversive in the sense that it serves elements in our human make-up which we should he the better for not being encouraged to develop.
The argument is not against cruelty. I have never been a hare, though I have occasionally been called a rabbit; and I am perfectly willing to agree that to attempt to assess the immediacy of animal pain and to collate it with the relevance of reflective pain in human beings is a useless exercise. I am quite sure that hares do not enjoy this and that they react to it in ways that are comparable to the immediate reaction of human beings to pain. I am quite sure that hare coursing is not a suitable method of control. I am still utterly convinced that it is an unworthy exercise for human beings to take part in. Admittedly, the Churches of this country are unanimous in its rejection. Such polls as have been conducted and examined give a clear majority against hare coursing. I am merely making my comment that I do not accept the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, that it is a matter of taste. This is no aesthetic preference; this is a basic issue.
Though, wearing this collar, I may be the wrong person to indulge in moral reflection, yet I cannot but say, in conclusion, that here is one of the manifestations of man behaving in an uncivilised way and yet, at the same time, claiming the privileges of a civilised society. I honestly and fervently believe that we should be better without it and. therefore, I shall vote for the Second Reading of this Bill. Hare coursing is entitled to capital punishment, though the date of the execution and its method may be of some consequence to your Lordships who are concerned with procedural matters and with the elucidation of some of the questions that have been very properly raised by the noble and learned Lords as to the relevance of some aspects of this case. But what I want to assert

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again, with all the fervour at my command, is that this is a rotten habit and it will be better if we reject it. It is no compliment to us that we still love that kind of violence, however varied it is, and therefore I very much hope that we shall refuse to let it continue any further.
4.51 p.m.
Lord DIPLOCK: My Lords, when this Bill was debated before this House only six weeks ago I ventured to point out that its effect would be to brand as criminal a tiny minority of decent country people for doing something about which they themselves are in the best position to know the actual facts and which they do not regard as cruel and/or morally blameworthy on their part. How large that tiny minority is beyond the 1,600 or so people who are members of coursing clubs affiliated to the National Coursing Club, depends upon the answers to the questions that I put to the noble Lord the Minister six weeks ago. Those questions, if he will forgive my saying so, have not been answered.
We are told that a judge, a prize, a bet, are not essential to create a meeting of coursing which will be condemned by this Bill; they are only factors—"We will leave it to the courts to tell us, when we have passed this Bill, what it is we have prohibited." In the field of criminal law, that is not good enough. I do not blame the noble Lord for failing to answer the questions. They cannot be answered without a more accurate knowledge, not only of organised coursing meetings, but of country life and what actually happens when dogs course hares, than that possessed by the draftsman of a Government Bill who apparently thought that these complex matters could be dealt with adequately by making the language conspicuously vague.
My experience in this House is mainly in the Judicial Committee. There we follow the fundamental rule of human justice that before we convict any person —however humble; whatever minority he belongs to—of a crime, we make certain that we know the facts on which our judgment is to be based. I urge the House to adopt the same fundamental rule of justice when considering this Bill. When one is considering an activity, and whether an activity which involves the pursuit or death of a wild animal is cruel, I should
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myself accept the criterion that the degree of suffering caused in the activity does not exceed that associated with the usual fate of an animal in nature. If whatever the Bill is intended to condemn as criminal—and I do not know what that is—does not satisfy that criterion, then I, for my part, should not object to this House passing it. But if it passes that criterion, then I, for my part, should not have the hubris, the effrontery, to say to other people, "You shall not do it because I do not like doing it". I am not satisfied, on my present knowledge of coursing hares by dogs, whether at organised meetings or otherwise which may or may not be caught by the Bill, that it is cruel if judged by this standard which I have just suggested as an appropriate standard for cruelty.
I do not myself take part in coursing meetings. If this Bill is passed, it will make no difference to me. But I have done my best to inform myself about the facts. Unlike most—indeed, after listening to the speeches in this House. I think unlike all—supporters of this Bill. I have attended coursing meetings and I should not dare to form a judgment on the sport unless I had. I have studied the Scott Henderson Report, and also the other reports upon the subject which mainly confirm but do not give a full picture of what happens. I have listened to speeches in this House supporting the Bill. In my view, they have demonstrated the need that this House should obtain information about the true facts before deciding whether or not to approve the Bill.
I do not oppose the Second Reading, because that will give us an opportunity to adopt the procedure of a Select Committee by which we can ensure that if the House ultimately decides to approve, to amend or to reject the Bill, each Member can vote upon it with a clear conscience, certain of the facts upon which the judgment which will brand people as criminals is based.
4.59 p.m.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, if I may be allowed to intervene as Leader of the House, may I say that this is a Bill which was debated in the last Session? It was given a Second Reading in the full knowledge that whatever then happened it could not proceed any further. This

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measure has now come before the House again, and I suspect that following its custom, whatever may be the feelings towards it, the House will agree to give it a Second Reading this evening.
When the noble Lord, Lord Denham, spoke in the last Session, with as much passion and conviction as he spoke today, he made a plea for a Select Committee, as he also did today, and during the course of the last few weeks I have had a number of overtures made to me to the effect that that might be the proper way of dealing with this Bill. Naturally, I am hesitant about sending a Government Bill to a Select Committee. I believe that it was last done in 1917, and to do so raises considerable dangers and questions of precedent.
To that extent I approach this question with a deep sense of unease. However, I recognise that there is a general feeling that before they agree to this Bill far more information ought to be made available to Members of this House. In the light of those representations I, as Leader of the House, accept this situation and agree on behalf of the Government to the setting up of a Select Committee. In doing so, I hope that the House will agree that I am in no way creating a precedent for other Public Bills to be sent to Select Committees; it is being done only in the light of this particular subject. If, therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Denham, agrees, and the Bill is given a Second Reading, I hope that he will not move his Motion, That the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, but will rest on the precedent of 1917, when it was dealt with either by the Leader of the House or by a noble friend on his behalf.
If the noble Lord, Lord Denham, will agree, immediately after the Bill has had its Second Reading I or one of my noble friends will move, That the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. The Committee of Selection will produce a list containing the names of those who should sit on the Select Committee. If I may express a personal view, this is a matter which could be best examined if, so far as possible, that Committee were made up of those who take a relatively impartial view. It should not necessarily be a battleground for those who feel passionately one way or the other. If we had such a Committee, I
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believe that we might have more confidence in the advice given by it.
Once agreement to the terms of reference had been obtained—this is my condition and I make it with confidence because the noble Lord, Lord Denham, has clearly stated that this is not a tactic to delay for a long period the passage of this Bill—I should immediately move an Instruction as to the date by which the Committee should have completed its deliberations and produced its Report. Obviously I should have consultations through the usual channels about the date. Certainly it needs to be sufficiently far ahead to allow the Committee to do its work. It must provide time for your Lordships' House to consider the Report of the Select Committee and the necessary Amendments during the Committee and Report stages and to complete the remaining stages of the Bill, yet still allow sufficient time for another place to consider it and, if it is so minded, place it upon the Statute Book.
With those reservations—I will not say "conditions", although I referred to them as such—I should be most happy to ensure that a Motion is moved to that effect, if your Lordships' House is of that view and if the Bill receives a Second Reading.
5.3 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he accept it from me that we on this side of the House are most grateful to him for taking this view on behalf of the Government and for making it known in the middle of this debate. Anybody who has taken part so far in the proceedings of this Bill will acknowledge that there is a division of opinion. There are sincerely held opinions on all sides of the House. Looking at the matter in retrospect, one can do nothing but congratulate my noble friend for having given notice to the Government of what he intended to do when and if this Bill should again appear before your Lordships. I am sure that all noble Lords will accept what the noble Lord the Leader of the House did not call "conditions". No doubt the usual channels will make the Committee as prompt and yet as efficient as possible so that this Bill will have the proper consideration that most of us feel it deserves.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl. I shall

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certainly undertake to consult through the usual channels. I intervened at this stage because I knew that there were strong feelings in this House. Noble Lords may have felt that those feelings had to be pushed in order to obtain the statement that I have made. I have been very conscious of the fog, not within your Lordships' House but outside. Therefore, I did not feel that it was right to delay this announcement to the very end of the debate. At least it will permit certain noble Lords to leave a little earlier, if they wish, and avoid the worst of the congestion.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, perhaps your Lordships are much clearer about this issue than I am. I am not quite clear whether the noble Lord's suggestion of a Select Committee is made because people disagree and have strong feelings or because not enough facts are known. On either of those criteria I should have thought a Select Committee could be set up on most matters which come before your Lordships' House.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is a real problem, and I must be very careful to be the guardian of the Rules of your Lordships' House by not intervening too often. This is a factor which I have borne in mind, but as I was conscious of the feelings aroused by this matter I, on behalf of the Government, took it as a personal responsibility to suggest this procedure. However, it is entirely a matter for your Lordships' House either to agree or disagree.
5.7 p.m.
Lord MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal has said, it is unnecessary for me to address your Lordships for more than three or four minutes, particularly as, having spoken on this subject many times, my views are well known. Before I sit down I should say that I am rather disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, did not answer the questions I asked him during our last debate on this subject. The noble Lord said that he hoped to be able to answer them during this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, also fell into this trap regarding the logic of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, tells us that the object of
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this Bill is to avoid unnecessary cruelty, but what he has not explained, and what I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Soper, understood, is that this Bill will not prevent coursing. It will prevent running dogs in competition after a hare, as at NCC meetings. It is not a Bill to prevent coursing. Therefore, I cannot understand the logic of this Bill. The noble Lord has not answered that question. If the police can prove that private individuals have run dogs in competition after hares, presumably they will be caught under this Bill. But it will affect only a very small part of coursing. Therefore, for the Government to introduce a Bill like this, which is completely illogical, is both shameful and hypocritical.
As I said in a previous debate, if I were a hare I would far rather be coursed at a meeting of the NCC where the rules are strict—I have witnessed quite a lot of those meetings—where the hare has every chance, and very few hares are killed. Only 20 per cent. of the hares which are coursed are killed. I was horrified to hear the noble Lord, Lord Soper, say that individuals get delight out of seeing hares killed. This is complete and utter nonsense. As I have already said, the object at NCC meetings is not to kill the hare; it is to test the dogs.
I have spoken on this subject so many times that my views are well known. I am all for the avoidance of unnecessary cruelty, but if this Bill in its present form ever became law it would make a complete mockery of the law. It may save the lives of 600 hares which are killed annually at NCC meetings, but they will probably die a far more painful death if they are not coursed at NCC meetings. It does not affect the 100,000 hares which are shot every year, the 25,000 which are shot at and wounded; it does not affect hares that are maimed by cars in their thousands and it does not affect the thousands of hares that are coursed by private individuals, be they miners or dukes, who go out with their dogs and course hares in open country to kill them where the hare does not have escape routes.
This is a completely nonsensical Bill and I cannot find out from the Government what is the motive behind it. Obviously it is not to prevent cruelty. They have attacked this tiny minority of people—I believe under 2,000 people

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belong to coursing clubs—and I should like to know why. Presumably the Government have some motive. I have rather a nasty feeling that it may be some political pressure from the Left which of course is so keen to destroy anything that is connected with our traditional way of life in Britain, and especially regarding our country pursuits. When these country pursuits are followed by all classes of people (as they are), and lead to great harmony and comradeship, I view with suspicion any attack by the Government on such country pursuits and traditional British country sports.
In conclusion, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for intimating that the Bill will go to a Select Committee, provided the House agrees. I think that is an excellent idea and I am sure that out of the evidence produced before this Select Committee—and I quite agree with the Lord Privy Seal that impartial people should be appointed —they will decide that if such a Bill as this became law it would be a complete nonsense. I hope the whole subject will be dropped. One might have some sympathy for it if it were a Bill to prevent all hares from ever being chased by any dogs. That would at least be logical in intent although it would be quite impracticable. Let us hope that out of the Select Committee will dawn understanding.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, after the statement which has just been made by my noble friend the Leader of the House I wonder whether there was any point in continuing this debate today. However, statements have been made by opponents of this Bill and perhaps it is as well that the debate should continue so that a few replies may be made to some of the statements that have been made. Like others who have spoken today, this is not my first speech on a hare coursing Bill. Not only have I been making speeches on the subject in this House, but I was doing so in another place before I came here. For that reason I had intended that my comments should be brief, even without the statement that has been made.
Like my noble friend Lord Soper, I believe that people's minds are made up about this. This—or a similar Bill—
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has been around for a long time. Indeed, in 1925 a similar Bill had its Second Reading, Committee stage and Report stage in another place, and failed to become law only because there was no time for a Third Reading. So it was only lack of time which prevented a Bill similar to this from being passed half a century ago. Later there were several Private Members' Bills. In 1966–67, when I was a Minister at the Home Office, again it was lack of time which prevented a Private Member's Bill from being passed in another place, and at that time on behalf of the Government I make a promise to the Promoters of that Private Member's Bill that the Government would find time to introduce such a Bill. The Government did so in May 1970 and that Bill received its Second Reading in another place by 203 votes to 70, but, again, a General Election intervened and that Bill was lost. It was because it had been impossible to carry out the promise which I had made to Members of the other House, owing to lack of time, that I introduced the same Bill in this House in May 1972, when it was defeated by 115 votes to 71. I considered that to be not too bad having regard to the fact that an unofficial three-line Whip had been sent out by somebody on the Front Bench on the opposite side of this House.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will give way, I should like to state that I have no knowledge of an unofficial three-line Whip being issued.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, I had such knowledge at the time, but I do not want to mention the person's name. I am sure it was all good humoured, but I do know that a Whip went out unofficially with three lines under it. It was sent out privately, as it were, by a member on the Front Bench on the opposite side of the House. Perhaps I may speak to the noble Lord privately about this.
More recent attempts have been made in another place, but they have always been unlucky because of lack of time. So we had the Government Bill in the last Session of Parliament which went through all its stages in another place and came here again too late to be considered by this House. Now today we are told that there is going to be a Select

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Committee. Indeed, it looks as if we are going to have a Select Committee because it has been agreed, but when my noble friend made the statement a few minutes ago he said he would fix a date when the Select Committee would have to report to this House. All I ask him to do is to make it such a date that it would be possible for the Bill to be considered fully by this House and also in another place during this Session of Parliament. I believe that is the least that could be asked by those of us who have supported such Bills, and particularly those Members in another place who have supported them, having regard to the fact that these Bills have been passed through all their stages in another place.
I will not repeat all the arguments which have been made, but I should like to make a few comments about some of the points which have been made by those who oppose this Bill. They are very contradictory comments. They say that there are too many hares; therefore they must be killed and it is better to have them coursed than that they should be shot. On the other hand, we arc told that hares are in danger of extinction and we must preserve them. We are told that hare coursing means that some of the hares are preserved especially for this so-called sport. There we have two quite contradictory arguments. The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, said that if it were not for coursing hares would not be preserved, but I wonder for what they are being preserved. I must apologise to the noble Earl for smiling broadly in the middle of his speech. The reason for my doing so was that I am sure that a great many people in my Party would find it very funny indeed that my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich and myself were part of a Left-Wing plot.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, said that coursing was better than shooting because it was a quick death. It is said that hares are killed instantly. We are often told of the strict rules of the National Coursing Club. One of the rules is:
"Pickers-up shall be stationed on each side of the coursing ground and as near as practicable to where the courses are likely to end. If the hare is brought down, the pickers-up shall without delay go to the hare and satisfy themselves that it is dead, and if it is not dead, they shall kill it forthwith".
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Surely, this contradicts the view sometimes held, and which is put forward by opponents of this Bill, that the hare is always killed instantly, because if it is, I do not see any point in having the pickers-up who, if it is not dead will "kill it forthwith".
My Lords, I accept that there has to be killing for food and for the control of vermin and pests. But hare coursing is not done to control hares; it is not to provide food. As has been so ably pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Soper, hare coursing inflicts unnecessary suffering for so-called sport. I know there are comparatively few people who engage in this sport. I have heard it argued that we are picking on this sport because just a few people are involved. But I understand that of the2,000 or so people who indulge in this sport, many move about the country to where courses are taking place. One thing we have not heard today which we usually hear in this debate is that this is the sport of the miners, and we must not deprive the miners of their sport. I have lived all my life among miners, and in a mining area. I can assure your Lordships that I do not see the miners going off at the weekend to course hares. I must say the miners would be very grateful for this solicitous attitude on the part of some people to preserve what they think is the miners' sport—but which is not.
The Scott Henderson Report has been quoted today. In the past, I studied this very carefully indeed and came to the conclusion that this Report was an inconclusive and woolly Report. Both those who support hare coursing and those who are against it can open the pages of the Scott Henderson Report and quote from it in order to bolster their point of view. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Denham, would agree with that. One can quote from both sides. Now we are to have a Select Committee. I am not sure what it will find out that is not known already. However, we are to have it. I can only say in conclusion that since we are to have a Select Committee, I hope that the dates will be such, as I have already said, that this legislation can be considered by both Houses of Parliament in this Session, and that we can get some conclusive action on this matter which has now been going round both Houses of Parliament for over 50years.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, sits down, may I intervene in order to make sure there is no misunderstanding. When I intervened before I said I knew of no unofficial three-line Whip from the Front Bench. May I make it absolutely clear that, although I know one or two letters did go round, the official Opposition was keeping neutral on this subject. It was not the Front Bench.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, I understand that. I think it was sent out privately—not on behalf of the Front Bench; I thought I had made that clear —by an individual who happened to sit on the Front Bench.
5.25 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, about a year ago there was a film on television which showed the public what hare coursing was like. First of all, the hind leg of the hare was broken, the hare was sent off, and then chased with dogs. The hare gets pulled apart by the dogs over a period of about half a minute, amid screams. After seeing that film, I was asked to sign a petition, quite reasonably, against hare coursing —and no wonder that 70 per cent. of the people in the country are against it, according to the National Opinion Poll. Before I signed the petition, I thought I ought to go and see what hare coursing was really like. I did so and, of course, the real thing bore no relation to the film. I saw about 12 courses, each of which was most interesting, with the hounds chasing the hare turning over, and each time the hare got away. Not one single hare was killed throughout the whole time I was watching. The dogs were extremely good; I understood they were from the Waterloo Cup. One realised that the film which had so influenced people was 100 per cent. fake.
The main argument for the Bill seems to be the question of cruelty. I talked to a vet who is renowned in my area for humanity and compassion for animals. He told me that more often than not, in coursing the death of a hare is very quick. It is fairly well known that animals take hares by the neck, although this does not mean that it happens every time. There are times when the hare is not killed quickly, although I cannot confirm this because I never saw one
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killed. But if cruelty is the reason, why should coursing continue to be allowed other than in competition—for the pot, for instance. If it is to be stopped for cruelty, then everything must be stopped. Would the hare, being chased for the pot, appreciate the difference from when he is being chased for competition?
Let us examine other deaths very quickly, because they have been mentioned so many times before, such as shooting, which inevitably means excessive wounding; it always happens. There is no move to stop that. If we take snaring, the hare may struggle for 12 hours in the trap, which is much more cruel. There is no move to stop that. How many of your Lordships eat jugged hare made from hare killed by the gun? How many of your Lordships say, "I will not eat it"? Perhaps some noble Lords do. If your Lordships felt strongly about it you would say you would not eat it. How many of your Lordships eat lobster, which has been five minutes boiling in a pot? Or fish, netted by the gills for probably 12 hours in appalling agony? According to the Westmorland Fish Research Association, fish have more sophisticated and well developed nervous systems. So if one is really worried about the cruelty aspect, one should be a vegetarian. If one is not a vegetarian, I am afraid I am not very impressed by the arguments about cruelty.
My Lords, another argument nut forward against hare coursing is the stress caused to the hare. Each animal has its own defence. The chameleon changes colour; the giraffe turns round and kicks; the hare runs, and knows from experience that its speed will get it out of danger, as it always has done during its life. The hare runs with disdain for its pursuers—and this disdain can often be seen. It probably no more imagines that it will be caught than the motorist thinks he is going to have an accident a few moments before he actually does so. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, advanced the argument that pain should not be inflicted for entertainment and that enjoyment in witnessing pain is strictly reserved for the sadist. The noble Lord will not try to infer that there is a connection between field sports and sadism, but if the infliction of pain really is his argument, I do not notice a great lobby against fishing. I

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do not suppose fish like being played with, with a sharp hook in their mouth, or eye, for 20 minutes. I do not suppose they like having a barb torn from their flesh after being caught by a coarse fisherman who then puts them back to be caught another day.
There is the argument that coursing encourages violence. Well, football encourages violence; there can be no doubt about it. Are you going to stop that? One knows how one gets disruptive truants and elements from ill-disciplined schools. Are you going to reform them? There is violence on television, sex in cinemas, pornography in bookshops. These all produce imitators of the crimes; they stir up violence and lower values and morals. Where is the legislation to get rid of all that? What shred of evidence, what single piece of evidence, can be found to prove that coursing leads to violence? On the contrary, coursing and other field events tend to satisfy the need for people to get out into the fresh air, and if they were not doing that they might well be putting their "bovver boots" on to satisfy their natural craving for excitement.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, may I intervene for one moment? The noble Lord is reiterating the age-old proverb that one cannot enjoy fresh air without killing something. It is a very English tradition. Perhaps he will explain it.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, there are obviously many things you can do; you can go for a walk or you can go and play football and many other things. But I do not see why one should only do certain things like going for a walk or playing football; one should be able to do all sorts of things. The advantage of getting out into a coursing field, for example, is that one is getting away from an organised football pitch or an organised walk; one is right off in the distance on somebody else's land, and I think there is a lot to be said for that.
Coursing was compared by the noble Lord. Lord Harris, last month with bear baiting and bull fighting. There is the argument about encouraging violence and the suggestion that it is allied to sadism. Those arguments indicate by their absurd exaggeration that the Government have
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nothing to say against the sport, so they have to produce these absurd exaggerations. Why do they not admit that they are not motivated by reason, but by prejudice? One thing is common to all those who oppose coursing: that none has witnessed it. All hate what they imagine happens, but none of them is prepared to go and see it. I am delighted that there will be a Select Committee on this subject because obviously people will have to go anal see coursing and see for themselves how innocuous it is.
I do not think that the anti-coursing lobby really gives a fig for hares or for cruelty in general. If they did they would stop snaring and the sale of dead hares. I think a dislike of the spectators is the main thing. The anti-coursing lobby is closely allied with the Hunt Saboteurs Association. I accept the fact that there is no Left Wing question in this House, but a leading member of that Association, Mr. Garfield, resigned in the summer. He is reported to have said:
"The Association has been taken over by Left-Wingers. These people care less for animals than for political aims."
The article goes on that that there is a Left-initiated movement to undermine all stabilising aspects of the accepted way of British life is too self-evident to need elaboration. In particular any aspect of British life which if not disrupted contributes to national unity and accord between classes has become a predictable choice for guerrilla-type pressure on public opinion. Well, the coursing enthusiast is suddenly to find that his innocent recreation is to become a criminal action. What value are laws when one set of individuals legislate for fancy what other individuals shall or shall not do? What if the courser were to try to make football illegal for the very good reason that it breeds hooliganism, vandalism, and some quite unpleasant spectacles of bad sportsmanship among players? A very good case could be made out.
Coursing, to me, is entertaining; I find it interesting. I have been once and I shall go again, and I do not find it a cruel sport. I recommend the public to go and see coursing and enjoy themselves in the open air in the fields. It is a grand sport. They can get the list of fixtures from the National Coursing Club, 32. Brixton Road. London. The

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next meetings are at Alresford on the 20th, Scottish National the 22nd, Cotswold on the 23rd; and for any noble Lord who lives to the East of London I can find January 5th, Colchester. We have heard much ill-informed exaggeration against coursing. Those who do not like coursing do not want to see it and do not want to learn what happens, and do not want others to do it. It is just not good enough to ban sports for reasons which are wholly exaggerated, grossly prejudiced and totally unfounded. If the Bill gets a Second Reading it will now 20 to a Select Committee. I hope it will be judged by fact and not fancy. I think this Bill is bred by gullibility out of ignorance, and by a load of bull out of Heffer.
5.37 p.m.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, in which he said that many people's opinions on this and allied subjects were determined not by personal experience but rather by prejudice and supposition. I can understand that point of view. I can understand the resentment of sportsmen to those armchair critics who pass judgment on something that they have never personally witnessed. I can also understand the point of view of sportsmen who fear, perhaps because of some of the, to my mind, incautious statements that have been made from time to time, that if hare coursing is abolished this will be the thin end of the wedge, and that in due course restrictions will be placed on other field sports, such as hunting, fishing and shooting.
My Lords, some time ago I went to a hare coursing meeting at Crevelly near Ballymena in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, because I thought it was only right that I should see it myself before being so bold as to come to your Lordships' House and speak about it. I may say that when I went there I was very courteously received by the chairman of the club, who said that he was glad that someone who was averse to the sport was at least prepared to come to see for himself rather than criticise without personal experience.
Perhaps I ought to make my position clear. For at least 20 years, I have not participated in any blood sport, with the
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exception of motor racing. But if other people want to do it and if they do it properly, that is O.K. Who am I to criticise them? Having stated my position, I should say that I was brought up in a family whose enthusiasm for field sports was almost evangelical; it was almost like a religion. My late mother hunted regularly with the local pack of harriers. She was an animal lover and she did not like the killing, but the hares were caught so seldom that it caused her only minimal inconvenience. My father was a dedicated wildfowler and shooter; but he would never go out to shoot, he would never take a gun in his hand, without having a well-trained dog with him. He was an expert shot, and therefore he very seldom wounded a bird; but if he did, he would quite happily have missed the next two drives in his endeavours to pick up that wounded bird and to despatch it immediately and humanely.
The point is that the hares that my mother hunted and the birds that my father shot at were in their natural environment. Anyone who has ever endeavoured to shoot woodcock knows well that they make maximum use of that natural environment. Similarly, the angler is pitting his wits against those of the fish, who knows every nook and cranny of the river bed and the river bank, as indeed the hare knows the country when being hunted and therefore nine times out of ten outwits the hunters.
I should say that the noble Lord, Lord Denham, enlightened me in private conversation yesterday on a fact of which I was not previously fully aware; namely, that hare coursing in this country is conducted in a different manner from that in which it is conducted in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, at Cravelly, where I went recently—and perhaps your Lordships will bear with me for a moment if I explain what happens—the club pays farmers, or other people round the countryside, for hares in good condition. I believe that £3 a head is the going rate this year. Those hares are netted, or captured by some other means, held in captivity and treated well. They are well fed, kept in top class condition, and during that period of captivity they are trained as to the nature of the enclosure in which the course takes place and where the escape gate is. On the day of the meet they

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are released and chased by greyhounds, and it is their luck whether or not they reach the escape hatch in time.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit me to interrupt for one moment? Is the noble Lord aware that coursing a hare or a rabbit which has previously been caught is already wholly illegal under the existing law? It is therefore quite irrelevant to this Bill.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, I was coming to the point that the noble Lord has raised. I think it adds weight to my argument. Whereas various noble Lords and honourable Members in another place have felt that it would be proper to legislate against hare coursing as it is conducted in England, I am going to submit to your Lordships that there is an even stronger case for precluding the type of coursing which takes place in Northern Ireland. I apologise if I am wearying your Lordships, but that is why I am explaining the difference between the procedure here and in Northern Ireland.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that this Bill does not cover Northern Ireland?
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, I appreciate that fully, and that is why later in today's debate I will give notice of my intention to move an Amendment at the Committee stage that the Bill should apply to Northern Ireland. Unlike with the bird, the hunted hare, the fish, the procedure is that a coursed hare under these circumstances is released into an entirely unnatural environment. It is a large open field, which is enclosed, with an escape hatch at one end. None of the natural survival resorts that the hare would normally use is available. There are no bushes, no banks, no ditches, no long grass. The hare is in full view of the greyhounds all the time.
Here we come to the main difference between coursing as it is carried out here and carried out in Northern Ireland; namely, that if the hare escapes into another enclosure, it is then recaptured and coursed again another time. If it escapes a second time, it is recaptured and coursed on another occasion. If it escapes the third time, it is recaptured
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and coursed on another occasion. So it would virtually be true to say that perhaps the most fortunate hares are those which are killed on their first course rather than having to endure the experience three, four, five, or more times.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, mentioned the contribution of hares to the national diet and nutritional requirements. I hardly think that the contribution is one of great significance. I would further discount the argument that coursing of hares is an important factor in the control of vermin, in view of the fact, particularly this year, that the club of which I speak is having to go to considerable lengths to find sufficient hares to be able to course. I speak here with some hesitation and apprehension because I may be wrong, but some 23 years ago I think I served under the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, as a trooper at Hadrian's Camp, Carlisle, when he was a troop leader. I may be wrong, but he is not listening so it does not matter. Anyway, he went to a hare coursing meeting and saw no kills; at the one I went to, in 13 courses four hares were killed.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt again, but I hope the noble Lord will not compare the kind of coursing that he is describing with the kind of coursing that occurs in this country and which this Bill seeks to ban. From the noble Lord's remarks, he would not oppose hare coursing in this country, because a hare is hunted in its natural environment. Therefore, I hope he will not give anyone the impression that this Bill is to ban the kind of coursing he is describing. What he needs to do is to introduce a separate Bill to ban park coursing, which is something quite different.
Lord DUNLEATH: Yes, my Lords; but in fact, if you read the Bill, it covers coursing generally. The only qualification concerns the use of two or more dogs.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, the kind of coursing the noble Lord describes does not take place in this country. This Bill applies only to this country. It may be necessary for the noble Lord, and may be desirable to the noble Lord, to introduce a Bill to ban park coursing; but this Bill does not touch park coursing, because it is not allowed in this country.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: It is illegal anyway.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, the fact remains, whether noble Lords like it or not, that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and until such time as we canget ourselves sorted out—and I sincerely hope that that will be as soon as possible and that we have a devolved administration at Stormont—Westminster (and here I fully sympathise) is responsible for the law in Northern Ireland. What I am saying, and I am coming round to it, is that if the kind of coursing that is permissible in England is considered fit to be abolished because it is so objectionable, how much more should coursing be abolished in Northern Ireland when it is so much more objectionable; and I am saying that this Bill refers to hare coursing.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? It may help him. Though it is quite true, as noble Lords opposite say, that the hares in this country are not first of all caught and then let out, in fact beaters-up are employed to beat the hares on to the coursing ground. The situation is not quite so simple as some noble Lords who have interrupted the noble Lord would have him believe.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that when the hares go on to that coursing ground, they have far more chance than if they were coursed before they were on the coursing ground?
Several Noble Lords: Order!
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I think it might be better if the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, was allowed to get on with his speech. There have been complaints, and I say this in no partisan sense, that no one supporting the Bill has gone to the trouble of attending hare coursing. The noble Lord has been interrupted on a substantial number of occasions, and I think it would be fair if noble Lords allowed him to complete his speech.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, we cannot allow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, to get
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away with that. First he says that no supporter of the Bill has been to a hare coursing meeting, and then he produces one and says he should be heard because he has been to a meeting.
Lord DUNLEATH: I take the hint, my Lords, and I will conclude as quickly as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, was good enough to put in a commercial and advertise future meetings so that noble Lords who have not taken the opportunity so far to see hare coursing will be able to enter in their diaries the dates of future events. Many arguments have been advanced against hare coursing and a lot of them are probably similar to those which were put forward in times past as, gradually, civilised society began to object to bear baiting, pig-sticking and, as many of us do today, to bullfighting in other countries. Possibly the arguments were similar to those used by the ancient Romans to justify casting Christians into the lions' den; after all, it probably provided a good diet for the lions, and anyway it was humane for Christians because it spared them suffering from perhaps a prolonged death from cancer, leprosy or some other disease. Genuinely, I do not think those arguments hold much water.
The main decision that has to be taken by your Lordships today is whether to read this Bill a second time. I sincerely hope that it will get a Second Reading. I have taken note of the fact that an Order in Council may be enacted in respect of Northern Ireland if this Bill is passed, but I plead that the spirit of the Bill be spread to Northern Ireland because if hare coursing is so objectionable that it should be banned here, then it is twice or thrice as objectionable in Northern Ireland and therefore it is twice or thrice as important that it be banned in that Province. If Her Majesty's Government find that it is not possible to give an undertaking to that effect, then, while I am not sure of the procedure that is involved with a Select Committee, I give notice that at the Committee stage.in this House I shall table an Amendment to the clause which says:
"This Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland"
to make it read "This Act shall extend to Northern Ireland "or what other form of words I am instructed is appropriate.
5.54 p.m.
The Duke of MARLBOROUGH: My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, I am also the president of a coursing club. I, too, have attended coursing meetings and it amazes me that most of the supporters of the Bill in this House and in another place do not appear to have attended a coursing meeting to find out the true facts for themselves. What will be the effect of this Bill? It will make illegal the least cruel way of killing hares. It will not make the killing of hares illegal with greyhounds, lurchers and other dogs—provided they are not in an organised competition—but it will mean that hares will not have the advantage of suffering less cruelty, with more chance of escape, by having tie course properly organised.
We have heard—and we shall hear a lot more—about the word "cruelty ". Surely, it must be up to each and every individual to decide whether he or she is being cruel to an animal; this decision must be left to one's conscience. I know that this Government like to decide everything for us, but please, can this decision be left to the individual? With what animals does one associate the word "cruelty", and why? Where does cruelty begin and where does it stop? Is it not cruel for a fly slowly to die attached to a sticky piece of paper? Is it not cruel for birds to be allowed to die daily in their hundreds at London Airport, as your Lordships heard on 25th November in reply to a Question put by the noble Earl, Lord Arran? Is it not cruel for rats to be caught by terriers'? Is it not cruel for rabbits to be bitten to death by ferrets? And is it not cruel for beagles to be used in smoking tests? I am sure that noble Lords are glad to hear that these tests are shortly to end.
Why, therefore, has this Bill been introduced? It has been introduced mainly because the Government consider it cruel to course hares. We have heard that shooting and snaring are more cruel. This extract comes from A Review of Coursing in 1971 by Owen Stable Q.C., and R. M. Stuttard:
"Our conclusion is that coursing is a well-conducted sport and that those who take part in it are familiar with its rules"—
more than the Irish, I am afraid—
"and are keen to observe them. We consider that the rules are good and that the amend-
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ments which have been made from time to time are interesting examples of adaptation to new conditions and to new problems as these have arisen."
Is this Bill sheer Government hypocrisy and is it a forerunner of other measures to prevent the freedom of the individual, with more Government interference in our daily lives? It seems totally illogical to allow a person to set one dog on a hare but a criminal offence if two dogs course the same hare. What is the point of this? Is it less cruel to the hare? Of course not. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, to enlighten me on this point? Can he also tell me whether, if three or four dogs or greyhounds chase the same hare when they are out in the countryside with two or three handlers, that is coursing? Or is it hunting? And is it a competition as to their ability? I shall be surprised if he can give a clear-cut answer to these questions. If the noble Lord cannot, then that will show that the words used in this Bill are, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, said in the debate in this House on 7th November, "short and simple, deceptively so." They are unacceptably vague and we require a much more precise definition of what is and what is not a crime. I feel very strongly that it is wrong to enact a law which is difficult to define and hard to enforce. Our police are more than fully occupied at the present time. This is an irrelevant, ill-defined and ill-conceived piece of legislation and I am happy that the noble Lord the Leader of the House has agreed to it being sent to a Select Committee.
5.59 p.m.
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, during the past 30 years I have been a Member either of this House or another place and I feel that either House is never better than when it is discussing animal cruelty or animal welfare. I remind noble Lords that within the last six months or so we have had Questions or minor debates on such matters as the export of old horses to Belgium, the importation of tortoises, the bludgeoning of baby seals, the sale of birds as pets and the transit conditions of birds at Heathrow Airport, to which reference has been made. We are never better than when we are showing some real concern for the animal world because we have rightly been called a nation of animal lovers.

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I like to think that we are such a nation. Yet, on this small Bill dealing with cruelty to thehare—and Scott Henderson, in his Report, regards it as cruelty—we are divided. Happily, we are not dividing on Party lines and, if there is a Division on the Second Reading at the end of the day, that will be proved. The disagreement arises because some people feel that it is easier and perhaps kinder to course a hare than for it to be shot by the farmer in the interests of pest control because his crops are under attack.
I should perhaps declare an interest. If I have a hate of any animal atall—and it is more or less a love-hate relationship—it is the grey squirrel. I have three very nice walnut trees and, at the right season of the year, they are full of walnuts, but I have never yet tasted one. We see plenty of squirrels. However, if I were asked to shoot one I could not because the little blighters sit up, using their front paws to hold the walnut in front of them and biting it.
One cannot help occasionally feeling somewhat fanatical about animal welfare and the love of animals, but I do not go the whole way in that direction—for instance, with people who are opposed to vivisection. I believe that the human animal—the head of the primates, if one cares to call him that—is entitled in the interests of medical science to make experiments on certain animals to serve humanity. However, that is a very different matter. We are this afternoon considering whether there is any real cruelty to the hare in coursing. If we admit that there is some cruelty, we have to decide whether it is more cruel to shoot hares or to have them coursed.
I have never engaged in a hare shoot, though I have shot rabbits. I do not suppose I could hit a hare anyway, for I am not a good enough shot, but I am certain because I have been told so by people so engaged—farmers and so on—that when hares are being chased they scream and scream pretty loudly. That must indicate, if not pain, at least fear. So really we are trying this afternoon to decide whether hare coursing should be stopped simply because it is cruel. I believe that there is no doubt, and Scott Henderson confirms that this blood sport is cruel. I do not believe for a moment
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that every hare is caught and killed, but, for the purposes of this debate and with the background I have mentioned and which we all have as animal lovers, we ought to be certain before we cast a vote against this very simple Bill.
It has been suggested this afternoon —and I believe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, again mentioned the point—that, unless one has seen hare coursing one cannot judge it or support it. I hope that I am paraphrasing the words of the noble and learned Lord correctly. I am an opponent of capital punishment, but I have never seen a man or a woman hanged. We would all now oppose cockfighting—how many have joined the gentlemen of the main to see cockfighting? I do not feel that that argument holds good at all and, if one is in any doubt at all as to what hare coursing means, Scott Henderson's appendix gives more graphic detail than anything one can read elsewhere. Scott Henderson is worth reading for that reason. His Report is now 25 years old. At the beginning of that Report he refers to the hare as,
"a defenceless animal, most active at night, that does not move much at all during the day ".
If Scott Henderson is right in any direction, he is right in that direction and, if that is so, what is happening is that coursing is taking place during the time when the hare is least alert.
Scott Henderson may or may not be right—I do not know—but the purpose of that Report was to investigate cruelty to wild animals. It is, as has been mentioned, a contradictory Report. It said that hare coursing came within the authors' definition of cruelty, but was no less cruel than shooting hares, and on hare coursing they had no recommendation. Further on, they said it was another method of pest control; and further again, that a hunted hare can run anywhere at will but a coursed hare is pursued in a very restricted area and its chance of escape is very small indeed. Then, in paragraph 275, Scott Henderson said that the crowds as coursing meetings added to the hare's fright.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords. I wonder whether the noble Lord could give the reference for Scott Henderson's remark that the coursed hare was in a very restricted area?
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, I believe it is paragraph 280. When this matter was being considered 25 years ago evidence was taken from anyone who wished to give it and another interesting point came out in the evidence given by the Government—and presumably this came from the Ministry of Agriculture. It was pointed out that hare coursing was more popular in industrial than in rural areas. Yet we have this afternoon been told time and again that this is a countryman's sport and that the townsman knows nothing whatever about it. That is not what Scott Henderson said.
During the last debate it was strongly argued that even if this small Bill is worth bringing before this noble House, now is the wrong time because of inflation, unemployment, Northern Ireland, Chrysler and so on. That is a specious argument because even during the grim days of the War a number of humane social Acts of Parliament were put on to the Statute Book. If one argues in that way it will never be the right time to do anything. It is rather like the pay of Members of Parliament—it is never the right time to raise it. I can say that now as I am no longer in the other place. It is a specious argument. I would suggest that those who use it should read not necessarily the Acts themselves but some of the titles of Acts passed during the war years. For example, I see that the noble Earl, Lord Arran, is in his place. His Badgers Bill went through and was approved—and he is to be congratulated on it—at a time when we were very concerned about the Common Market issue, in addition to inflation. It is always the right time to do something worth while in the interests of animals or humans, whenever they are being badly or inhumanely treated. It is the strength of this country that we have been able to do such things.
We have also heard arguments as to whether or not coursed hares or hunted animals generally suffer pain. They cannot speak so we cannot be sure, but it is very evident to anyone who knows anything about the animal world that animals do suffer pain. In any case, we should not experiment to find out whether they do.
This simple Bill makes coursing matches illegal. A coursing match is a match in which a hare is driven on to the
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course and, at an appropriate moment, dogs are released and the hare is chased. If it tries to get off the course it is driven back on by men who are stationed at appropriate intervals—
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord will not wish to mislead the House. That is totally untrue and entirely against the rules of the National Coursing Club.
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, I am basing my argument on Scott Henderson. He says that men are employed at regular intervals on the side of the course to drive the hare back to the course if it should get off.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords. I believe that the noble Lord is misreading Scott Henderson. This is certainly not done and I hope that the noble Lord will reread the Report and not give the House this idea.
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, let Members of your Lordships' House read it themselves. I cannot give your Lordships the reference without stopping in the middle of my speech, but I can assure your Lordships it is there. The actual words are:
"…is driven back on again by men standing at intervals and put there for that purpose."
One accepts that the main purpose of hare coursing is for sport, to test the skill of the dogs. Perhaps a little money is made for the dog owners. But in the process of this—and it is not the objective of the coursing match—the hare is killed, if not on all occasions, certainly on very many; and it is not killed very pleasantly.
I ask this question—I ask it out of ignorance—and perhaps someone will answer it when making a reply: Why would it not be possible to muzzle the dogs? Could they not chase the hare in precisely the same way, show their skill in running and turning, without catching the hare? We have heard the argument that this Bill is legally defective. I believe that it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, who said this, not today but on the previous occasion, which I think was Friday, 7th November. I should not argue with a learned judge, but if a one-clause Bill is legally defective there should not be much difficulty in making it legally correct in its subsequent stages. If the lawyers advising

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the Home Office, as well as the Parliamentary draftsmen and the Legislation Committee of the Cabinet have allowed this one-clause Bill to go through without its being legally correct in law, that is a rather poor reflection on them. I wonder what would happen if they were dealing with the Community Land Act, which was rather more involved than this. I am sure that something can be done to put this point right.
Prior to the debate at the end of the last Session I had not read the Scott Henderson report, but I am now a firm supporter of the Bill and of all its objectives. What the Bill does not do is important; it does not prevent the farmer out with two, three, four, or even six dogs setting up a hare, chasing it and killing it. It does not prevent shooting hares if they are pests. Here I agree that if they are not killed outright it may be cruel. But as I said earlier, we must prevent destruction of crops. One accepts the point which has been made this afternoon, that animals in the wild hunt and kill each other, but this is usually done for food. Hare coursing does none of these things at all. It does not help pest control. It is simply organised as a so-called sport, to train dogs—I accept not necessarily to kill hares, but that does happen; or at least they are badly wounded.
We are told—I hope that I have the name right—that the dog handlers or trainers are required to get on the spot as quickly as possible once the dogs have caught the hare to see that the hare is despatched and its misery ended. But surely their first job would be to secure the dogs. But if that is not so, presumably the dogs are allowed to run around, and not be pulled off when the hare is down. What happens when the hare is down on the ground and the dogs have got it? Again, I turn to Scott Henderson —and this time I can quote. I refer to Appendix IV, paragraph 14: "…with both dogs biting "into the hare. Is that not cruel? That is an extremely cruel way of doing it!
I ask the supporters who attend meetings, when they are watching the skill of the dogs, to have a thought for the animal which is being killed. I should exonerate them from any blame or accusation of their being there purely to watch the killing of a hare. I do not think that they
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are there purely for that purpose. They are there to watch the skill of the dogs, but it is in that process that the hare is killed. The supporters of blood sports always take the view that the animal enjoys it in part. I would not go all the way with the supporters of all blood sports. There are certain blood sports among us humans. I can give as an example boxing, which I like—and I can say that in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. I like watching boxing, if that is a blood sport—and often it is. But with hare coursing it must be degrading for people to stand there, watching the hare driven on to the course, frightened by crowds, driven back again if he tries to get off, and eventually caught by dogs, only, I hope, to be mercifully killed, if necessary, by the dog handlers.
I was not present during the last debate, but I read the report of it. One noble Lord then said that if we were to lose hare coursing we would lose an ancient freedom. I cannot say which noble Lord said that; I do not have the name with me. We lost the ancient freedoms of bear baiting, cock fighting, and public hangings, and I do not think we are any the less as a result of having lost them. Our generation is a better one than were the generations in which those activities took place—that is my view.
It has been said this afternoon by at least one noble Lord—and I do not know how this is worked out—that this Bill is a Left-Wing plot. I say at once that if this is a Left-Wing plot the hare would not be the objective; it would probably be my colleague my noble friend Lord George-Brown and myself. We humans are supposed to be the heads of the animal kingdom, the heads of the primates. If that theory is correct and we so regard ourselves, then it is about time that we supported small Bills of this type simply to serve our subjects.
6.17 p.m.
Lord De CLIFFORD: My Lords, I shall be extremely brief in addressing your Lordships. Following the statement by the noble Lord the Leader of the House that this Bill is to be referred to a Select Committee, I feel that the whole point of this debate has been removed. We have heard this afternoon a number of speeches from noble Lords who were

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speaking from what were almost entrenched positions. I do not like the shape of this Bill as it is, and I think it a bad Bill, because in order to enforce it it may be necessary to go through considerable legal procedures and incur considerable costs to ensure that it means what it says. I hope that during the Committee stage—whenever it may be—we can get real clarification as to what is meant by this Bill.
I do not believe that anyone will try to prevent the Bill receiving a Second Reading today. My noble friend Lord Denham said that he would not ask your Lordships not to support the Bill. I am rather sorry to see the Bill go to a Select 'Committee. I think that your Lordships could probably have dealt with it better on the Floor of the House. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House say that a terminating date in regard to the reference to a Select Committee must be given in relation to the Bill. I say that because those who are well skilled in such matters can use Select Committees extremely well to keep things moving along gently, and in such circumstances the Bill could again be lost in this Session.
I should hate to have to select Members for the Select Committee, because almost everyone has a view on these matters. However, I hope that when the Bill goes to the Select Committee and people are giving their evidence (all of which we have heard in various shapes or form this afternoon), noble Lords who form the Select Committee will appreciate that, whatever we may say for or against the Bill, we say it from our deepest convictions and not because we are trying to make a point one way or the other.
6.20 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I, too, will try to be short. I should like to start by saying one word with regard to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. He referred to a film, the hunt saboteurs' film. They seemed to me to be a society to promote a conspiracy against the peace, and I should have thought that their performances as displayed in that film would have been a proper matter for consideration by the prosecuting authorities. I should have thought, too, that
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perhaps the activities of the ITV in presenting that conspiracy might also be considered. In that film was included a wholly fraudulent scene of coursing. In that coursing, a sound which was supposed to be that of a hare screaming was put on throughout the course. I have heard hares scream, not in coursing but when killed by a stoat or a weasel, and when they have been shot or wounded. I can assure noble Lords that the note of a hare screaming has no real resemblance at all to the fraudulent sound which was introduced into that film.
May I now turn to the theme of what I want to say. I am concerned with cruelty, but in this I think there are two aspects. There is, first, the public aspect; the aspect which it is the duty of society, by its laws, to control and to suppress. I would give a definition of such cruelty. It is: any act which adds unnecessarily to the total suffering of beasts or animals, bearing in mind all the time the course of nature, the balance of nature, that nature provides no beds for its denizens to die in and that the process of death in nature is always cruel. Unless one is satisfied that an activity adds to that total suffering, I do not think it is the concern of the law to deal with it.
The second aspect is the personal matter; the things which, individually, we may or may not care to do. So far as I am concerned, when I was a boy I shot the hindlegs off a rabbit which got under an oak tree, and I could not get it out. I have never shot anything since; I was haunted by the fear of that wounded animal which I could do nothing about. Again, I have not fished, because again I do not like the idea of a live, very sentient creature fighting against a barb. But I would not forbid those things, because I am not at all satisfied that they add to the picture of a balance of nature, which is in course of going anyway.
But when we come to coursing, I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, is not in his place, because I should very much have liked to say something to him. He said, as I understood him, that he would not pass judgment on the question of cruelty. What he found objectionable about the Bill was the unacceptable enjoyment of those who went to see coursing. That was how he

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put his case, I think. I have joined with the noble Lord in various campaigns with humanitarian aspects, particularly the campaign against capital punishment. I believe that for him to say, without going to see what happens, "I will condemn your unacceptable enjoyment", is simply insulting. I would contrast the words of the priest with the words of the judge: "I would not dare to pass judgment unless I had seen". My Lords, I prefer the words of the judge. We have had said, "I do not have to see babies battered in order to condemn battering babies, or people hanged in order to condemn hanging". That, surely, is a different matter from saying, "I can condemn unseen, without taking the trouble to go to see, that which I know many of my colleagues, many of my friends, many people whom I have every reason to respect, have seen but not condemned and do not regard as cruel".
I would say that this attitude of refusing to go to see is the attitude which was taken by an Aristolean philosopher (also, I believe, a priest) when he refused to look through Galileo's telescope for fear of what he might see. He said, "I have read Aristotle twice. He does not mention sunspots; there are none. I will not look through your telescope". So, today, one after another of the people who wish to interfere with an ancient and established custom of the countryside, say, "I will not look through your telescope. I do not want to go to see what I am going to condemn".
I would turn to the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, and say that he at least provided very good reasons for going to see, because if he had seen—and I say this with all due respect to an old friend—he would not have talked the nonsense about coursing that he did. He said that hares scream throughout the course. No hare has ever screamed in a course or when it is being run. It would not have the breath to do so. I have never heard a scream during coursing. I know it has happened; I know there are those who have heard it. I have heard it in hare shooting. The wounded hare screams, and it is a most pathetic thing. I have heard it at night, when a weasel has got a hare—an awful, eerie, horrible sound. But in the course it does not happen. Then the noble Lord said—and I do not know where he finds it,
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from Scott Henderson or the misreading —that people were posted to turn the hare back. They would be nearly lynched if they did; it would totally spoil the course. The whole point is that the course ends at the limit. There you want to get the dogs stopped as soon as you can so that they do not have the handicap of a hard course before the next round. The whole point is to get the hare away as soon as it has crossed the boundary. You stop the dogs at the boundary, but never the hare. It makes absolute nonsense; it is not what coursing is about.
Again, the noble Lord spoke of an urban constricted area. There is no urban area which could possibly hold a coursing meeting. It is a large area where the hares live in their natural circumstances—driven, it is true, by beaters walking slowly until they come into a field where the hare and the slipper are ranged. Then there is the run. One hare in four or one hare in five gets killed. His death is probably quicker than almost any other death scene in nature. Generally, it is a quick broken neck; very occasionally it is not, and it has to be killed by an assistant. To say that this adds substantially to the cruelty is a great nonsense.
I would make one final point, one which I made last time and which was ignored both by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Soper. When the noble Lord, Lord Soper, said that it was the unacceptable enjoyment that he wished to prevent and which he condemned, what does he mean by that? Does he mean the sadism, the enjoyment from killing, the enjoyment from blood? One must presume so. But this Bill does not forbid that. You can course your hares, you can chase your hares, you can do anything you like to them so long as the purpose is not a competition as to the ability of the hounds. That is all that is forbidden. If you say: "I did not do that to test the ability of the hounds; I did it because I like torturing hares, because I am a sadist, because their screams turn me on!" this would be a complete defence under the Bill. You are not condemning what is done for cruelty: you are only condemning what is done without any desire to kill a hare at all, the coursing of the dogs. Really, a Bill of this sort is

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almost too much nonsense to waste the time of a Committee.
I am glad that it is going to be exposed. I hope that it there dies of the exposure that it will receive; but I certainly do not want, and would not accept, any time limit which would prevent the evidence which is proper from being heard. I do not think that courts properly operate under a time limit constricting the evidence; and this Select Committee is in the nature of a court.
6.32 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, after the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Paget, I hesitate to intervene. albeit briefly. Where I live in Scotland is over 150 miles from the only coursing meeting in Scotland. We heard this earlier in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. He was giving a commercial for that meeting, which I understand is on Christmas Eve, I have listened with great interest to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Denham, as well as those of the other contributors to the debate. But I owe the House an apology, and particularly the noble Lord. Lord Harris, in that I was absent from the Chamber for the major part of his speech. I regret that I was at a meeting discussing that other open air sport, a sport which, I am sure, transfixes the miner neighbours of the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, who is, I regret to say, no longer in her place. That is professional football, if we dare call it a sport. To this so-called sport I go regularly and I see appalling viciousness and intimidation among humans. This afternoon we are spending several hours discussing what is said to be cruelty, viciousness and intimidation concerning hares.
As a result of the debate that we had at the end of last Session, I attended a coursing meeting to see for myself whether there was any cruelty or needless pain inflicted on the hares. I am sure that noble Lords will be aware that agriculture requires the number of hares to be controlled so that the crops that we grow are not ravaged. Of the various methods of controlling the hare population, it seems that coursing, and, in particular, coursing carried out as a sport under the National Coursing Club rules, is one of the least cruel methods, if not the least cruel method. Shooting hares
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can and often does give rise to wounding and unpleasant and painful deaths. Gassing is totally impracticable. There are also predators about which we have heard in the speeches, both in this Session and in the last, of the noble Lord, Lord Paget.
At the coursing meeting that I attended earlier this month I saw greyhounds chase the first hare, and suddenly the greyhounds lost sight of their quarry in dead ground. This brought home to me that the greyhounds chase their quarry entirely by sight and not by smell. Thus, there was no relentless chase of exhausted and terrified hares; and only for a mere 20 or 30 seconds was the hare in any way at risk of its life, or of injury, or of any other unpleasant fate. Can any of the noble Lords who have spoken—and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Paget, who has experience in this matter—tell me whether a fox would give up the chase or stalk of a similar quarry, or whether any dog such as a retriever would give up the chase of a hare after 20 or 30 seconds? I think not—and I have reasonable experience of seeing retrievers chasing after hares.
At this meeting I saw 36 hares coursed. A total of four hares were caught and killed. Two were killed outright in about 10 to 15 seconds from the time the hounds were released. One hare was caught, and after ten second the handlers of the dogs and other officials of the course killed the hare which was in the mouth of the winning greyhound. I counted that hare and all the hares afterwards. The first two had their necks broken. The third was totally unmarked. The fourth that I saw killed was caught and slightly wounded. It was a flesh wound, a tooth mark, in the shoulder of the hare. This hare, too, was swiftly and humanely killed.
I believe that if other noble Lords had come to that meeting with me, they would have seen no acts of appalling cruelty or needless acts of cruelty. We have heard a great deal about this from that outstanding naturalist, the noble Lord, Lord Paget. I heard no hares screaming as they were done to death. This too was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Paget; and I would reiterate it to the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone. Not one of the 36 hares that I saw coursed, screamed. The only time I have ever

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heard a hare screaming was when it was gravely hurt by shooting or was in the mouth of a dog or a predator—a weasel, a stoat or something like that.
At the meeting I attended 32 out of 36 hares escaped unharmed. Can anyone say what would have been the proportion of wounded or maimed hares after 36 hares had been shot at at a normal hare shoot? I suspect that a good proportion would have got away and died terrible deaths. I understand that only about 600 hares are killed each year at coursing meetings. This, it seems to me, is a relatively insignificant number when considering the country as a whole. As the House has heard from the noble Lord, Lord Denham, killing the hare is not necessary in coursing. The competition is to see which dog is better at pacing, turning and at accelerating; and the judges' decision is final. If a hare gets away—and I have seen hares which dodge through the cars of the people who were observing the coursing—there are no men driving them back on to the course.
I have heard the arguments for and against this country pursuit of coursing. From my own observations at one meetting—and I certainly would go to others —I do not think it is a cruel sport. Doubtless, I shall hear a hare screaming. This is inevitable if one goes to a large number of courses. I saw 36 hares, which is a reasonable number in one day, and not one screamed or was killed inhumanely. Of the four I saw killed, not one had a mark except for the one I explained. From the observations that I made, I do not believe that coursing is any more cruel or more brutal than any other sport in the country.
I believe it is one of the most, if not the most, humane way of killing hares. I would support the noble Lord, Lord Denham, in his suggestion that the Bill should go to a Select Committee before it proceeds further.
6.40 p.m.
Lord WISE: My Lords, I must apologise for not putting my name down earlier to speak I did not think I could be in my place in your Lordships' House today. I will be brief as the hour is getting late. Notwithstanding the Scott Henderson Committee Report. I do not understand how we can consider hare
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coursing in isolation. I do not understand how one blood sport can be divorced from another when one is discussing whether or not cruelty is involved. One must surely recognise that inevitably there is a degree of cruelty in all field sports; that element is not entirely involved in the possible death of the hunted animal, but there must be some fear and anguish experienced when it is being hunted or coursed. Nevertheless, one has to recognise the need for control of numbers, and also the need for the preservation of the species.
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, that there is a danger of hares becoming extinct if coursing is abolished, for then there would be widespread shooting. This Bill seeks to prevent two or more greyhounds in competition coursing a hare. The antagonistic nature of public opinion towards hare coursing could possibly be assuaged if only one greyhound were used. With respect to the noble Duke, the Duke of Marlborough, the hare obviously would have a greater chance of survival. Surely greyhound A could compete with greyhound B, and the judges could award points accordingly if the dogs were running individually. However, we have to agree upon a cruelty aspect of hare coursing.
The Duke of MARLBOROUGH: My Lords, with respect, I said that I did not consider there would be any less cruelty by having two dogs rather than one dog. I said that I was sure it was less cruel if two dogs caught a hare rather than one dog.
Lord WISE: My Lords, I consider that the hare would have a greater chance of survival if only one dog was coursing it. However, that may not be so. In any case, all we have to do is to consider the cruelty aspect of hare coursing. I personally am glad of the interjection of the Leader of the House, for I support the noble Lord, Lord Denham, in his endeavour to bring this Bill before a Select Committee, so enabling us to consider all the aspects concerned.
6.44 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords. your Lordships have listened to a long and interesting debate, and one might have been pardoned if at one stage after the Lord Privy Seal's intervention one

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had thought it might be slightly truncated. That was not to be. Noble Lords emerged refreshed from the tea room, and some made the speeches which they would have made whether or not the noble Lord had intervened. To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, he said, admittedly from his vast experience, that he thought Parliament was at its best when discussing matters relating to animals. My experience is less than his, but I would have said exactly the opposite: I think your Lordships' House, in particular, is at its worst in those circumstances. We wear our already large hearts writ large on our sleeves; and, because of the passions which are aroused in the debate, we over-egg our puddings considerably. This has been demonstrated this afternoon by comparing the coursing event with throwing Christians to the lions. It is only when one looks at it in that way that one can make up one's mind whether or not your Lordships' House is at its best in this form of debate.
I do not intend to go over what has been said before or, indeed, what I said before. This is a matter which, on our side of the House at any rate, is not a Party matter; it is a matter for the individual feelings and conscience of each noble Lord when he comes to make up his mind, if and when he is given the chance of so doing. If I have a quarrel with the Government it is the quarrel that they have, as it were, taken unto themselves to promote this Bill. If ever there was legislation which should be left to the Private Member to put forward and try to get through one or other House, it is this type of legislation. I am disturbed that the Home Office should be used as a vehicle for this kind of legislation. It may well be that supporters of the ending of blood sports feel that without Government intervention or assistance they will never get what they wish. It may be that British political genius is trying to see that they do not get what they wish in this somewhat curious way. It arouses considerable disquiet. I have said this before, and I will say it again: the disquiet is because this form of legislation is so divisive in its effect. Other noble Lords have already emphasised that it sets what I call the town against the country.
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Most noble Lords who have supported this Bill—I will not accuse them of having what I call the "North Circular Road complex "—do not give the air of ever having gone too far into the countryside. One knows that many Cabinet Ministers now have houses in the country and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, tells us he has awalnut tree —I am sure he does not whip it! He cannot bear to shoot the grey squirrels although they devour his walnuts. Grey squirrels in my part of Scotland are now so numerous, and their depredations so bad so far as hardwoods are concerned, that the Forestry Commission have asked that they be officially re-named "tree-rats" and have asked everybody to shoot them. There have been experiments to poison them. They are indeed rats, and people have been placing dishes of a substance which I believe is called Rodene—I am not thinking of the independent school —to poison the rats. I think that woolly thinking pervades your Lordships' House when we come to discuss this question of animal welfare.
What is it that, in the end, we have to make up our minds about in this Bill which I anticipate will shortly receive a Second Reading and will then no doubt go through its course in your Lordships' House? First of all, is coursing, the sport or the activity or whatever it is, so cruel that society is entitled—and, indeed, bound—to take action against it in itself? Many people have said many things about coursing. I have to confess I have never been hare coursing. I do not suppose anybody would quarrel with the view that some fright is occasioned to hares, otherwise they would not run away. Therefore to that extent, if for no other reason, I suppose it could be said to be cruel. But is it cruelty of such a nature that an otherwise perfectly respectable and pleasurable pastime should be stopped? Bear in mind, my Lords, that many country activities involve death in almost everything that is done in the country scene.
The other criterion is this: whether or not coursing is cruel, or cruel enough to be prohibited, is the effect on those who take part, or on society as a whole, such that they should be prevented from continuing the sport? We have today heard a great deal once more of thinking which is perhaps less logical than entertaining.

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The noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, said that he was quite happy to watch boxing —grown men pummelling each other with the intention of inflicting such grievous bodily harm that one or other of them falls senseless to the ground. I wonder whether the noble Lord has ever watched women engaged in all-in wrestling, which, on the occasion I watched it, seemed to me a horrible spectacle. But apparently he draws the line at coursing—
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, I wonder whether I might intervene briefly? The noble Earl referred to wrestling: presumably he means all-in wrestling, which is regarded as an entertainment rather than as a sport.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I think it was all-in, because when I watched it the trunks of one of the participants came off! But I have to confess that while I am no expert on coursing I am equally no export on various forms of wrestling. This was certainly something at which the ladies who watched seemed delighted to be present.
Of course, there is an excitement in the chase: I think everybody would agree with that. Is it something which is so perverted—I use the word in its strict sense—that it should be banned? I wonder whether that is so. This is something which your Lordships will have to think about in the coming months because, obviously, this is not in any way the end of the discussion of the principles of this Bill.
I should like to say just a word as to the meaning of the Bill. If I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, dealt in a fairly cavalier fashion with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock. I should have thought that if a Law Lord comes to your Lordships' House and says in effect that a proposed Bill does not make legal sense, it is surely up to the Minister in charge of the Bill to make a somewhat better explanation at least as to how his civil servants think that it does, and not merely to say that it is, or will be, perfect law. Even to me, in my humble capacity as an ex-practising member of the Bar, it seems as though it is going to be an extremely difficult line for a court to draw as to when is a course not a course. As I understand it, it is only when a course has a competitive element in relation to third parties—
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because otherwise it can never be proved —that coursing can be brought within the ambit of a court. So we are left with the absurd situation that any number of people can take out their dogs and set them on to hares, subject to no rules, so far as I can see—because if there are rules and if there is a competition they will be committing an offence. If they have no rules and merely try as best they can to kill hares, then they will be guilty of no offence at all.
I should like to answer just one point which was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon. I live comparatively near Fife and have on many occasions in the early morning seen people on the edges of the little mining towns taking greyhounds for walks over open country. It may be that they just like to take the morning air with their greyhounds, but I somehow feel that the presence of a hare in the vicinity might not be entirely unconnected with that early morning activity. And who shall gainsay them if they want to do that? If people want to pursue a hare with their dog, is it not better than going round a field hitting a little white ball with a stick?—and that is also something I have never done and about which I am rather proud. It seems to me it is better to do something and to do it honestly than to try to make out that such an activity, because it is enjoyed by a section of the populace that is disapproved of by a certain element in our society, is somehow degrading and therefore must be ended.
Most of your Lordships who have stayed to the end of this debate will have listened to a particularly telling contribution made by my noble friend Lord Denham. I have already expressed our gratitude, if that is the right word, to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal, when he announced that he would move for this Select Committee to be set up if your Lordships gave this Bill a Second Reading. At least, when we debate the Bill further I hope that those of us who have not been coursing or who know little about it will continue this debate in not quite the same state of ignorance as some of us have been this afternoon.
6.57 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I think we would all agree with what the noble Earl has just said, that this has been a full debate and a

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very interesting one to those who have had the pleasure not only of attending this one but of hearing what was said in our last discussion only six weeks ago. If I may say just one thing with some feeling, this is the fourth opportunity I have had within a period of six weeks of addressing the House during the Second Reading of the same Bill. I do not know whether that will get an entry in the Guinness Book of Records, but at least one hopes that it will get a small footnote in some important historical work which will no doubt be written at some time on the history of this controversy, which began, as we have been told by my noble friend Lady Bacon, in 1925.
I will speak very briefly, largely because many points in today's debate were inevitably covered on the last occasion and they will be gone into in detail later by members of the Select Committee, when the opportunity arises. They will certainly direct their minds to the point made by the noble Earl relating to the questions raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, which I answered with brevity because I recognised that they were likely to receive very careful inspection during the Committee stage of the Bill.
I should like to begin by welcoming the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, and if my noble friend Lord Paget will restrain his feelings on the flatter for a moment or two, it is right to say that the noble Lord did testify to having attended a coursing in Northern Ireland. There is no doubt that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and therefore it is clear that if the Bill were amended in a particular way it could cover Northern Ireland. With great respect to those who took exception to what the noble Lord said, it seems to me perfectly reasonable for him to raise the point he did this afternoon, though, I should point out, in passing, as I indicated during my Second Reading speech, that we should propose to the House that Northern Ireland should not be included in the text of the Bill but that we should proceed by Order in Council, were this Bill to reach the Statute Book.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit
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me just to intervene on that point? If one wants to forbid what the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, objected to, one would not make this Bill apply to Northern Ireland, because it would not forbid it. What one would make applicable to Northern Ireland is our legislation against cruelty to animals, which does forbid it.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, it would be idle for me to pretend—though no doubt my noble friend Lord Paget is in a wholly different class—to be an expert on Northern Ireland in this respect. All I would say is that, clearly, the mischief of which the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, complained could be dealt with in this Bill were it to be the view of your Lordships' House that that was the appropriate way of dealing with it.
I shall now pass very briefly to the speech of my noble friend Lord Aylestone, and in so doing welcome him back to the House, because I think this is the first occasion on which he has addressed us since returning to this House from his chairmanship of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. I think we are all delighted to have had the opportunity of hearing him this afternoon, and look forward to doing so in the future. I say that with particular feeling, because when he was Chief Whip in another place I was a junior member of his staff, and I did not think I should ever have the opportunity at any stage of my life of welcoming him anywhere, particularly from the Government Front Bench.
In passing, I should now like to deal with the point made by my noble friend Lord Paget. He referred to a film made by the hunt saboteurs, which he said he thought constituted a criminal offence. It is far from my responsibility, talking to a distinguished member of the Bar, to advise him on a matter of this sort, but it seems to me that if that is his view he will no doubt wish to take an early opportunity of reporting to the Director of Public Prosecutions, presumably, the makers of the film and the IBA for any responsibility which he considers they may have in this matter. I now turn, if I may—
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, may I—?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I shall gladly give way, but, with respect, we have spent a fair amount of time on this point. I should like to turn to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, who always speaks on this issue with great force and persuasiveness. The one point on which I do not think he was adequately persuasive was when he implied that we should accept—fairly uncritically, I may say—the Report of a Committee which reported 24 years ago; a distinguished Committee, no doubt, but a Committee which, I am bound to say, having looked with some care at this matter particularly over the last few weeks, produced a Report which in many respects is certainly capable (I use the most neutral possible language) of having a number of conflicting interpretations. For instance, if one looks at the Report of the Committee, there is no doubt that they considered hare coursing to be cruel. The noble Lord, Lord Denham, said that it is a technical matter. It does not say so in the Report of the Scott Henderson Committee. No doubt that is the view of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, but it is not borne out by the Report itself.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, this is a very important point which the noble Lord has raised. The position is that the Scott Henderson Committee—and perhaps the noble Lord will look at the Report more carefully—did not say that the actions in coursing are cruel. Why I said that the Scott Henderson Committee found them to be technically cruel was because they were under the impression that the hare is being coursed unnecessarily at the National Coursing Club's meetings. That is why it is technically cruel. Anything that was not done at a National Coursing Club meeting they found not to be cruel.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, the sentence which I should like to read to the House is the last sentence of paragraph 280 of the Report, which reads:
"Consequently, the suffering which is caused to hares coursed at such meetings comes within the definition of cruelty which we have adopted."
That is the point which I was relying upon to justify that observation on my part. But, secondly, whatever may have been the private views of members of
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the Committee as to whether it was desirable to have legislation, they referred to this question in the following paragraph. It is curious that the noble Lord, Lord Denham, and other noble Lords who take a similar view of the matter did not refer to it, because it is a point of some significance.
In paragraph 281 of the Report, the Committee addressed themselves to the question of the past position of Government in this matter, and they came to the conclusion—this is dealt with in paragraphs 266 and281 of the Report—that one of the reasons why Government in the past had not taken steps to prohibit this sport was the possible effect on public opinion. I do not think there is very much doubt in anyone's mind as to the present state of public opinion on this matter. Of course, noble Lords who object to the present state of public opinion say that it exists because of the very successful and persuasive campaign which has been waged by those who are opposed to hare coursing. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that in the last 24 years since the publication of that Report there has been a decisive shift in public opinion, and that is one of the many reasons why Scott Henderson, by itself, is not an adequate answer to the situation with which we arc now confronted.
I now come to the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard—what I can perhaps refer to as the Left-Wing conspiracy theory. Under this theory, we are apparently doing this because of pressure from the Left. As my noble friend Lady Bacon pointed out, she was the author of the Bill which was introduced in this House in 1972. I can think of many descriptions of my noble friend—I had the opportunity of hearing a number from some of her political critics—but being a member of the Left is not one of them. We had a little research done on the point made by my noble friend, which I thought was of some interest, about the 1925 Bill. It was carried in another place on Second Reading, went right through its Committee stage, and who, my Lords, was the Prime Minister at the time? It was Mr. Stanley Baldwin. Was he a victim, were the Government Whips at that time victims, of some Left-Wing conspiracy theory? If the House will forgive me,

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that is a fairly far-fetched conclusion and, if I may say so to the noble Earl, there were a substantial number of Liberal Members in another place at that time who would have been the first to identify any polluting influence of that character.
I have dealt with a number of points which have been raised in the debate. I recognise, as we all do on this Bench, that there are substantial differences within the House and, as has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, within the Parties. As he knows, and as I pointed out on the last occasion, a significant number of Members of his Party went into the Division Lobby in favour of the Bill in another place and there are certainly, as my noble friend Lord Paget pointed out, one or two on Benches on this side of the House who do not altogether find favour with what the Government are proposing.
Nevertheless, the Government in no way lack any respect for the views of the opponents of this measure, and I wish I could always say the same so far as the reverse is concerned. But they see the passage of this Bill as one more step—small, undoubtedly, but none the less important—towards a more humane society. There is no doubt in my mind that the great majority of the general public would agree with this view. Hare coursing is cruel because, as I indicated in my Second Reading speech, it inflicts unnecessary and avoidable cruelty on animals. It is right that this country, which prides itself on its concern for animals, should invoke the criminal law to bring this practice to an end.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
Moved, That the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROAD TRAFFIC (DRIVERS' AGES AND HOURS OF WORK) BILL [H.L.]
7.9 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Stedman.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The VISCOUNT HOOD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Amendment of Road Traffic Act 1972 as to drivers' licences and the minimum age of drivers]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 25, at end insert ("and shall be treated, in so far as it amends sections 85, 107 and 110 of the Road Traffic Act 1972, as having had effect since the beginning of 1976 for authorising the grant of driving licences authorising the driving of motor vehicles of any class since that time by reference to the classes of vehicles and the ages specified in section 96 of that Act as substituted by subsection (1) above and for the interpretation of such licences, and any regulations made by virtue of those amendments may have effect accordingly.")
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendment No. 17 as well as to Amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 1, together with the Amendments to Schedule 2 on page 11, lines 28, 39 and 46, and page 12, line 28, are the Amendments which were referred to by my noble friend Lord Melchett on Second Reading when he said that the Government would table Amendments to meet the situation that the Bill could not now be enacted before 1st January 1976, as we had hoped at the time when it was drafted.
Clause 1 of the Bill and the related Schedule provisions are necessary to line up our domestic driving licence law with the minimum driving age provisions of the EEC Regulation 543/69 which comes into domestic effect within the United Kingdom on 1st January 1976. Driving licences have been printed in terms consistent with proposed new minimum ages and vehicle categories, but until the Bill is enacted these licences, although they will be expressed as valid from 1st

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January 1976 onwards, will not reflect the existing minimum age provisions of Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 to the extent that that section has not been superseded by the EEC regulation: that is, in relation to the vehicles to which the regulation does not apply. Hence it is necessary to validate these licences as proposed in Amendment No. 1.
To turn to Amendment No. 17, this also was an Amendment that was referred to at Second Reading by my noble friend Lord Melchett. It complements Clause 1(2) on page 2, line 25, by removing the risk of prosecution for an under-21 year old driver who may have driven a vehicle of the kind covered by his post-1st January 1976 new style licence but for which the minimum age prescribed under the present Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 will not be changed until the Bill is enacted. Without this provision, such a driver could in law have been liable to prosecution under Section 4, driving under age, under Section 84, driving unlicensed, or under Section 99, driving while disqualified. My noble friend explained at Second Reading that such a driver might hold one of the new style licences which will be expressed in the terms envisaged by the Bill.
So far as goods vehicle licences are concerned, this licence would show a limit of 7·5 metric tons permissible maximum weight for a driver between 18 and 21. Such a driver, relying on his licence, might find himself driving a vehicle which, although within this limit, was over 3 tons unlade and therefore at risk of prosecution if the vehicle was one in respect of which the EEC regulation had not superseded the provisions of Section 4 of the 1972 Act. The validity of his licence is secured by the Amendment to Clause 1(2), but it is also necessary to remove the liability to prosecution from an under-21 year old driver in circumstances of this kind. The Amendment is designed to do this, provided of course that he holds the new style licence and is driving within its terms.
May I go on to say that my honourable friend in another place was very grateful for the good wishes extended by your Lordships to him at Second Reading before his visit to Brussels. The meeting of the EEC Transport Council in Brussels considered the United Kingdom's
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request for a deferment of the application, for national traffic, of EEC Regulation 543/69, which deals principally with drivers' hours. Support was received from many quarters. At that time the Council was unable to reach agreement, but the issue is still alive and the Commission have agreed to review our request with a view to making proposals early in the New Year. My honourable friend in another place was grateful for your Lordships' support.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: May I thank the noble Baroness for having explained this Amendment so fully to us. I believe I have the pleasure to be the first person to congratulate the noble Baroness on her immersion in a sudden death in the Committee stage of a Bill that is going through this House. If she continues to explain matters as well and as nicely as she has just done, I am sure that she will have a most happy transport career in this House. The noble Baroness is joining a very select club. She is the direct inheritor of a distinguished line of Peers in her Party who have taken an interest in this subject. We are not particularly political but I hope that we are practical. There is a certain amount of common sense to be found in this House. There is also a certain amount of Chancellor of the Exchequer chopping and a certain amount of railways lobby versus road lobby, versus canal lobby, versus coastal channel lobby, versus air lobby. But by and large we all take an interest in what is the easiest, most convenient and cheapest possible method of transportation for either persons or freight.
As we are dealing with road traffic, let me quickly come back to order and say that I am very satisfied with the explanation of the first Amendment which has been given by the noble Baroness.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Amendment of Transport Act 1968 about drivers' hours]:
7.17 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT Lord TEVIOT moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, leave out lines 12 to 16.
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name and those of my noble friend. In doing so,

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I should like to offer my sincere congratulations, together with my noble friend, to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on her recent appointment. As my noble friend said, this is her first Bill and I hope that she will be sympathetic to what I am going to say.
With your Lordships' permission, I should like to deal with all of these Amendments together in order to save time. They have one single objective. Your Lordships will remember that on Second Reading of this Bill I questioned the need to seek power to amend provisions to which Community regulations do not apply. In reply to this the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, indicated that existing powers would not enable the Secretary of State to make the kind of structural changes in Part VI of the 1968 Transport Act that are necessary to ensure a uniform system of rules in the United Kingdom. In other words, he declared the Government's intention to impose further restrictions on those transport operators who were fortunate enough to be exempted from the intolerable effect of the European hours regulation.
The purpose of this Bill is to enable the Government to integrate EEC Regulation 543/69 into British law, but now we find in it an intention to use regulations as a means of making structural changes to a British Act of Parliament; in other words, to use secondary legislation to amend the Act where primary legislation is called for. This is a questionable tactic.
Turning to Amendments Nos. 2 to 4, these are relatively unimportant but they put the emphasis where it belongs. I refer to pargaraphs (a) and (b) on page 3 of the Bill. The present paragraph (b) relates to provisions to which the Community regulations are applicable, and it is right that it should come before the present paragraph (a) which deals specifically with situations in which the Community provisions do not apply. These Amendments seek to put the horse where it belongs—before the cart.
The important Amendment is Amendment No. 5 on the Marshalled List which seeks to ensure that before making alterations to laws affecting only the internal operation of our transport services, the Government bring their proposals openly before Parliament to seek its approval.
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The need for the Affirmative Resolution procedure is clearly recognised in subsection (3) of Section 101 of the 1968 Act. This requires an Affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament if the limits specified in Section 96 of the Act are to be amended.
What ulterior motive have the Government for departing from this well-established and honourable procedure? It has been recognised on all sides of your Lordships' House that the Community regulations on drivers' hours as they stand at present would do immeasurable damage to the ability of the British road transport industry to serve the nation. It is particularly because the subject matter is of such importance that I ask your Lordships to ensure that Amendments lying within the jurisdiction of the British Parliament should be subject to proper scrutiny.
As I have said, there are transport undertakings whose operations are mainly exempt from the catastrophic provisions of Regulation 543, and it is accepted that this regulation is being largely ignored in other Member States. Despite this, we are forewarned of the Government's intention to impose Community provisions on those operators who already comply with our own British law: a law which has proved completely satisfactory in operation. This is what I believe in Brussels is called "harmonisation", which seems to me to mean having the worst of all worlds.
In these conditions it is a matter of concern that the Government should seek to reduce the power of Parliament to scrutinise the domestic laws of this country. While accepting that changes in the British law may be desirable to ensure a reasonably unified system, comprehensible to drivers, operators and enforcement officers, the importance of the matter is such that these changes ought, as envisaged in the principal Act, to be debated in the British Parliament. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I should like to reinforce what my noble friend has just said. I do this with hesitation because it is embarrassing to come on the first day of a new Minister's life on a Bill in Committee and oppose a Government measure with Amendments. However we do this with sincerity because

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we really believe that slightly more is involved in this than possibly the Government have themselves seen. I must apologise because I was unable to be present at Second Reading and I am forever grateful to my noble friend Lord Lyell, who is happily, here, for the part that he played in so nobly leading the Second Reading.
In that Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, at column 797 of Hansard of 4th December 1975, made it quite clear that the Government were really implementing these powers for EEC purposes—Regulation 543. If it were just that, which initially we thought it was, we should have been totally happy. But we have been worried by friends in the industry and in another place who have asked questions which we are unable to answer, as to why the Government appear to be taking more powers than they previously had in dealing with these regulations.
We have before us the state where a Negative Resolution can incorporate many sensible regulations, it may be concerning hours or concerning other things, all of which would be agreed with, but one of the points in the Negative Resolution could be included in something which was of very great political importance, business importance, or industrial importance to this country. On principle we feel strongly about this. I do not want to impute bad thoughts to the Government, but it has always been thought by this country that government should be seen to be done properly, as well as being done properly. In other words, people like to know that it is done, openly and not secretly. If it is done openly why are we going back on what was in the Transport Act 1968, which required Ministers, when they made changes, to come forward with an Affirmative Resolution in both Houses? Admittedly they have to be debated, but normally they go through with fairly minimal discussion and any person (or Party) who is worried is able to put his questions or amendment to that order and the Government have to answer.
If it is a Negative Resolution matter it merely lies on the Table for 40 Parliamentary days and it has to be flung out in toto or not at all. One has to pray against it; discussion is curtailed. I have in the other House an honourable friend,
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Mr. Marcus Fox. He is not a Minister so I cannot quote him, but only a few days ago (I think it was on the 10th December) he complained bitterly in another place on exactly this point. I do not think the Government had intended the position to be as bad as he thought it was, but we do not like things not being able to be discussed. Because of this I ask the noble Baroness to consider the meaning of these Amendments, and if she can accept them I shall be very grateful.
We already have certain restructuring powers, but these go far wider than were provided for in the 1968 Act. All I am asking basically is that we should put them to the same scrutiny by Parliament as operated in 1968. I was personally involved in the Driving Hours (Passenger and Goods Vehicle) Modification Order of 1971. I am not asking for anything which we have not done before. When the present Government were in Opposition they treated our orders very fairly, and I am sure the Government will find that we shall treat their orders very fairly. I do not want to continue further at this late hour after a long debate, so in order to try to help the noble Baroness I shall sit down.
Baroness STEDMAN: As I understand it, the burden of complaint of the noble Lords opposite is that they would prefer to have the Affirmative Resolution procedure. As a matter of interest, none of the organisations representing the road freight sector have indicated their support for such Amendments and it is estimated that their vehicles represent about 95 percent. of those affected by the EEC regulations. The Government are also concerned that they should not burden the Parliamentary timetable more than is necessary. But I have been impressed by the strength of feeling and the views that have been put to me by noble Lords opposite. I accept that we want this measure on the Statute book as soon as possible. Therefore I can give my assurance that the Government will introduce the Affirmative Resolution procedure. But I must advise noble Lords opposite that I have been told that the drafting of the Amendment is not acceptable in its present form, and if provision for the Affirmative Resolution procedure is to be made it should be done by way of amendment to Section 101 (3) of the Transport

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Act of 1968 and not by way of a proviso to Section 95 (1). The draft Amendments as they stand would produce an inconsistency in Part VI of the 1968 Act, but I give my assurance that the necessary Amendments to give effect to what the noble Lords are seeking will be tabled in another place.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Far be it for me to praise Ministers opposite, but I must say that in a maiden innings the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has done extremely well; she has managed to hit six. To be able to satisfy the Opposition so happily is a notable achievement and I thank her from my heart. I think this was a reasonable request, but we are always surprised to receive reasonable answers, and it is wonderful when such things occur. Miracles do happen and are happening. I must congratulate the noble Baroness on her debut, and I hope my noble friends will feel as I do.
Baroness STEDMAN: I cannot guarantee that it will always happen!
Lord TEVIOT: I also must follow my noble friend in thanking the noble Baroness. She has been sympathetic, and I think I might be able to answer the one point she raised about the freight side. This part of the Bill does not really affect them, but it does affect the passenger side much more, dealing with the exempt services which do not come under EEC provisions. With that, I agree that the Government probably can produce a much better Amendment and far more suitable words. One looks forward to reading their intentions in the Commons, and on that note, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave. withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Consequential and Other Amendments]:
7.32 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10:
Page 5, line 42, after ("on") insert ("the right to or").
Page 7, line 15, leave out ("not falling within") and insert ("on which a maximum
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gross weight is not marked as mentioned in ").
Page 7, line 41, leave out ("not falling within") and insert ("on which a maximum train weight is not marked as mentioned in ").
Page 8, line 9, leave out ("passengers") and insert ("persons ").
Page 8, line 9, at end insert—
("5A. In section 111(1) of the principal Act, for the words "be employed in driving" there shall be substituted the words "for a person to cause or permit the holder of such a licence to drive.")
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Amendment No. 6 is a technical Amendment. Paragraph 4 of the Schedule extends the power to make the regulations so that they may take account of the effect which changes in vehicle classification may have on licences current at the time of the change, or on the rules for granting licences. Amendment No. 6 makes it clear that such regulations may include provisions to preserve the entitlements or the right to the licence as well as preserving the effect of a licence actually held.
With regard to Amendments Nos. 7 and 8, these are both drafting Amendments relating to notional gross weights in relation to a motor vehicle or trailer, or notional relevant maximum train weights in relation to articulated vehicles. Amendment No. 9 is also a drafting Amendment which clarifies the definition of a small passenger vehicle and brings it into line with the description of the class of passenger vehicle exempted from the scope of the EEC Regulation 543/69, by Article 4(1) thereof. Amendment No. 10 is a companion to the provisions in Schedule 1, paragraphs 1, 6 and 8, which substitute the reference to "cause or permit" for "employ". I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Saving Provisions]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 10, line 35, after ("but") insert ("in sub-paragraph (1)").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 11 is also a drafting Amendment and provides that the word "licence" is construed as including a Northern Ireland licence in sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph, but not in sub-paragraphs (2)

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and (3), where such a construction is neither appropriate nor intended.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14:
Page 11, line 28, after ("course of") insert ("any 12 consecutive months since the beginning of")
Page 11, line 39, leave out ("during ") and insert ("since the beginning of ")
Page 11, line 46, leave out ("in") and insert ("since the beginning of").
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14. These are among those that were foreshadowed by my noble friend Lord Melchett in the course of the Second Reading debate, to take account of the fact that the Bill will not be enacted by 1st January 1976 as we originally hoped. These Amendments make appropriate changes in the transitory provisions safeguarding the position of drivers who are affected by the change in the threshold of the heavy goods vehicles drivers' licensing scheme from 3 tons unladen weight to 7·5 metric tons permissible maximum weight.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendments Nos. 15 and 16:
Page 12, line 11, leave out ("less than 3 tons") and insert ("3 tons or less ").
Page 12, line 21, after ("72 ") insert ("and 74").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 15 is a drafting Amendment which corrects a small error in the definition of "qualifying weight "which is relevant to the transitory provision of this Schedule. Amendment No. 16 again is purely a drafting Amendment to correct the necessary reference in the Bill to Northern Ireland legislation concerning heavy goods vehicle licensing. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN: I spoke to this Amendment when speaking to Amendment No. 1. I beg to move.
Amendment moved:
Page 12, line 28, at end insert—
("4. Notwithstanding section 38(2) of the Interpretation Act 1889 (repeals not to affect accrued liabilities and proceedings there for), no person shall be convicted (whether in proceedings instituted before or in proceedings instituted after the passing of this Act) of an offence under section 4 of any provision of Part III of the principal Act by reason of his having at any time since the beginning of 1976 driven a motor vehicle of any class on a road under the age which by or under the said section 4 is the minimum age for driving a motor vehicle of that class if at that time he was the holder of a driving licence issued before the passing of this Act authorising him to drive a motor vehicle of that class and had attained the minimum age specified in the licence for driving that class of vehicle.")—(Baroness Stedman.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.