Lords Sitting of 15 January 1976

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Coventry.

FIBRE GLASS INSULATION: VAT
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the publicity they are giving to saving fuel by improving house insulation they will take action to remove the anomaly whereby fibre glass insulation is zero rated for VAT when professionally installed but not so when bought for do-it-yourself installation by the public.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, a wide range of materials is used for house insulation. To zero rate some andleave others at standard rate would create anomalies. Furthermore, the materials have other uses and it would be quite impossible to restrict any tax concession to insulation.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask whether he can first of all explain why it is that there is no VAT if fibre glass insulation is installed professionally? Secondly, does he appreciate the enormous advantage—a 20 per cent. saving in energy—gained by installing roof insulation, which can easily be done by the householder? Does he appreciate how much in this direction in the way of grants is being done abroad? Finally, does he not think that this attitude to a large extent undermines the credibility of the Government's efforts to improve the energy situation?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the noble Lord has in part answered the question himself. He said that there was a considerable saving, and it is because there is
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a considerable saving in roof insulation that the VAT of 8 per cent. is not a disincentive. The present position results from the need for control. When the registered trade carries out the work, then the use to which the materials are put is known—it is a fact—but when goods are sold over the counter it is not known to what use they will be put. Therefore, it is for control purposes that we have the present position.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords. the Minister has said that there are other uses for these materials. I accept that. but I should be interested to know what some of these other uses are and whether they represent more than a very minor proportion of the sale of those insulating materials.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, some of the materials which are used for roof insulation have other uses where even more of the material is used. For example, all the materials which are used for carpet underlays are also used for roofing materials but they have a greater use as a carpet underlay.
Lord BELHAVEN and STENTON: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government any plans for getting rid of this iniquitous tax, VAT, altogether?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I think that is a good deal to be said for getting of all taxes.

ENERGY-SAVING LOAN SCHEME
3.9 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: 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 how many grants and of what value, have been made under the £3 million energy-saving loan scheme announced a year ago.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of ENERGY (Lord LOVELLDAVIS): My Lords, the position up to the present time is that three offers of loans, totalling £97,300, have been accepted, while a fourth offer, worth

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£48,000, is still awaiting acceptance or rejection by the applicant.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, would not the Minister agree that these figures suggest that the scheme has proved both inappropriate and inadequate? Will the Government therefore consult with the industry with a view to producing something more effective? For example, do they consider that the lower limit of £10,000 is satisfactory?
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, I do not think that the scheme has been a total failure, but conditions have changed a great deal since it was introduced. Money is more readily available. So far as the scheme is concerned, it is under consideration. I understand the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, with regard to the minimum project size of £10,000. This is one of the points which is being considered in the current review of the scheme. But in practice one must have some lower limit to avoid excessive administrative costs. The costs of processing an application and the administrative time involved are almost independent of the size of the loan required. The £10,000 limit on the project size was originally introduced as a reasonable compromise. I think we must bear in mind that, whatever cut-off point one chooses, there will be some people who find that they are just excluded and who feel that there should be an adjustment in their favour. I cannot hold out any promise, but I can say that this point is being considered.

GURKHA BATTALION AND BRUNEI
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leaveto ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what arrangements are being made for the Gurkhas to remain in Brunei, in the employment of His Imperial Highness The Sultan of Brunei.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we have announced our intention to withdraw the Gurkha battalion from Brunei,
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subject to consultation with the Sultan. The discussions with the Sultan of Brunei are still continuing and my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts visited Brunei last week for a further round of talks.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I say that these talks have been going on for a considerable time and I think it is rather unfair on the Sultan of Brunei to prolong them. Does the noble Lord realise that they are very important to the Sultan, particularly in regard to the protection of the oil wells? The Sultan has always been a very good friend of this country, and also the money earned by those men helps the welfare of their country, in other words, the further development of Nepal.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I do not think that protracted discussions with the Sultan so that we can reach an agreed solution are unfair on the Sultan. I am certain that my noble friend has been negotiating in the most constructive possible way.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, do the Government recognise that the greatest desire almost all over the world is for stability and peace, and that this is the role which these Gurkhas are playing? They have the very remarkable quality of living in an acceptable manner with the indigenous people in any part of the world where they happen to be stationed.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords,do not think anybody is casting any doubt on both the military and the social virtues of the Gurkhas. What we are talking about is our discussions with the Sultan, and the present round of talks has been completed and will be continued again in London in the spring of this year. We are not presenting the Sultan with a diktat; we are having discussions with him.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, in the unfortunate event of this Gurkha battalion being withdrawn from there, is it known what is likely to happen to this battalion? Do we yet know where they are likely to be sent?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: The discussions are going on, my Lords. We have said that in the long run there will be a reduction of one battalion of

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Gurkhas. If this should take place, it is some way off; the brigade will, of course, be retained, serving mainly in Hong Kong.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, is it still the position that the Sultan is himself prepared to pay fully the costs of the battalion staying there, not only the battalion's pay but also all the other costs?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I cannot answer that question definitely, my Lords. I will either answer the noble Lord on another occasion or write to him. But obviously this must be a factor in the negotiations that are going on.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to tell us what is the major point of negotiation, considering it is widely believed that the Sultan is prepared to bear all the costs and that it is to the British advantage that the battalion should stay there? What, therefore, is the reason for these negotiations?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: To get the most satisfactory solution of this particular problem, my Lords.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not a fact that the presence of the Gurkha Regiment was necessary in Brunei to oppose the infiltration of arms from Indonesia; but now there is a Government in Indonesia who have ceased that infiltration, will Her Majesty's Government use their influence so that any employment is not under the Sultan but under a democratic, elected Government?
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Gurkhas themselves would like to remain there and that if they were to do so the Nepalese Government would have no objection?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is another question, which I cannot answer. Perhaps the noble Lord would table a Question on that matter.
Lord CHELWOOD: With great respect, my Lords, it is not another question; it is exactly the same question.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we are not talking about the attitude of the Gurkhas or the attitude of the Government of Nepal. We are talking about
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negotiations between the Sultan of Brunei and my noble friend.
The Earl of DUNDEE: My Lords, does the Minister realise that the Gurkhas have some of the most magnificant pipe bands in the world and that their supreme excellenceis recognised by all the Highland regiments, even although, owing to their shortness of legs, comparatively speaking, with the Highlanders, the tempo has to be a little quicker?

EDUCATION (SCHOOL-LEAVING DATES) BILL [H.L.]
3.17 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Crowther-Hunt): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced on 8th July the Government's intention to introduce legislation to alter the present summer leaving date for school pupils. This Bill meets that intention. It is simple and specific. It provides for a minor alteration in the present law on compulsory schooling in England and Wales so as to bring forward the summer school leaving date from the end of term to the Friday before the last Monday in May. It also provides for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Social Services to make appropriate changes in the social security field where certain arrangements are linked with school leaving dates.
I should first explain what I mean by the expression "school leaving date ", for that term is very commonly misunderstood. Its precise and legal meaning is the upper limit of compulsory school age. It therefore represents the last date on which children in the relevant age group may be legally required to attend school. It does not mean that children will necessarily leave school then. All are free to stay on voluntarily after that date and there is a clear duty on local education authorities to make proper provision for those who choose to do so. Thus, children who attend school after their leaving dates do so by choice, not by compulsion.
What the Bill proposes is a minor adjustment to the boundary so that the law will accord more closely with the

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wishes of young people and the education service. Noble Lords may wonder why a Bill is needed to make an alteration of some six weeks or so in the upper limit of compulsory schooling. To explain this I shall have to rehearse the present legal posiiton, and I will try to be brief. School leaving dates in England and Wales are governed by Section 9 of the Education Act 1962. That Act provides for two leaving dates. One is for those whose 16th birthday falls in the range between 1st September to 31st January, and for those the school leaving date is at the end of the following Easter term. The second is for those whose birthday falls between 1st February and 31st August, and for those the school leaving date is the end of the appropriate summer term.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has no discretion under the Act to vary those leaving dates to meet new circumstances, or to confer exemption on those on whom the law is claimed to bear harshly. We are convinced that the law is unsatisfactory in its impact on 16-year-old school-leavers; a new Act is the only way in which that situation can be put right.
I say that we are convinced that a change is needed. No high educational principle is involved. Our reasons are essentially pragmatic, but none the less powerful. They flow directly from the raising of the school-leaving age to 16, itself a long overdue reform foreshadowed in the 1944 Education Act and finally implemented in 1973–74. We remain firmly committedto that decision and have no intention of reverting to earlier arrangements. But we are obliged to look carefully at the way in which the new leaving age accords with our public examination system and the traditions of schools and pupils. It is clear that it does not accord particularly well. Our major public examinations for schools —the Certificate of Secondary Education and the General Certificate of Education at "O"level—are normally taken towards the end of the fifth year of secondaryeducation. Before the raising of the school-leaving age examination candidates were almost always over the upper limit of compulsory schooling, and there was a long-standing tradition of leaving school once the last examination paper had been taken, as they were legally
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entitled to do. That pattern has persisted—illegally, in the case of those whose school-leaving date is the end of that summer term. The plain truth is that children see no reason to attend when their courses have finished and their examinations are over; parents are understandably reluctant to compel them to return; schools and local authorities have neither the means nor the will to enforce attendance for the large number of pupils involved.
The law is clearly out of step with mood of those principally involved and is in danger of being brought into disrepute. That situation cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. We must either enforce the law or change it. Enforcement would be difficult, and would impose a heavy burden on already hard-pressed local authorities. It also takes time to institute attendance proceedings in individual cases. I fear that we cannot hope to secure continuous attendance up to the leaving date, but only make examples—and expensive ones at that—of some truanting pupils very late in the term and just before they bow out of the school system for good. I wonder how that would affect their future attitudes towards further education in early adult life. I wonder also what enforcement would gain for the schools. They are heavily involved in public and internal examinations at that time of the year,and would find it extremely difficult to occupy purposefully those who were compelled to stay on to the end of term against their will. I conclude that enforcement would offer no real benefits to anyone. Instead I present this Bill to change the law.
Lord HILL of LUTON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can help the House by dealing with the point that there have been widespread representations from local authorities and local education committees that there should be one leaving date and that the Easter leaving date should be abolished. Will the noble Lord be good enough to say what were the considerations that led the Government to reject those strong representations?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I was not in the process of finishing what I was saying and, if I may, I will take up the noble Lord's point at

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the end of the debate. Other noble Lords may raise the same point in a slightly different context and I would rather reply in an overall fashion at the end of the debate. However, I shall make sure that the point is not forgotten.
I was about to say that, since we could not follow the line of seeking to enforce the law because, in our view, there was no merit in that approach, I was presenting a Bill to change the law. Your Lordships may ask what evidence I have that this is the right road to take. The proposal to bring forward the summer leaving date has the almost unanimous backing of local authorities and the teaching profession. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has received many representations from his colleagues over recent months about this matter, following approaches made to them by parents, teachers and perhapseven pupils. There are, it is true, a few voices raised in favour of the present summer leaving age. I believe that their misgivings arise directly from their commitment to good secondary education. They may feel that this Bill represents a weakening in our resolve to maintain the principle that all our young people should have a full course of secondary education. To them I would emphasise our continued commitment; what this Bill will do is to release from the law on compulsory attendance the twilight post-examination period which is frustrating to schools and pupils alike.
What should the new summer leaving date be, given that the main aim is to deal with the difficult post-examination period? The answer is not simple, since the timetables of examination boards throughout the country vary widely. Even inside the same school, the effective end of public examinations will vary from pupil to pupil, depending on the subjects taken. There is therefore no single date which could be regarded as representing the end of examinations— unless it be so late in the term that it would present the same post-examination problems for most as does the present system. Nor are we prepared to contemplate an individual leaving date, that being the last day of public examination for a particular pupil. Such a course would seem bound to create a disincentive to some to finish intended
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programmes of study and examination. It would also require separate arrangements for non-examination pupils for whom no such last examination date exists. I see no possibility of progress in that direction. We therefore looked for a common date early enough to avoid significant post-examination problems, late enough to avoid significant curtailment of the fifth year programme for those who are not taking examinations, and at a point in the school year which makes sense in terms of school organisation.
In most areas and in most years the spring bank holiday would match that prescription. It is rapidly becoming the date of the half-term holiday throughout England and Wales. Most Certificate of Secondary Education examinations have ended and courses for non-examination pupils are effectively over by then. It is true that GCE "O"level examinations commonly run on after that date, but I see no difficulty in presuming the continued attendance of GCE pupils until examinations finish, given their motivation and the tradition of schools. "Spring bank holiday "is not however an expression known to the law. The Act which specifies the last Monday in May as a bank holiday also provides for the substitution of another day by Royal Proclamation.
Indeed, in 1977 the bank holiday is being delayed by a week to coincide with Her Majesty's Jubilee celebrations. For 1977 that weekend would clearly be as suitable for school leaving purposes as a late May date, but it does not follow that all such substituted dates would be equally suitable. They might, for example, fall in mid-week, or differ so substantially from the normal bank holiday date as to recreate the post-examination difficulties which it is the purpose of this Bill to remove. For those reasons the Bill proposes as the summer school leaving date the Friday before the last Monday in May, rather than the bank holiday itself.
How many young people will be affected by the new law? This year we shall have some 750,000 children reaching school-leaving age. Those whose school leaving date is Easter will not be affected, nor will those who decide to remain in full-time education after reaching the summer school-leaving date. The change will affect only those who reach the limit of compulsory schooling in the summer

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and who decide to leave then—and that number is some 280,000. And the majority of these will not leave exactly at the new leaving date; rather they will leave school between then and the end of term, as and when their examinations finish.
My Lords, these numbers are large, though the impact on individual children is relatively small, and I should perhaps say something about the employment implications. It is now—and will remain —illegal for a child of compulsory school age to enter full-time employment. Those who truant in their last weeks at school are in a difficult and vulnerable situation. Their absence lies outside the law and they cannot be employed. Their prospect is therefore one of disreputable idleness. If the Bill becomes law, they will be eligible to enter employment from late May onwards, and some of the worst effects of truancy will be avoided. Your Lordships may feel that these are difficult times to be proposing earlier eligibility for employment. There is some force in that, I agree. Equally, there is some consolation, in employment terms, in the staggered summer leaving pattern which would result from the changed law. I would also ask you to remember that the Bill proposes a new law for the future, as well as the present, and that it does not say that pupils will leave—only that they may leave. At worst, an unemployed school-leaver seems to me to be preferable to an unemployed, and unemployable, truant.
I now turn quickly to more technical matters. Certain Amendments to social security legislation are necessary because that legislation is linked to school leaving dates. Clause 2 of the Bill relates to those consequential Amendments. The provisions of Clause 2(1) are necessary because in legislation dealing with family allowances payment is related to the school-leaving date. The powers in that clause will enable awards of these allowances, and related child dependency benefits, to remain in payment up to a date roughly coinciding with the end of the summer term in 1976, as at present. Young people will of course continue to count as children for family allowances and related purposes at least up to their sixteenth birthday. Child benefit is due to replace family allowances in 1977, and
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will be related as nearly as possible to the actual dates of leaving school.
Clause 2(3) deals with injury benefits. It maintains the present position under the Social Security Act 1975; namely, that for the purpose of entitlement to injury benefit a person is treated as attaining school-leaving age on the date when family allowances cease. In 1976 this will be the common date deemed for family allowances purposes under the power in Clause 2(1). Clause 2(4) relates to entry to the National Insurance scheme. It amends the Social Security Act 1975 so as to secure that the earliest date from which anyone can be liable for National Insurance contributions will be his sixteenth birthday. This continues the effect of existing arrangements which ensure that, when a young person is allowed to take a job before he is 16, he does not have to pay contributions until he reaches that age. But it does so in a way which is both simpler to understand than the existing provision, and is consistent with the general use of the age of 16 as the starting point for rights and obligations under social security legislation. Because of the need to keep family allowances and social security legislation in line throughout Great Britain, Clause 2 of the Bill also extends to Scotland.
My Lords, you have been very patient particularly regarding these technical points at the end. I have spoken at length to make the intentions behind the Bill as clear as I possibly can. We propose a small change in the law which is essential to put right a situation which is highly unpopular, educationally unsound, and administratively impracticable. I trust that you will feel able to support it. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Crowther-Hunt.)
3.35 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join me in thanking the noble Lord for his lucid exposition of this small Bill. I must say at the outset that it seems to be sufficiently well constructed to achieve the somewhat limited, though laudable, aim which it has set iself. None of us would quarrel with the intention of saving school-leavers from a life of disreputable idleness, for however few weeks that might be. I also think it wise not to delay the release

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of school-leavers next year in order to match the Silver Jubilee date, which might strike unpatriotic emotions in a number of juvenile bosoms. But I believe that we should look at this Bill in a slightly wider context and remind ourselves that the aims of education are to enable the individual to develop his or her maximum potential, both for himself or herself and for the society within which he or she is going to live.
We should also remind ourselves that this can be done only under certain conditions and in certain circumstances. It cannot be done either by incarceration or by frustration, but only by education. The noble Lord. Lord Crowther-Hunt, has recognised the tradition of post "O "level and post CSE exodus which has existed in many schools. He may have had experience, as I have had, of the difficulty of coping with the needs and aspiration and new feeling of liberation in those who feel that they should be outside the school but who are required by law to be in it, although they have achieved what they regard as all the purposes that they have set themselves in remaining at that school.
However, there are other children—and perhaps at the end of the debate the noble Lord will kindly enlighten us as to how many they may be—who at no stage in their school career expect to take any external written examinations, for whom the dates of GCE "O"level and CSE certificates examination are entirely irrelevant, and of which in fact they may be completely unaware from the day they enter the school until the day they leave it. I should like the noble Lord to look at the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hill, in the light of the position of these people, as well as in the light of the recommendations for administrative reasons for a single school-leaving date. I should also like him to consider the position of those children with no justifiable academic aspirations, who have already achieved their maximum academic potential, and who are in a position of being able to go to secure and properly authorised employment in vocational training—for instance, in apprenticeships—from which they can go on day release or, indeed, on sandwich courses, and thus attain the status of adulthood which they find it more and more pressingly urgent to achieve.
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I should remind your Lordships of what became evident with the publication of the Plowden Report in one of its most fascinating passages: that children today are not what children were in the childhood days of your Lordships. Whether your Lordships be of my age or older, the actual biological process of maturation has advanced very significantly since the beginning of this century. I will not weary your Lordships with the details, which your Lordships can find in the Plowden Report. But the fact remains that children are grown up and feel themselves, with justification, to be grown up much earlier than we give them credit for, and very often much earlier than is apparent from their behaviour and since their behaviour is in a marked degree a response to the teachers'behaviour to them, there is a sort of inertia in the progress. This is one of the factors which builds up tension, dissatisfaction and frustration in the school and in the classroom.
My Lords, when the school-leaving age was raised it was intended that the school curriculum should be adjusted to the needs of those children who then, as young adults, as I believe, found themselves in school for another year; but in spite of the fact thatfor this purpose sums of money were allocated for 1970 to 1973 to the tune of £110 million in 1970 terms, it is clear that this is not enough to achieve the objective (or it apears at present that it is not being achieved) and thus we must learn to cut our coat to fit the cloth. In my view, if I may briefly give it to your Lordships, it is not adequate to dress up a timetable or simply to pinch a few periods from one teacher here and another there and to call them civics, or to concentrate on bank loans and mortgages, on the one hand, and traffic safety and the dangers of smoking, on the other, and to call this a ROSLA course. It is necessary to have an entirely new atmosphere between the teacher and the taught, and I believe to emphasise this by teaching, if at all possible, in a different circumstance—in different rooms, with different equipment and, preferably, with different staff, certainly with staff specifically trained to adjust to this delicate and most important psychological need.
My Lords, if this cannot be provided then these people, who are treated as

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children. will sit looking out of the window and will see what they regard as their peers smoking, drinking and gambling, and also indulging in the more desirable aspects of adult life, more particularly the liberty of adult life to go where one wants when one wants—because from inside the classroom it does appear, although we now know different, that adults are always free to go where they want and to do what they want when they want. I know this is a chimera, but you will not be able to convince children of this. If they are going to sit looking through the windows at the rest of the world, at adults, and see themselves in the same buildings, with the same timetable, very often with the same teachers and the same blackboard as they have been looking at since they were 11 years old, they will feel themselves inhibited, frustrated and done down; and if they cannot get out of the school then it is a question of either breaking out or breaking up. I believe that a great deal of the damage which is done in schools is due to frustration which it is beyond the ability of staff, with their present resources, to cope with. In these circumstances, we must therefore look for suitable validated employment for these children or these young adults where it is available, and those were the courses to which I alluded earlier.
The noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, alluded to the effect on the unemployment situation, and I hope that in his concluding remarks he will tell us what plans he or his colleagues in another place have for what is to happen in the next few weeks at the end of the manpower training scheme, because we shall be in the position then of there being quite a large number of school-leavers who will have had 20 weeks' employment but will then cease to have employment and will disappear from the statistics of unemployed school-leavers by virtue of the 20 weeks during which they have been employed.
My Lords, I am glad, as I said at the outset, that the noble Lord has seen and is now coping with this problem of frustration which exists at the end of the summer term, and I would not wish to oppose the passage of this Bill, or significantly to amend it, on those grounds. I should like your Lordships when considering this Bill to bear in mind the
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problem to which I have alluded, which your Lordships may feel is a little wider than the Bill itself but is none the less the environment in which the Bill is now being discussed and upon which it will act, and that is the sense of frustration which the ROSLA scheme has brought about.
I do not deplore wholeheartedly the raising of the school-leaving age, the extension of compulsory education, but I think it must be tempered with some means of relieving the frustrations of those whom it cannot help. It seems to me that in life a situation is very often either a problem or a possibility according to what your resources are to cope with it. In many schools in many areas ROSLA has been a great possibility and much progress has been made. In others, it has been a huge problem and much damage has been done. I think that to protect not only our telephone boxes but our football trains and many other more valuable and less easily identified aspects of our national life, we must pay attention to this problem. I asked at the beginning that attention should also be., given to a solution of that problem by the appointment of three days for the three terms in the year. I hope I have not wearied your Lordships by speaking too long on too short a Bill.
3.46 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Minister for explaining the contents of the Bill so succinctly and cogently. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for what he has said, with so much of which I agree. I think, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, would probably agree with me that we sadly missed his practical experience in the debate yesterday.
My Lords, we think that this Bill should be welcomedbut I personally would welcome it with one or two reservations—very much, I think, along the same lines as those of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. The reservations are far-reaching and may even seem contradictory, but I think the contradictions are more apparent than real. My first reservation is that this Bill should not, of course, be necessary; and my second is that it does not really go far enough. First, then, that this Bill should not be

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necessary. Its object (wrap it up as you will) is to allow children to leave school after they have finished their exams lest they have nothing which they regard as important and interesting to do, and so should disturb the rest of the school or should flout the law by staying away from it. What a condemnation of our educational system! We have built it up round exams and the obtaining of pieces of paper as qualifications, either for jobs or for more education which, in its turn, is used to get pieces of paper which enable people to get better jobs.
As a result, so much of education which does not lead to an exam seems to be regarded as a waste of time— and with some justification, because certainly in some parts of the educational world the whole system so revolves around exams that teachers find it very difficult to teach except as preparation for them. I hasten to say that there are a great many teachers who do teach extremely well and not just as a preparation for exams, but the whole system is built around examinations. Having pointed that out, I would add that I think it rather follows the lines which the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhil I, followed in a very wise speech yesterday when he made the point that the educational system has succeeded very much over the last 30 or 40 years in instilling knowledge but has not succeeded at all well in instilling standards and ideals, and that the reason for this was that society as a whole was not agreed on its standards and ideals. I think that probably the idea of education as really worth while for its own sake is one of those standards and ideals which has not yet really penetrated our society as a whole.
That brings me to my second point, which is that we have a problem in justifying compulsory education at all; at least, we should have if we looked at the question with open minds. We are a nation which believes in freedom, and the traditional man from Mars coming down to watch this freedom-loving nation would discover that we incarcerate a large part of our population for the greater part of the day, for the majority of the days of the year, for 11 years at a time in a State institution, and that we enforce this with the full rigour of the law. It is, on the face of it, barbaric. Of course,
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we in this House know the historical reason for this; and none should know it better than noble Lords on these Benches who were largely responsible for it. We know that the historical reason for it is that education is a good thing, it is necessary for the good life; but the temptation in the past and in the present for children to be taken away—particularly children from the more disadvantaged homes—and made to be wage earners too early is extremely great. That is why we have compulsory education. But let us never regard it as anything else but a necessary evil; necessary, but certainly evil!
Given that situation, the situation of an educational system much too tied to exams; given that in itself compulsory schooling is not necessarily good, I believe we should face these facts and in certain very specific circumstances we should allow our children out of school before the normal 16-year-old school-leaving age. I do not oppose, indeed, I supported, and still support, the raising of the school-leaving age in general; but I think that some more flexibility should be given to it—more flexibility than is given in this rather small Bill. My honourable friend in another place, Mr. Clement Freud, twice introduced, under the ten minute rule, a Bill on this matter and I am in agreement with him. The condition could be, for instance, that the children have a job to go to or an apprenticeship, that neither parents nor teachers have any objection to their leaving school, that they continue to get some kind of education by way of day release and, particularly, that they can pass a basic literacy and numeracy test.
We are often told that many school-leavers are neither literate nor numerate. Whatever the truth is—and this is a highly complicated matter—to a lot of backward children who are bored with school freedom would be a considerable incentive to become literate and numerate. That undoubted fact appears to me to be a considerable condemnation of our educational system and the society which produces it. But the Government will not go that far. The Government are far too conservative for that. What they are doing in this Bill is I think worth while; it is tiny but worth while. So that it is a pleasure to me to give a tiny but. I hope, worthwhile blessing to it.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question? Although, very unusually, I do not happen to agree with what he said, would he in this time when anarchy stalks the world, when the whole world is under an absolute avalanche of anarchy, do anything about acting on the suggestions he has just made?
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, that is a very fair question. Anarchy is caused to a very large degree by people seeing no point in what they are doing and having no meaning in their lives.Where children would prefer to be working rather than being in school and where they see no meaning to being at a school, in the specific circumstances that I have outlined, I think that it would be a help against anarchy and not a help to anarchy to follow the suggestion I have outlined.
3.55 p.m.
Lord MOLSON: My Lords, I welcome this Bill because of the element of flexibility it introduces into a system which I think has suffered from the beginning from an undoubted rigidy. I find myself in almost complete agreement with my noble friend Lord Elton and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and while welcoming the Bill I would ask the Government to consider whether perhaps there may not be a case for even greater flexibility than is provided for.
I thought that this Bill offered an opportunity of raising to the Government a case which came to my personal knowledge and which I think is probably typical of many hundreds of thousands throughout the country. The young son of an agricultural worker on my farm came to work as a garden boy when he had time off. On some occasions I suspected that when he said he had time off he was in fact playing truant from school; but that was really no business of mine. I certainly did not encourage him to play truant from school. He was in many ways an admirable boy and very practical. With the help of a schoolmaster he built a canoe and went canoeing with his schoolmates and the master, managed to wreck it, swam ashore and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He took an interest in nature and was really quite a good lad mechanically. In fact, one might say that he was an intelligent
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boy in all practical matters. Unfortunately he had no academic interest or ambition, and when he presented his grubby little bills to me at the weekend stating the hours he had worked on the different days in the week he could not even spell the days of the week. I said to him sadly that it seemed there was something wrong with his education when at the age of 15 he could not spell the days of the week. He has now become an agricultural worker and I think he is doing extremely well.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and like my noble friend, I wonder whether it is desirable to attempt to compel a boy of that kind to remain at school if there is some more congenial and equally useful work for him to do. My noble friend Lord Belstead mentioned yesterday that in the case of Ulster when the school-leaving age was raised, a provision was made in that Province that in suitable cases wherea boy entered some whole-time apprenticeship he might be excused from attending the ordinary school. I should have thought that, where there was a different kind of education offered and one that was more suitable for the non-academic type of child, that was a clear case for that.
I am asking the Government to consider the possibility of a boy—a good boy; for it is always so simple to give an example of a good boy, and I have given one—being able to continue his education in a more suitable and congenial atmosphere. I should also like the Government to tell us also about bad boys and bad girls, as we have learned in the case of Newcastle recently. As my noble friend Lord Elton said, there is nothing worse than complete frustration and being compelled to do something which seems to have no useful purpose. I believe that that is largely responsible for the rowdyism in schools where the bad boys and girls are not only bored but relieve their boredom by preventing the staff and other pupils from getting on with the work they wish to do. If I may reply to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, there is no doubt in this world, where there is so little discipline and so much rowdiness, that one of the causes of difficulty may be a compulsory retaining in uncongenial schools of pupils who can

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find no useful purpose or congenial occupation while they are kept at school.
I read somewhere—I believe I filed the article but, as usually happens when I file something of that kind, I am unable to find it when I want it—about the great legal difficulties that are involved in State schools in expelling the badly behaved pupil. In the case of private schools there is no difficulty about it, and the expulsion can be carried out at the discretion of the headmaster. Owing to the compulsory school-leaving age, I believe there are very considerable difficulties about expulsion of rowdy and obstructive pupils. I gave notice to the noble Lord that I was going to ask about this because it is a matter of some importance. It raises a difficulty which the Government might consider in connection with this Bill.
If there is to be some discretion in this matter, one wants to consider who should have the right of exercising that discretion. Whether a pupil should leave a school before the present school-leaving age should depend upon an application being made by the pupil's parents and approved by the governors or governing body of the school concerned. This decree of discretion needs to be exercised with considerable care, and it is natural for a Conservative like myself to consider that the initiative of the parents should be a matter of a good deal of importance, and I also accept the authorities of the school should have to acquiesce in the application.
My Lords, I welcome this Bill for what it does. This has been an opportunity for raising this closely connected matter. I am much fortified in what I have said by the fact that both my noble friend Lord Elton and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, have also referred to the undesirable effects of retaining compulsorily in uncongenial schools boys and girls who are unable to find intellectual or even moral satisfaction in the discipline.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question as he mentioned my name? Would it not be a better idea for us to concentrate on improved schooling and varied education, rather than simply letting these boys, whom we say are not academic, become part of the
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unskilled labour force? That was what was implied in all the suggestions from the opposite Benches.
Lord MOLSON: My Lords, I do not know whether that is a fair summary of the proposals which have been made in the course of this debate. It is almost impossible to ensure that schools—especially the huge schools that now exist under the comprehensive system—make adequate provision for the vast variety of children who find themselves frustrated.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, we are all fascinated by the story of Stanley. In view of the fact that the noble Lord took such an interest in Stanley, and Stanley seemed to have a fairly good IQ, may I ask the noble Lord whether he made any inquiries regarding the standard of the school which Stanley attended?
Lord MOLSON: My Lords, the answer is, No. I did not make inquiries; but as a great many children in the district seemed to benefit from the school and to be happy there, I should not have thought there was anything particularly wrong with the school. Let me emphasise that since there was a master at the school who took the trouble to help the boys build canoes, and was sufficiently keen to go canoeing with them, probably the staff at the school were sympathetic and reasonable.
4.6 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, a little while ago I put a Question to the Government on this particular point. This was promoted by a number of teachers. Theirs is a hard-worked profession and we should do anything that we can to make life easier for them. I have a teacher in my family who keeps me well on my toes. He presented to me the case of many children who were kept at school after they had attained the age of 16. It was not a question, raised by several noble Lords, of the children being non-academic or of their having passed examinations and being bored, but simply by the terms of the Act they were prevented from leaving school for quite a long time. I welcome this Bill if it will make some dent in this archaic provision.
I do not know the school the noble Lord, Lord Elton, suggested where pupils

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can gaze through windows and watch adults enjoying smoking, drinking and other enjoyable pursuits that adults enjoy. Most of the schools I know are situated in glum surroundings with large playgrounds where the children cannot see what adults are doing. We would all agree with the noble Baroness that what we want is schools where no one will wish to leave. Learning is a fire which should be lighted and burn throughout life. At present—and we must be practical about this—the schools are not too good in many instances; they are often overcrowded. In the one in which I am chairman of governors teaching still has to take place in cloakrooms. Marvellous work is done at this school, and the academic and social results are good, thanks to the sheer dedication of the staff. We must be practical about this. If a child is 16 years of age there is no reason why he should be held in school any longer if he wishes to leave.
I quarrel with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, although he may have statistics, on the view that children mature earlier. I seem to recall that my own father left his farm when he was 12 and went to work. Many people of his generation did just that. If they were immature, maturity was forced on them much earlier than it is today. I am not sure that the statistics are correct on that. I congratulate the Government on making a dent in this provision, and I hope that there will be further tidying up processes in the way the Bill operates.
4.8 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD OF BORVE: My Lords, briefly may I make one or two small points. I welcome this Bill for two reasons. I have a feeling if children know they are able to leave school when they have completed their examinations it will encourage those who are thought unsuitable to take examinations and it might encourage more to attempt the examinations. It might have that prodding effect. Wearing the hat of the magistracy, I know that we have great numbers of young people who, as my noble friend Lord Elton emphasised, are frustrated in school when they have finished their examinations. They are not allowed to leave school but they truant; they are not allowed to take employment. They then get into trouble. A number of good young people in that
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category, within the six or eight weeks between the end of the examinations and the time they are allowed to leave school, get into trouble and become bad boys and girls. In my experience a great number do this. I cannot speak for the magistracy, but I speak from my own experience, and I welcome this Bill from this particular angle and wish it success.
4.10 p.m.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I am very glad, as I am sure the Government are, about the general welcome which has been given in this House to this modest but important little Bill. I was particularly grateful for the points which were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, just now. She was speaking from the magistrates'point of view, though I feel that perhaps she was giving a personal view as a magistrate rather than expressing the official view of the magistracy. Her comments were most helpful in support of this Bill.
I should like to try to reply quickly to the general points which have been made which are germane to this Bill. I shall not seek to comment on those which are not so immediately relevant to the Bill. First, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, that is, that we really need, and should make all efforts to get, the most imaginative courses possible in the schools. Our inspectorate are reporting that more and more imaginative courses are being provided in the schools as the experience of the raising of the school leaving age develops. We are all very much aware of this and we want to foster this so far as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Hill,raised the point that there were two school-leaving dates and he was really suggesting that there should in effect be one.
Lord HILL of LUTON: My Lords, in fact my question was: what is the answer that the Government put forward in reply to the widespread representations on this point from local authorities and local education authorities?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, as your Lordships will know, the Bill will leave two school-leaving dates in England and Wales separated by only six to eight weeks, depending, of course, on the date of Easter. That poses the question of whether there is any point in

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retaining the Easter leaving date at all. My right honourable friend said last July that he would consult interested parties about this, and that has beendone. The response from the local authority and education worlds was largely in favour, but not quite unanimous. However, it was clear that few of them saw any real advantage in retaining two leaving dates so close together. From the educational point of view, therefore, we would favour a single leaving date for all, and would have regarded the abolition of the Easter date as giving a fuller effect to the policy that all young people should have a full course of secondary education.
However, other interests have to be taken into account, and the proposal to drop the Easter leaving date attracted heavy criticism from certain employment and training interests, who felt strongly that better use could be made of careers guidance, job placement and induction training facilities if school-leaving dates were staggered. It was felt that there were advantages to be gained by giving a head start in employment terms to the unqualified Easter leaver before he faces competition from the main group of qualified summer leavers. I must therefore recognise that there is room for a different view on the Easter date question. The Bill does not seek to resolve that conflict. It seeks to deal only with the more important and urgent problem of the summer leaving date. The Easter leaving date will remain, at least for the present.
I turn now to the point, which was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Elton, Lord Beaumont and Lord Molson, about a more flexible approach to the leaving date for particular categories of pupil and for those who have some form of employment lined up. It has been suggested that they should be able to leave school before their leaving date if they have jobs to go to. I accept that it is difficult for a pupil or parent to accept the continued obligation to attend school when an attractive opening is available, particularly when the employment prospects for school-leavers are generally less than satisfactory.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I should like to emphasise one point. I did say "suitable jobs". There are many unsuitable jobs.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I take the point that the noble Lord was making. The jobs should be suitable jobs, such as those which involve apprenticeships. Under any arrangements which are made on these lines, I think it would be well-nigh impossible to ensure that a reluctant pupil had found suitable employment and had not taken the first job available simply in order to be able to leave school. I am also conscious that the employment situation would be made marginally worse for all if some pupils were allowed to enter employment early when they could be still at school. But, more importantly, I do not regard employment as an appropriate alternative to education. To accept such a premise would erode the educational aims of raising the school-leaving age to 16 and ultimately would reduce the standard of our secondary education system. The same applies to apprenticeships. They may be taken only by those in full-time employment, and pupils of compulsory school age cannot be so employed. I have to say that the Government do not intend to change that situation.
I should like to make a small point here with reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Molson, said, when he was apparently in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. I do not think that his garden boy would have been able to leave school in the way that he was hoping, because he would never have passed the numeracy or literacy test suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. He may have passed the numeracy test but he would not have passed the literacy one. Also, I think there was something slightly quaint about the point which was made by the noble Lord. Lord Beaumont, when he said that out school system is too hag-ridden by examinations, but yet a condition of leaving ought to involve another examination. There seemed to be a quaint juxtaposition there. However, I accept that that may be largely a debating point. I dealt with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, was making concerning the good boys. May I now come to his "bad boys" point.
Lord MOLSON: Before the noble Lord leaves that point, could he tell us whether the slightly different system which I understand applies in Northern Ireland and has always applied there, has worked

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satisfactory or unsatisfactorily? This seems to be a case where an experiment along these lines has been made.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I was not going to omit the Northern Ireland point but, as the noble Lord has quite rightly reminded me, it should now be dealt with logically. The present school-leaving date arrangements in Northern Ireland are, as I understand it, the same as in England and Wales, except that young people may opt to spend their final year of compulsory education in further education colleges rather than in schools. It is true that there was a special provision which allowed some to leave at Christmas rather than at Easter if they were entering full-time apprentice training. That has now lapsed, and I cannot tell the noble Lord the specific reason for it, but I will write to him on the subject. I assume that it has been allowed to lapse because it was found to be not so very satisfactory after all; but I will let the noble Lord have further information about that point.
I should now like to deal with the noble Lord's question concerning "bad boys"; I suppose I must add "bad girls" in this context now that there is no sex discrimination. The question has been raised as to whether the legislation should be amended to make it easier for heads to expel difficult pupils. I am not sure whether the suggestion is that it should be easier to exclude these pupils from the schools or whether the suggestion is that certain pupils shall, by agreement with the school and the parents, be able to leave school if the school finds their behaviour intolerable and considers that it is in everybody's interests for them to leave. But whichever way this is put, the proposal is, in effect, tantamount to suggesting to young people that if they behave badly enough they can get out of going to school. I know that there may seem to be sound arguments for proposing that if a particular young person is bored with school, is behaving badly and is preventing others from working, he or she should surely be able, with everyone's agreement, to leave and do a job. But I suggest that we need to think more carefully about the consequences of this.
Pupils and schools alike are settling down to accepting the new leaving age, and schools are getting on with providing
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the right kind of two-year courses for these young people. The pupils know that they have to stay, and the schools know that they have to tackle the problems of providing the right courses, and many of them are doing it very well. I do not say, and they would not say, that they have yet got it all right, but to interrupt this process of transition by suggesting that those who are difficult enough can, nevertheless, get out of school would not be helpful to schools or to pupils.
I know that there are some very difficult pupils—and I am not seeking to minimise the problems here—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, knows, there are already powers in exceptional circumstances for suspending or excluding pupils from schools, and LEAs and schools are also making a variety of other arrangements to help deal with disruptive pupils, not by getting rid of them but by trying to provide help which brings out their more reasonable qualities while, at the same time, minimising their influence on others. In rejecting the noble Lord's proposal, I do not want to suggest in any way that I underestimate the problems for the schools. There may still be a long haul ahead of us with a few, but I am sure that reacting to a difficult but small minority in the way suggested really will not help. It is likely to create tensions, encourage difficulties and be generally unsettling and, what is more, it would undermine the whole reason behind raising the school-leaving age.
May I finally try to answer the statistical points put by the noble Lord, Lord Elton? He was asking me, in effect, about the pattern of people leaving schools with and without qualifications. It is estimated that the 1975 leaving pattern was as follows. Approximately 80,000 left at Easter, out of some 310,000 who were entitled to do so. About 390,000 left in the summer; 70,000 of them unqualified, 200,000 with the CSE only and 120,000 with GCE "O" level. About 210,000 returned to school for full-time education. Some 50,000 went on to full-time courses of further education.
So far as the present year is concerned, about 750,000 children will reach school-leaving age this year. If the earlier leaving age is introduced, the pattern of school-leaving this year might be on the

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following lines. Approximately 85,000 might leave at Easter out of some 320,000 legally entitled to do so; 70,000 might leave at the May leaving date without having taken CSE examinations; between 50,000 and 100,000 might leave in late May having taken CSE examinations; 210,000 to 280,000 might leave between early June and mid-July, as and when their "O" level and CSE examinations finish; 220,000 might return to school for full-time education, and 50.000 would be expected to go to full-time courses of further education.
That is a difficult statistical note on which to end, and I shall be glad to supply the noble Lord with any refinements that are possible or with any additional information. But it might be unduly painful to take up the time of your Lordships'House any longer on these numerical questions, particularly when this small Bill has been commended to the House from all sides.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he would confirm one supposition, which I take it is correct, that the Easter leavers are without qualification, and therefore we add 80,000 to 70,000 to reach 150,000 unqualified leavers, which is the figure for which I was asking. It might be easier to do that and to place it on the Record now than for the information to reach me through the post.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: Certainly, my Lords. The Easter leavers must for the most part be unqualified, though I would not rule out—but I should want to take advice on this—, that there may be some Easter leavers who stay on till Easter of the following year, having gained some qualifications in the preceding academic year.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RATING (CARAVAN SITES) BILL [H.L.]
4.26 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to
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move that this Bill be read a second time. It has often occurred to me that perhaps we should be able to assess Bills in the same way, or grade them in the same way, as we do wines and refer to some Bills as witty little Bills or vintage Bills or heavy Bills or light Bills. I would say that this is a short but sensible Bill. It is a short Bill with only one purpose; namely, to amend the law concerning the valuation and rating of leisure caravans and caravan sites. It provides that, in future, sites and individual caravans with their pitches can be valued and rated as a single unit. This means, in effect, that rates will be collected only from the site operator, instead of from him and all the individual caravanners as well.
For rating purposes there are three categories of caravans. First, there are permanent residential caravans, which are those caravans used as a permanent home. These are separately rated at present and will continue to be separately rated and so are not affected by the provisions of this Bill. The second category is caravans used for touring. Such caravans will not be permanently sited on any one pitch, and will not, therefore, be rateable and also will not be affected by the provisions of this Bill. Thirdly, there are leisure caravans. These are caravans permanently sited, but which under the terms of the site licence or planning permission can be used only for a portion of the year. They may be used only by the caravan owner, or they may be let to other holidaymakers. It is these leisure caravans with which this Bill is concerned.
Until fairly recently, only the caravan site—which included the pitches—was rated. The caravans themselves were not rated, but the caravan owner paid a share of the rates payable with his rent. However, due to the evolution of case law, permanent residential and leisure caravans and their pitches are now liable to be rated separately. This has not caused any major problems so far as permanent residential caravans are concerned. But when I say that there are now nearly a quarter of a million leisure caravans, noble Lords will appreciate that the separate rating of these has inevitably caused considerable problems for local authorities when collecting rates from the caravanners. The purpose of

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this Bill, therefore, is to revert to the old situation where the site operators are liable for rates, but to retain the liability of leisure caravans to be rated.
Before I explain how we propose to do this, I think it would be helpful if I explained how the present situation arose. Prior to 1966, the whole caravan site, including the pitches, was rated as one unit, but individual caravans were not included in this assessment since they were considered as chattels and so were not rateable. This applied both to permanent residential caravans and to leisure caravans. Then in 1966, in the case of Field Place Caravan Park Ltd. v.Harding, the Court of Appeal decided that caravans that stay in one place for a period of time which can be regarded as permanent were separately rateable, together with the pitch on which they stand. This covered both residential and leisure caravans, since whether or not a caravan is separately rateable depends not on how it is used, but on whether the occupation is sufficiently permanent to create rateability. And the liability of leisure caravans to be rated has also been upheld in more recent Scottish cases.
Therefore, following the 1966 case—I should explain that although no period was given to what was called at the time "a transient period", it is considered to be not less than a year—all static caravans (permanent, residential and leisure) and their pitches were liable for separate rating with the site owner liable only for rates for the common parts of the site. However, the Valuation Office in the years following 1966 were involved with more mammoth tasks, including preparing for the 1973 general revaluation. They were therefore unable to get down immediately to valuing the multitude of caravans. But in the 1973 revaluation, most permanent residential caravans were dealt with and nearly all now have separate rateable values with their owners paying rates like any other householder.
The task of valuing thousands of leisure caravans was enormous and naturally could only be undertaken slowly. About a year ago it became obvious that the disparity of treatment between those leisure caravans which had been separately assessed and those which had not, could not be allowed to continue much longer.
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The owners of the caravans which were separately rated were understandably asking why they should be paying rates on their caravans when caravan owners on another site were not. Although all leisure caravans would have been valued eventually, the valuation officers redoubled their efforts this year in order to treat all leisure caravan owners on the same basis.
Now that most leisure caravans have been separately assessed, rating authorities must serve a rate demand on the caravan owners, and this is where the problem nowlies. I do not think that it is necessary for me to explain in detail how difficult it is to identify one caravan among the many hundreds that may be on a site, let alone trace the owner who may visit the site only occasionally and whose permanent addressmay be miles away. In some areas the total number of entries in the valuation list for all rateable properties has increased by as much as 20 per cent. because of the increase in the number of leisure caravans, and in order to collect these rates many local authorities would certainly have to increase their staff if leisure caravans continued to be separately assessed. I do not believe that at the present time this would be popular with any part of the House, or, indeed, any part of the country.
The Bill resolves this by allowing valuation officers to value as one unit a caravan site, together with any leisure caravans and their pitches at present separately rateable. Thus there will be only one rate demand made to the site operator who will then be able torecoup the rates from the owners of the caravans. A side effect of this Bill, which will be of considerable interest to caravan owners, is that the total rateable value of the combined caravans and site will be less than if they were valued separately. In other words, the owners of leisure caravans will in general be paying lower rates than they otherwise would.
The Bill is short, consisting of four clauses, and covers the whole of Great Britain. I do not intend at this stage to take the House through the clauses line by line; we shall have the opportunity later to examine the measure in detail if, as I hope, the Bill receives its Second Reading this afternoon. But it might

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be helpful if I explained in general terms how the Bill seeks to achieve its object and the main points which are relevant.
Clause 1(1) enables the valuation officer to assess as a single unit ("hereditament" is the term used in England and Wales) a caravan site, the pitches and the caravans on them which are already separately assessed. When this is done the site operator will be the rateable occupier. There are two important points in Clause 1 to which I should draw attention. Clause 1(4) enables this new hereditament to be regarded as a "mixed hereditament "for the purposes of domestic rate relief. This, combined with the lower total of rateable value for the new hereditament, will generally result in a lower total of rates paid than would otherwise be the case.
The other important provision in this clause is in subsection (7),which enables the owner of a caravan, other than the site operator, to make a proposal—to make a proposal is rather stronger than just to ask—for his caravan to be separately assessed. This is to ensure that if, for some exceptional reason,the caravanner would be liable to pay less rates if his caravan were separately assessed than if he had to pay his proportion of the rates on the new combined hereditament, he will not be worse off as a result of the Bill. Clause 1 relates to England and Wales only. These two points are dealt with slightly differently in the Scottish clause, Clause 2. Clause 1(8) ensures that the provision in the clause will apply to drainage rates as well as to general rates.
I ought also to mention something that the Billdoes not and could not do. It does not change the situation in the current rating year. The collection of rates from individual caravanners must remain for this year. Because of the time factor, I think that this will be clearly understood. Many caravanners have already paid their rates and it would be unfair to them to change the system now. It would also create immense problems for local authorities and valuation officers.
My Lords, I think that in commending this Bill to you I should remind the House that when the Local Government (Scotland) Bill was before you last Session, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, moved a new clause that was
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designed to do broadly what the present Bill will do. Examination of the noble Lord's clause—indeed, atthe time the noble Lord said that he considered it to be a probing clause—revealed certain defects and it was, by leave, withdrawn. The debate on it was useful because it showed the pitfalls we had to avoid, and the consideration which followed persuaded us that we need not, after all, await the views of the Layfield Committee. We have found, we believe, a solution, useful even in the short term, and one which will not tie the hands of the Committee. We shall be at a great loss when Layfield reports, because we will be unable to keep on saying, "We are waiting for Layfield "!
I am sure it has not escaped your Lordships' notice that of the four pages of this Bill only half a page is common to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. This may appear curious in a Bill intended to produce similar results North and South of the Border. The reason is that there are quite separate valuation and rating codes, and in Scotland the common objective must be reached by a slightly different route. That explains both the similarities and the differences between Clauses 1 and 2, although, broadly speaking, the objectives attained will be the same both North and South of the Border.
My Lords, the Government are very well aware of the problems which the recent large increases in rates have caused. We understand the anxieties of ratepayers, which is why we increased the rate support grant for this year to unprecedented levels in order to keep rates at a reasonable level. This relatively small Bill is of great importancebecause it will ensure that caravanners will be paying lower rates than they otherwise would. It will also prevent a significant increase in local authority expenditure in certain holiday areas, which there would certainly be if leisure caravans continued to be rated separately. For that reason alone, this Bill is to be highly commended.
It has been suggested that in addition to making it easier for the local authorities to collect rates, we should return to the situation in which caravans were not rateable, and rates were payable only on the site and the pitches. I think that is turning the clock back too far. In our

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view, such a move would be unfair. It would throw an even greater rate burden on the other ratepayers in areas where there are large numbers of leisure caravans. We believe the Court of Appeal correctly reflected the view that owners of leisure caravans are in a similar position to the owners of other second homes and should, like them, make a proper contribution to the expenses of the local authority within whose area their caravan is situated.
The net result of this measure is that the cost of collecting rates will be reduced to the benefit of local authorities and ratepayers; it will be simplified—it will be easier—and anything that reduces the costs of collection and therefore reduces both local and public expenditure must be a good thing and should, I should have thought, be very welcome. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Baroness Birk.)
4.40 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, referred to this small Bill as "a bottle of wine"—a half bottle, I think. I would say that it is an interesting little Bill with a hint of subtlety but a slightly dubious after-taste, although I think my noble friend Lord Wakefield of Kendal tends to the view that it is corked.
We are appreciative of the enormous administrative problems posed by the law as it at present stands, subsequent to the effect upon case law of the Layfield Committee. Therefore it is quite clear that this situation should be improved and we regard the Bill as a worthy attempt in the right direction. It is traditional at Second Reading to put down markers for what one intends to do at the Committee stage, and therefore while I shall try not to weary your Lordships for longer than the noble Baroness, I must refer to certain detailed aspects of the Bill. Before I come to them I would say that, unlike the noble Baroness, I somewhat regret that the Lay-field Committee Report was not waited for. I understand from the words uttered by the Secretary of State in another place yesterday that the reception of the Report is a matter now of a few weeks, and therefore it seems to me that it might have been possible either to expedite the
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delivery of the Report or slightly to delay the tabling of this Bill.
Be that as it may, let us look at the Bill on its merits. We find that there are a number of matters which give us some cause for alarm and which it might be helpful for us to indicate to the Govment now so that they may prepare their case for the Committee stage. For instance, in Clause 1(4) it seems to me that the effect of the provisions of the Bill for the exclusion of Section 19(2) of the General Rate Act 1967 would be that valuation officers would have to rely exclusively upon valuation direct to rateable value. This is a technical matter, but it is in fact to act on the assumption that the site operators maintain and insure all the caravans on all the sites. As I am informed that this is rarely the case outside Cornwall, in the preponderance of cases outside Cornwall it follows that most valuations will be made upon a false and invalid set of assumptions and must give rise to numerouscostly disputes. Perhaps the noble Baroness will he able to advance a reason for this particular aspect of the Bill at a later stage.
In more general terms, it seems to us that an entirely new principle is introduced into the rating system, where the site operator is made responsible for not merely the collection but the payment of rates on facilities which he does not himself specifically and personally enjoy. The noble Baroness has herself referred to the sheer impossibility in some cases of locating the owner-occupier of a caravan when that effort to locate is being made by a local authority. I put it to her that it is not likely to be a great deal easier for the site operator, and it follows either that the site operator is going to be liable to pay a rate which he has been unable to collect or else that there should be some indemnification for him in such circumstances. The noble Baroness shakes her head in a manner which is reassuring, and I am sure she will return to this subject at the end of the debate.
Since it is agreed that the site operator is acting in a sense as a collector of rates, it is natural that he should expect some recognition of his performance of this function. I understand that in a number of cases agreement has already been delayed between site operators and local authorities when the site operator discharges his function and that the going rate, as one might put it, is around 15

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per cent. I am open to correction on the figure; I would welcome a confirmation of the principle.
The noble Baroness reassured us greatly when she said that there was no question of a retrospective element in this Bill. However, she neglected to give a date for the commencement of the Bill when it becomes an Act. I take it that the date will in fact be the 1st April 1976, but I think that ought to appear somewhere in the Bill as it stands before us, or at least in the record as it is printed in Hansard. At an earlier meeting between her colleague in another place and interested parties, it was stated that a site operator should know in advance what the liability would be on him as to the collection of rates. In other words, it will not be sufficient to make this the law from 1st April 1976 and to leave a blank cheque in the "in "tray for the unfortunate site operator to sign when the due date falls. We should like to be reassured that it would be possible for the valuation officers to arrive at an agreed figure in time for the date upon which the Bill becomes law.
I think there may be a hint of precipitancy in the Bill, because there is no apparent requirement for the valuation officer at any stage to consult with the site operator when he is making his valuation or when he is exercising the discretion which is given to him in Clause 1(1) as to whether infact the hereditament should be treated as a whole or under the system where caravans continue to be individually rated. This discretion is in itself a little puzzling in view of the fact that the noble Baroness said that individual rating was in some respects unfair.
In Clause 1(7) I think we have a potentially disorganised and difficult situation, because the individual owner-occupier of a caravan is given the option of claiming his right to be rated individually. It seems to me that this could, if widely exercised, negate the entire purpose of the Bill. I would welcome observations on this from the noble Baroness, but supposing on one site there are 10 out of 100 caravans where the owner-occupiers opt for the individual treatment; on a site of 1,000 you might have another 10 or you might have 150 or 2,000. Each change in the balance
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between individually rated and collectively rated caravans would of course necessitate a review of the valuation of the remaining proportion which has not so opted. Furthermore, there is the possibility that where there is a mixed hereditament, by virtue of the proportion of caravans in occupation to amenities, such as club houses, where a large number of the individual caravan owners opted to be individually treated, then presumably the remaining caravan owners who had not so opted would be lumped together in a diminishing balance against the club house and amenities.
As I read the Bill as it now stands—and I am open to correction at Committee stage—there would be the possibility of a mixed hereditament being rated commercially as a result of the change of this balance. I should like the noble Baroness also to consider in passing the advisability of amending Section 56 of the Water Act 1945 to accord with the General Rates Act 1967 at this juncture, because it would have the effect of standardising the times of collection of these rates and would lead to great administrative convenience.
Finally, I will turn briefly to Scotland. The noble Baroness has anticipated my reference to the contribution of the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Croy. My noble friend cannot be here at present, but I believe he will be able to assist us at Committee stage. For those of your Lordships who wish to look up the noble Lord's remarks on the Amendments to which the noble Baroness alluded, they are to be found in column 23 of Hansard of 8th April 1975.
However, I should like to draw to the attention of your Lordships one further little pitfall which I detect in the path of the noble Baroness; that is, that as the Bill stands at present, the site operator in Scotland will be required to issue a no-change certificate relating to caravans to which he has no official access. Obviously, either he will be in default of his duty to issue a certificate that the caravan is the same as in the previous year or he will be in default by reason of making a statement which he cannot know to be true. My Lords, I trust I have not wearied your Lordships by going into some detail. It may be beneficial in expediting the Committee stage. and with that tepid commendation, I

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leave the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, to give his pronouncement on the tasting of this half bottle.
4.51 p.m.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: My Lords, the Government have stated that the enemy we have to beat is inflation and unemployment. All are agreed that the way to do this is to reduce central Government and local authority expenditure, reduce taxation, and to increase employment by the encouragement of the creation of wealth by manufacturing industry, in particular if that industry earns foreign exchange by exports. Yet what does this Bill do? So far as I can see, it does precisely the opposite to what the Government say ought to be done. It increases taxation, thereby contributing to inflation. It increases the cost to the consumer, thereby reducing sales of caravans, so creating unemployment, which is increased because of inability to sell caravans abroad due to the higher cost of production as a result of lowered output. That is why I oppose an increase of tax—which, say what you like, this Bill is all about—which will follow from this Bill.
I suggest that if the Government would only use the same effort and ingenuity to reduce Government expenditure as they do to find ways of increasing taxation, we might then see sonic real progress being made towards reducing inflation and stopping the rise in unemployment. I would suggest that it is this failure to act in accordance with what has been said that causes resentment and, indeed, depression throughout the country.
This Bill creates an entirely new principle for rating procedures, as has already been said by my noble friend Lord Elton. The new procedure proposed in this Bill could have very far-reaching effects on everyone who owns or occupies property liable to a rate payment. I do not think it is right or proper that the principles of rating should be changed in this way in a Bill of this kind—slipped through on the quiet, as it were—without a thorough and detailed examination of what is proposed by all those professionally concerned with rating and valuation. There should be a much wider knowledge by the public at large of what is involved in this Bill and the implications
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and consequences that will arise if the Bill in its present form becomes an Act of Parliament, not just for the owners of caravans and caravans on pitches but for the whole of the property world. For the first time a rateable person will be required to pay rates on something that is not in his occupation. It would single out one type of ratepayer and treat him differently from all other sections of the community.
The proposal is that the ratepayer will be responsible for rates on somebody else's property, with no consequential advantage, and with no means of redress if he is unable to recover the amount of the rate due. Clearly, such a situation is completely unacceptable. It is obvious that this Bill will have to be amended at Committee stage to rectify this unfair and quite unjust state of affairs. The reasons advanced for the introduction of this Bill have been very clearly set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, speaking on behalf of the Government. But I must again emphasise that increasing taxation by the rating of caravans in this way is inexcusable as long as it is realised that, by so doing, the fires of inflation are being fanned and unemployment created. Here I must declare an interest. I am a director of a company which owns and operates caravan sites. The chaos created by the crude attempts to rate individual caravans defies description. The noble Baroness was quite right when she spoke of the difficulties that the local rating authorities had, but much of it was their own fault.
I know of a caravan site which is closed from 31st October to 3rd March. There are certain restrictions in the site licence about the siting of caravans during the winter months. In consequence, caravans are moved from pitches and areas for central storage. Caravans from other sites are also stored at this place during the winter months. For many years now, towards the end of February and in early March, there is intense activity as the caravans are moved from this place to another site, or from pitch to pitch, sometimes quite temporarily, for convenience on this same site. It was just at this moment that the rating and valuation officers decided to arrive on the scene to measure up caravans. But, of course, as soon as a caravan was measured up, as likely as not in a few

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hours it had disappeared and gone elsewhere, either away from the site altogether or perhaps temporarily to another pitch, or indeed it might have been exchanged for a new caravan. Moreover, some caravans were measured twice on different pitches; others were not measured at all.
The site is licensed for 250 caravan pitches, of which 40 are required to be reserved for touring caravans. As the noble Baroness said, touring caravans are not due for rating. In consequence, on the site only 210 caravans should have been measured, but the officials concerned were determined to find 250. They got fairly near the mark at 247, but in so far as I am aware no rates have been collected because of appeals, and no one knows which caravan belongs to whom as the pitches are not numbered and the caravans are situated in areas along with boats, trailers and cars. Therefore, it is obvious that something had to be done.
My Lords, I do not understand why it has not been possible in England to do what has been done in Scotland, where for some time not only residential caravans but leisure or recreational caravans occupied for only part of the year have been rated individually. Reference has already been made in this debate to Scotland and the different situation there. In Scotland, the principles of individual rating have not been disturbed. Satisfactory methods and agreements have been worked out in such a way as to avoid burdening the local authorities with heavy administration costs. This has been done by arranging for the site owners to carry out the collecting, appropriately rewarded, as my noble friend Lord Elton has already said, for doing the job, without having to bear the financial responsibility for the rates due.
There would be no need at all for this Bill if the local rating authorities in England had approached the problem in the same sensible way as was done in Scotland. Under the existing law they could have resorted to other solutions, as was done in Scotland. In such circumstances would not the Government be well advised to withdraw this Bill and give guidance to local authorities on how to collect the rates easily and cheaply, as has been done in Scotland, thereby avoiding interfering with long-established
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rating principles? Let us wait for the Report before we interfere with those rating principles.
The method now proposed in this Bill lays down the principle of making the accommodation provided by the caravan rateable, but, as the noble Baroness has said, the liability for the payment of those rates rests with the site owner and not with the owner of the caravan. Surely this must be utterly wrong. Would not the Government agree that, in the changed circumstances, and with the proposed new responsibilities placed upon him, to allow this Bill to become an Act of Parliament without the site owner being given adequate protection, would be a denial of natural justice and quite alien to the British sense of justice and of fair play? Clearly this situation calls for remedial action and amendment during the Committee stage of the Bill.
There is a further matter which will need discussion in detail during the Committee stage. This again has already been referred to but I should like to underline it because it is important: it is the date when this Bill is due to come into operation. If this proposed legislation were to come into force before 1st April 1976, it would mean that the site owner could be made liable for rates on the whole site, together with the individual caravans owned and occupied by others, as far back as 1st April last year, even though some caravan owners may have disposed of their caravans or taken them elsewhere. There are, in addition, a number of other difficulties which will arise which are better dealt with at Committee stage rather than on Second Reading. To take just one example, in Clause 1(1) the valuation officer is able to make a new proposal at any time and this could be towards the end of a rating year. This could cause obvious difficulties. There ought to be some time limit on such an option.
There is yet another blow in prospect, because under Clause 1(4) the blanket assessment will be subject to the higher commercial rate, instead of the domestic rate as now applied to individual rating. Again the noble Baroness has touched upon this. It is a highly technical matter, and again one cannot go into it in detail on Second Reading, but for clarification it will have to be discussed at considerable length at Committee stage.

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In conclusion, may I appeal to the Government to adopt the procedure under Sections 55 and 56 of the General Rate Act 1967 instead of this Bill. The principle of individual rating of caravans could be maintained cheaply, and indeed easily administered, by appointing the site owner as a collector on behalf of the rating authorities, with appropriate safeguards against the non-payer, but with suitable remuneration. Why not adopt such a procedure, instead of taking up valuable Parliamentary time with yet another Bill, creating more and unnecessary problems, and establishing far-reaching new and unexamined principles of rating? My Lords, will not the Government think again?
5.5 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I have listened with great and very careful interest to what has been said by the two noble Lords opposite, and also, I must confess, with some surprise. I am really quite amazed at the very strong criticism—"animosity is too strong a word, because all points were made most courteously—of what I thought would have been accepted as an extremely good measure and very much more economical than anything else. All I can say is that the fact that there have been only two noble Lords who have spoken in opposition to the Bill probably means that, so far as the rest of the House are concerned, they are passively supporting it.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will forgive me, the First Reading was only just before the Christmas Recess. There was then the Christmas and New Year holiday. There has been very little chance for noble Lords or anybody else to read the Bill and understand the significance of it.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I take the point as regards the details of the Bill—the various committee points which will arise—but the noble Lord must know, as I do, that it was known to people who took the trouble to be interested (as he obviously has, and he very fairly declared his interest) that this Bill was pending and what was the basic principle of it. Indeed, as I understood it, the noble Lord was arguing against the principle as well as the details.I had thought in advance that the point on which we would have
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the only major controversy was the spelling of the word "caravanner". There is some controversy as to whether it should be spelled with two "n"s or one "n"; we came to the conclusion that it was optional, and so we followed the Oxford English Dictionary with two "n"s. But in fact it is quite clear that there are other very controversial points.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was less than fair in following what obviously turned out to be a rather unfortunate analogy when I started on the question of wine; he called it tepid. I can imagine exactly what would have been the comments of noble Lords opposite if I had brought forward a Bill which supported the idea and in detail worked out separate rating. The cries of local government expenditure, increase of staff, would have been reverberating everywhere; we would have received great criticism. When I come forward with a Bill which makes for ease of operation, managerial efficiency and which reduces the amount of rates to the individual, all we get arc some extremely sour comments.
I shall try to deal with some of the main points raised, but, as both noble Lords pointed out, some were detailed committee points and they will forgive me if I do not cover them all. Upon looking through Hansard, if I find that there are points on which I should write to them in order to avoid things being raised unnecessarily at Committe stage, I will do so. I think one of the main points made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was about how the site operators will get their money hack. In a sort of oblique way this whole area was raised and discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield. They have always collected the rent, and before 1966 there was always arate ingredient in the rent they collected. They always had, even before then, to collect the rates for the sites themselves and for the pitches, so all one is doing is rationalising this matter and putting it together.
I must inform the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that he is incorrect when he says how difficult it will be for them to collect. On the contrary, the comments that I have heard from caravanners themselves have been about the very hard terms—and one has to look at this from both sides of the caravan pitch—that have to be

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agreed,and the time in advance in which they have to pay. I quite appreciate the way in which, quite understandably from the site owner's point of view, the noble Lord covers this very point. For the moment I am trying to develop the various points which interlock with this one. I am talking here about the point with which we arc concerned, which is the question of the site owner being able to collect the rate ingredient, and also whether or not it is fair for him to do so. I would say that there would be no difficulty in doing that because he will get his money back when the rent is already settled. In fact, there are questions that could be raised on the other side as to whether caravanners might feel that there is enough security for them in this sort of arrangement because, as I am sure both noble Lords know, caravanners have never been able to go to rent tribunals in the same way as other residential occupants have been able to in the past, and then will not be able to do so under this Bill.
The site owner has a great deal on his side, and I should have thought he has not a great deal to be concerned about as the collection is included in the rent, and the assessment can be changed from year to year. There will be discussions with the valuation officer and, as I pointed out when I introduced the Bill, it will not be retrospective. That should answer the point the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, raised over retrospection. So although we hope the Bill will come in on 1st April 1976 there is not yet a fixed date. As noble Lords will appreciate, this Bill has been introduced in this House. We have to take the stages here, and then it goes to another place. For this reason, because we could not get it in before the rating this year was being settled, I made it quite clear that it would be quite unfair to do this.
When the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield. points to all the complexities, I feel that what he is really stating are arguments in favour of the Bill, which simplifies so many of the points he has raised. I find it quite ludicrous to say that this Bill results in an increase in tax. In a situation where rates will be lower as a result of a measure, one can hardly call that inflationary. At the same time, the noble Lord makes the suggestion that the site
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owner should be paid for collecting money. Well. that is a most inflationary suggestion at this particular time, and one that comes ill from members of a Party who are always talking about counter-inflation measures which the Government should be bringing in and should try to put into operation.
Site owners are getting the benefit of the local authority and other services on the sites and on the pitches, apart from the individual caravans. All that this Bill is doing is to say that included in the rent you are collecting anyway you include an ingredient to cover the rates. You are collecting the rates in any case for the pitches and sites, so all that it is added are the rates for the caravans. This is not any revolutionary or new proposition. All that is happening is that if the leisure caravans are being included and considered to be in the category of second homes, which seems to be an equitable situation, the increase in the rates to the site owner will be carried through in the rent. This will be by agreement, as it has been in the past, between the caravanners and the site owners. All the evidence I have been shown indicates that site owners are very careful to cover themselves in almost every sort of contingency, in many cases even to the extent of contracts by which, if the owner wants to sell the caravan, he has to do it through the owner of the site, and also has to make a contract for a certain number of years. This is a matter between the site owner and the caravanner. I am not making any judgment on it, but I am quoting these examples to show that there is security for the site owner in that way.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, raised the question of the discretion of the valuation officer. It is perfectly true that we do not expect that there will be many cases where a discretion needs to be used, but there could be an exceptional case. We are at the moment awaiting the results of a case in the courts where somebody is disabled. It could well be that in that case a separate assessment would be in the interest of the caravan-owner himself. Therefore, he could make a proposal.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way I because I am slightly confused by what

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she has said. She said, I think, that the valuation officer would not often exercise his discretion. But the valuation officer's discretion lies in Clause 1(1) where he may, if he thinks, treat all or any of the pitches as single hereditaments. I think I may be confused. The noble Baroness will enlighten me. She is saying that he will exercise a discretion towards individual caravans within a site to treat them individually and not, as I had perhaps wrongly supposed, that he would have a discretion to treat the whole site either as one hereditament or as a collection of individual hereditaments.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord is right. What I was doing was bringing together two different points. There is the discretion in England and Wales as to whether he treats the whole site as a single hereditament, and on that point the discretion is almost like a long-stop. We cannot think of any example where it might occur, but it is felt that this option should be left open in case it should occur.
The other point where a proposal can be made is where a particular caravan—I give the example here, and this is the example we envisage as the most likely—belongs to someone who is disabled, where in that case the disabled person would be rated lower if he had a separate assessment than if the assessment would be for the whole site. If this is the case, depending on whether there is a considerable number of people in that category, then of course the valuation for the whole site would be adjusted between the site owner and the valuation officer. I apologise, but these are complicated points.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, also raised the question of the Layfield Committee Report. It is impossible to expedite it any more. It is an immense piece of work, as the noble Lord appreciates, and the Committee are going as fast as they can. To postpone the Bill would, we feel, be quite wrong because it would make it even more difficult to have it in force for this holiday season. It would extend the discrepancy between those who had been and those who had not been assessed, and we feel that justice is better done in this way.
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The noble Lord, Lord Elton, also raised the question of discount for site operators. There is no general right of discount, because the site operator is the ratepayer on the combined hereditament, but where the rating authority offers a discount for prompt payment to all ratepayers, the operator would be entitled to it on exactly the same conditions. One hopes—it would, of course, be up to him—that he would pass on the benefit to the caravan owners. I think it would be rather difficult for me to convince the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield, that this is a good as opposed to a bad Bill, though perhaps as we go through the measure in Committee he will find in it the benefits and some of the good points which I assure him are there but which do not seem to have revealed themselves to him today, or perhaps I have not revealed them in the right way. However, I hope that as time goes on he will be persuaded into accepting that this is an economic, good and equitable measure.
The question of people moving caravans was raised. One of the problems of identification, to which reference has been made, is that caravans have anyway to be identified for rent purposes, and certainly one thing that it is difficult to do with a caravan, especially a large one, is a moonlight flit. As for people moving caravans from one pitch to another, noble Lords will be aware that this is an extremely difficult thing to do and, on the whole, people do not do this on a regular basis because of the problems involved. Upon moving they have to make a new contract with a new site operator and, in any event, if people were to take such a step often enough they would take themselves out of the class of leisure caravans into the class of touring caravans, and that would not be to their advantage.
I think that most of the other points that were raised would be best dealt with in Committee. The point that was made in regard to net annual value for valuation purposes is a technical one and I would prefer to leave it until the Committee stage. In conclusion, I must repeat what I said at the beginning; that is, that this is a sensible measure which will reduce the cost of collecting rates, which are themselves a form of tax, with the

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reduction in cost being passed on to the taxpayer, and not the other way round. I therefore beg to move.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask whether she will consider the advisability of amending Section 56 of the Water Act 1945? I feel that this would be much easier for her to do than it would be for us. I hope the noble Baroness took note of that point.
Baroness BIRK: I noted it, my Lords, and we will consider it, but at the moment I must admit to not being certain what the noble Lord was talking about. Having noted it, I then nodded my head wisely, hoping that the noble Lord would leave it there, but I will either write to him on the subject or, if we consider it is something that would be valuable to be dealt with in Committee, we will do so. Although I was rather disappointed at the general response of both noble Lords opposite who spoke about the Bill, I assure them that we have carefully noted their remarks, and when tomorrow I read the report of what they said in Hansard I will look into the individual points they made, many of which I am aware I have not dealt with. I am sure that they are points which it is valuable for us to be aware of and, if any of them comprise points about which it would be valuable to amend the Bill, they will be taken strongly into consideration.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: Before the noble Baroness sits down, my Lords, may I—
Several Noble LordsOrder!
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, am I not allowed to put a question to the noble Baroness before she resumes her seat?
Baroness BIRK: Please do.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Baroness. May I ask, as an outsider, why she did not go into the difference between the Scottish and English systems, a point strongly put forward by my noble friend Lord Wakefield? This is a matter of great interest to people who are not knowledgeable about these matters.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, obviously I made a mistake when I so generously invited the noble Baroness to ask her question. The Scottish and English rating systems are completely different and this is the reason for the difference in approach; the assessors are different and the whole basis of assessment is different, and I do not think that at this stage I should go into that matter any further. If the noble Baroness will look at the Bill, she will see that some of it is quite self-explanatory.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL [H.L.]
5.27 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord NUGENT OF GUILDFORD in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Superannuation schemes]:
Earl FERRERS Earl FERRERS moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 16, line 33, leave out ("pension ").
The noble Earl said: In moving this Amendment, I should explain that although I am a Trustee of the Trustee Savings Bank of Eastern England, this Amendment has been tabled entirely in my own name; it is not put down on behalf of the trustee savings banks at all and I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, that I shall withdraw the Amendment. I have tabled it because I feel that there is a very real point of concern here. It concerns the pensions commitment which the trustee savings banks are bound to take on after this Bill becomes law. One is always hesitant in involving oneself in anything to do with pensions because they are extremely complicated, but I do so on this occasion because an important point arises. This is a delicate

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area, and I know that the trustee savings banks have been in discussion with the Treasury over the Bill and, indeed, with the employees on the pension arrangements, and I do not want to interfere or disrupt anything that has been said between the various interested parties.
It is right that we should look at the system as it existed before the Bill came in and the effects that it will have on the trustee savings banks afterwards. Under the system which adhered up till now, each trustee savings bank paid salaries to its employees and at the same time paid a percentage of that salary into a superannuation reserve. That formed part of the Fund for the Banks for Savings and that money the Government took and used as they liked, as best they could, and paid back to the trustee savings banks a sum of money which was paid to the depositors plus a sum which included management expenses. For a long time they paid back £2 16s. per cent. —which was £2 10s. for the depositors and 6s. for management expenses—and the Government made what use they could of the remainder, which went into the Consolidated Fund.
When an employee retired, he received a pension based on the percentage of his retirement pay. The important point is that the paying of that pension came out of part of the management expenses—that is, part of the 6s. put down as management expenses. If pensions went up, so the banks paid more for the pensions, so the management expenses were increased and so the Government refunded to the trustee savings banks that increase of management expenses.
In 1971, the Pensions Increase Act came in. This tied the cost of pensions to the cost of living of civil servants and all others in like businesses, including the trustee savings banks. That was fine in theory, but, in my immodest judgment, it could prove disastrous in practice. Now, anyone who retires or who has retired has his pension automatically increased. When the trustee savings banks were part of the Government organisation, this payment meant an increase in the management expenses and the Government therefore recouped the banks for the extra expense which would be incurred. Now, however, the trustee savings banks are to be hived off. Clearly, those employed in the banks must expect
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pension arrangements under the new system similar to those which obtained under the old system. Clause 30(4) states this quite clearly as an obligation, which is quite right. There is of course an implied obligation for new employees taken on after the Bill to have not greatly dissimilar pension arrangements to those already employed in the trustee savings banks. That also seems to be right.
My question is: how is that to be paid for? When the trustee savings banks were part of the Government they had an obligation placed upon them to have index-linked pensions. Now that they are hived off that obligation—which is really an open-ended cheque—still attaches to them. I believe that these index-linked pensions can be an example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. The trustee savings banks—which will now be commercial bodies—will have attached to them a liability to pay every employee, past and present, when he retires, sums of money which will be likely to increase every year and over which they have absolutely no control. Such sums bear no relation to whether the trustee savings banks can afford them or to whether the amounts are justified. The only criterion is what the Retail Price Index or the Cost of Living Index have done. The potential liability is simply colossal.
I wonder whether your Lordships realise quite what the liability is. Because of the Pensions Increase Act, a man who retired in 1972 aged 60 on a pension of £4,000 is now receiving £6,487, even though he has retired. If we areto assume the same rate of inflation as existed in the last 12 months, and if pensions increase at the same rate as they increased over those 12 months, by the age of 75 that man could be drawing a pension of £33,000. At the age of 80 his pension would be £105,000 and, believe it or not, at the age of 85 his pension would be £334,327. That is a staggering figure by any standard. I know that the first thing your Lordships will say is that everything depends on the rate of inflation staying as it is now and that it is coming down. That is perfectly true, but it does not mean to say that it will always come down. I can remember when we occupied the Benches opposite everyone becoming very

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anxious and my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn defending a rate of inflation of 10 per cent. Nobody in those days thought that the rate could possibly go up to 25 per cent., yet it has. In some South American States the rate has even gone to 200 per cent. I do not say that that will happen here, but who knows? The point is that the liability exists and that that liability is being put on to the trustee savings banks.
I am not here blaming the Government nor the trustee savings banks. Neither do I blame those who are carrying out the negotiations. I am merely using this opportunity to point out the liability which these banks will have to accept. What action is taken about that—and it may be none—is up to those who do the negotiating. But the fact is that any increase in these pensions must now come out of money which would have gone to the trustee savings banks' reserves. At the moment, the total funds of the banks are £4,000 million. It is anticipated that a reasonable reserve would be 10 per cent. of this figure—that is, £400 million. At the moment, the trustee savings banks have about £70 million in reserve, so that their reserves will have to be multiplied by about five times to reach the figure of £400 million by the time they are wholly commercial in 10 years' time. The reserves have therefore to be multiplied five-fold in the next ten years. That will not happen if vast sums have to be paid out of those reserves in order to pay for pensions.
I do not know whether the Government are quite aware that this is the situation. I only wish to draw this to your Lordships' attention. I should be glad to know what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, thinks about this. It is, in my judgment, right to bring this to your Lordships' attention now because it could well be that in six, seven or eight years' time, the trustee savings banks could find themselves in a highly embarrassing position. I hope that that will not be the case, but it depends on one of two things: either the rate of inflation must come right down or the Pensions Increase Act must be amended. If neither of those things happen, I believe that there could be quite a problem.
5.38 p.m.
Lord HOY: We are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for moving the
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Amendment, which he had every right to do, because when he said he did not blame the Government or the trustee savings banks for what has happened, he was quite right. He was a member of the Government which introduced the legislation which made this possible. It was neither the present Government nor the trustee savings banks but the Government of which he was a member which brought in the legislation which might allow what he has described to happen. I can understand that, having passed the legislation, he is a little afraid of what he did in the past.
I should like to turn to two other points, because I find it a little frightening that figures can be quoted and multiplication sums done to show that if somebody lives to 85 he will get a pension of £300,000 a year. If this were an attraction, we should all be rushing out of the doors during the next five minutes to get a job with the trustee savings banks because that would apparently be the way to get security and pensions which were never dreamed of when the Government were passing their legislation. What we must not do is to exaggerate what can take place. But I believe that the noble Earl is quite right to point out that there might be dangers with which we might be confronted. We must be aware of those dangers so that, if they looked liked arising, we could take steps to prevent that.
There are only two other points I wish to make. One of them is this. I do not like the expression that the trustee savings banks were "hived off". The trustee savings banks were not hived off. Whatever these banks might have been, they remain one of the greatest savings institutions, not only in Britain, but in the world. The change in the status of the trustee savings banks has come about because of the recommendations of the Page Committee. That committee recommended that the trustee savings banks could make an even greater contribution to savings in this country, provided that there were certain changes within the constitution. This is what the committee recommended and what the savings banks accepted. Indeed, it is also what not only your Lordships' House, but also another place, accepted. So the savings banks are not a hived off institution

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from something else; but rather an institution, and a greatly creditable one, in its own right.
We must remember, when talking about the savings banks in Great Britain, that one in every five people in this country has an account in the trustee savings banks—almost 11 million accounts. I should have thought that any institution in our country with that record had something to be really proud of. If any other country had such a record it would be saying so in a very loud and clear voice. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that he is right to point out the dangers that might arise. But I do not think that we should try so to distort those dangers as to create trouble in the minds of people in this country, or people anywhere else. We should also remember that this is not a hived off bank, but a bank in its own right, with a long record of service, unsurpassed in the savings movement of the world as a whole.
Lord JACQUES: The provisions of the Bill as regards superannuation do not impose upon the Central Board of the trustee savings banks any level of indexed pensions to be paid to the staff when they retire, except for those ex-staff receiving pensions when this clause of the Bill comes into force. All that Clause 30(4) does is to preserve the ability to reckon service. The clause, as amended, would be contrary to accepted superannuation policy by withdrawing this preservation. The trustee savings banks have freely entered into a commitment with the National Union of Bank Employees to continue indexation of pensions for staff, including existing pensioners, and have issued a letter of intent to their staff accordingly. This is wholly consistent with the superannuation provisions of the Bill, which seeks to free the trustee savings banks, except for existing pensioners, from Government control.
The cost of the commitment depends on a number of factors. First, it depends upon the effect of inflation not only upon costs, but the effect of inflation upon the inflow of deposits into the bank. Any effect which inflation may have upon the inflow of deposits into the bank will reduce the unit costs, whether it be the cost of the superannuation scheme or any other cost. That is certainly a factor to be taken into account, but which has
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been completely ignored by the noble Earl. Another factor is, of course, the future rate of inflation. Recent figures show that the Government's counter-inflation policy has not been altogether without success. But the cost of indexation to the trustee savings banks is the price that they are prepared to pay as a good employer.
The banks' policy for some years has been parity with the public sector, and the resultant cost has been met by the banks. There is no change in the funding arrangements. The recent decision was freely negotiated after the Bill was published. The figures quoted by the noble Earl were, in some way, misleading. He quoted the figure of £2 16s per cent. This was the rate of interest paid on the Fund for savings for a few years up to 1954. The figure is now 7¼ per cent. Therefore I suggest that the figures used by the noble Earl are out of date.
I should also point out that the cost of the pensions has come only partly out of this, and partly out of the income from the special investment department, which has been quite separate. As I said on Second Reading, there is no justification for the Government themselves to take on any part of the cost of this superannuation agreement. Indeed, it would be against the main purpose of the legislation, which is to enable trustee savings banks to develop into a third banking force, competing in the personal sector on fair terms. If we had done very much to help the banks we should have had complaints from the other side of the Committee that the terms were not fair to the other banks.
Earl FERRERS: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. He said that I was slightly out of date in my figures. Of course I gave those figures only as an example. I knew perfectly well that they were figures for some years ago, but I thought it would be perfectly simple to take a clear example. If the noble Lord says that the figures are now different, and that what the trustee savings banks are getting is 7 per cent., then that is perfectly true. But had the trustee savings banks been able to run their own pension funds and invest the money themselves, they would be getting 14 per cent.; whereas at the moment only 7 per cent. is paid back to the

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trustee savings banks. I was giving those figures only as an example—
Lord JACQUES: May I point out that those figures arc 22 years old, and that indexation of pensions came in 20 years after that?
Earl FERRERS: I do not quite know what the noble Lord is getting so anxious about. All right—but the tact remains that the trustee savings banks are paid back at the moment a certain sum of money to pay their depositors, plus a certain amount for management expenses. I said in an example which I used that that was 6s. Now it is something in the nature of 3 per cent. I was using only an example and I do not want to become any further involved with that.
The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, said that I was right to raise this matter but that one should not distort it. I did not think that I was distorting it. I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate that my explaining what could happen—not what will happen—in relation to the obligation which is being put on the banks, was not in fact a distortion but rather a reality. The noble Lord said that of course I would not say that it was our fault or the bank's fault; but it was our Government which brought in the pensions Act. I quite agree with him and I will tell him this. I think that that Act was a mistake. I think it was a mistake because it put not only on the trustee savings banks but on the whole of the Civil Service that liability which was an open-ended commitment. If the noble Lord says that I would not be prepared to admit that, then I say here and now that I believe our Government made a mistake.
However, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. He slightly missed the point, because he did not really answer it, and I did not expect him to answer it, other than to say that there is this commitment which could prove an embarrassment. I think that he probably takes the point there. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clauses 31 to 37 agreed to.
Clause 38 [Short title, citation, commencement and extent]:
On Question, Whether Clause 38 shall stand part of the Bill?
5.48 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: This has been, and is, an entirely non-Party Bill, but I wanted to give the Government one opportunity of replying to the following point. As the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, will know, there has been a certain amount of speculation recently—particularly in the New Year period—about the possibility of the nationalisation of banks. Any Government, or Party, are entitled to bring forward or consider schemes. But I saw an article which said:
"The Trustee Savings banks, now merging into 18 regional units, are the best nucleus for a peoples bank to channel workers' savings into investment to create new jobs, perhaps taking over the Giro's central accounting system in the process."
I do not believe for one minute that the Government have any intention to do that, but as that is the type of thing which has been said I wanted to give the Government the opportunity to deny it totally, and I hope that they will do so.
Lord JACQUES: I am very pleased to hear that the noble Earl did not believe it although he read it, and that he regarded it as speculation. I can say quite emphatically that the nationalisation of the banks is no part of Government policy. The Government are taking action to stimulate competition in the banking sector by legislation on the expanded roles of the trustee savings banks and the Giro. They also intend to introduce a system of prior authorisation for banks and other deposit-taking institutions. Government policy does not go further than these developments. The noble Earl may therefore be assured that the Government are genuinely seeking the expansion of the trustee savings banks through this Bill.
Earl FERRERS: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that statement. It will certainly give a lot of reassurance to anyone who might have been persuaded by such articles as those which have appeared, and I am very grateful to him for saying what he has.
Clause 38 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Provisions as to the Trustee Savings Banks Central Board]:
Lord JACQUES: At this juncture, may I assure the Committee that all the Amendments remaining to be dealt with are Government Amendments and are either drafting or consequential Amendments. Amendment No. 2 corrects an error in the original draft. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 11, leave out (" this paragraph ") and insert (" paragraph 12 of this Schedule ").—(Lord Jacques.)
Earl FERRERS: I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining that these are all entirely drafting Amendments. My only comment would be that it is unfortunate that they did not appear slightly earlier than they in fact did, because I think we had the Second Reading debate well before Christmas and these Amendments appeared only on Monday of this week, which seems quite a short while before the Committee stage. But I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that they are in fact entirely drafting Amendments.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedules 2 to 4 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Consequential and minor amendments]:
5.53 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: The reference at this point should have been to section 17(1) of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971, and not to section 17(2). This Amendment corrects the error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 37, leave out (" (2) ") and insert (" (1)").—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: There is no Part IV of Schedule 2 to the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971. The reference should have been to Part III. This Amendment corrects that error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 39, leave out (" IV ") and insert ("III ").—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: This Amendment deletes the title and the whole of paragraph 21 of Schedule 5. The Pensions
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(Increase) Act 1974 affected a limited number of people for a limited period of time, and since it is now spent it does not require amendment. Therefore, this Amendment deletes that reference. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, leave out paragraph 21.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Repeals]:
Lord JACQUES: Amendment No. 6 is consequential upon Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 28, leave out (" IV ") and insert (" III ").—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: Amendment No. 7 is consequential upon Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, leave out lines 6 to 9.—(Lord Jacques.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

INSOLVENCY BILL [H.L.]
5.57 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD in the Chair.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: As there are no Amendments to Clauses 1 to 10, I propose to move them en bloc.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I have a very short point on Clause 7, and I would therefore suggest that it might be in order to move that Clauses 1 to 6 inclusive be

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agreed to en bloc and then have a separate Motion for Clause 7.
Clauses 1 to 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Disqualification of directors of insolvent companies]:
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Your Lordships will see that Clause 7 of this Bill is what I might call the disqualification clause, which gives the court powers, in appropriate circumstances, to order the disqualification of directors of insolvent companies. In particular, Clause 7(3) provides:
" Where the official receiver or Secretary of State intends to make an application under this section in respect of any person, he shall give not less than ten days' notice of his intention to that person, and on the hearing of the application that person may appear and himself give evidence or call witnesses."
I should perhaps apologise to your Lordships' Committee, and possibly to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for not putting down some form of probing Amendment either before today or in manuscript form, but I fear that I have been carrying out public duties in Scotland; and it may suffice if the noble Lord and his advisers consider this short point and either write to me or not, and I can always put down an Amendment at a later stage of the Bill if that course should prove desirable.
The short point is that where a director is to be proceeded against in this manner in some quarters it causes some mild anxiety, to say the least, in that it would appear that insufficient time is being given for the director concerned to prepare a case against the making of such an order. He will have to take advice which may be legal advice, and also advice from accountants. He must if necessary, besides preparing his case, approach witnesses to take statements from them and then try to get them together all in one place, so to speak, at the time when the application is to be heard and the order, if it is to be made, is actually made. It seems to me that it could be said that it would, at any rate, be fairer if a rather lengthier period were given so that there could be adequate opportunity for a director to make up his mind whether he is going to oppose an order of this sort and, if his advice is that he does oppose it, to take the necessary steps.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I quite understand the problem facing the noble Earl and I have every sympathy with it. I will write to him. All that he is asking is a small change in administrative detail to the benefit of the individual who may have to answer to the court. For this reason I shall consult my advisers and write to him so that if he does not receive satisfaction from me he will have time to put down an Amendment at the Report stage of the Bill, which should be next week.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Monetary limits relating to bankruptcy and winding up]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 11. line 15, column 3, leave out (" £6,000 ").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 1 may I speak also of Amendment No. 2. They are in a sense drafting Amendments. Section 158(1) of the Bankruptcy Act 1914 as amended by Section 7 of the Bankruptcy (Amendment) Act 1926 provides that a bankrupt person who has not kept proper books of account shall be guilty of an offence. However, the subsection contains a proviso to the effect that he shall not be convicted of that offence if his unsecured liabilities at the date of the receiving order did not exceed £500, unless he has been adjudged bankrupt on a previous occasion or made a composition or arrangement with his creditors, in which case he may be convicted if his unsecured liabilities exceed £100. This Amendment will preserve this distinction while at the same time bringing the two monetary limits up to date.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I beg to move Amendment No. 2 formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, leave out line 18 and insert (" failed to keep books of account—

in case of person who has not previously been adjudged bankrupt or made a composition or arrangement with his creditors

£6,000

in any other case

£1,200")

—[Lord Winterbottom].
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Schedule 1, as amended, shall be the first Schedule to the Bill?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I have two small points for the consideration of the noble Lord and his advisers. The first relates to that part of Schedule 1—page 10, line 26. which reads:
"Offence by undischarged bankrupt of obtaining credit confined to cases where value of credit exceeds a minimum amount ",
contrary to Section 182 of the original Act. Your Lordships will see that the amount of credit that an undischarged bankrupt may obtain, not disclosing at the time he obtains such credit that he is a bankrupt, has been substantially increased from a figure of £10 to that of £120. I hope that one is not in any way seeking to go against the spirit of this Bill which has been welcomed on all sides. Nevertheless, I think it is to be deprecated if any provision of the Bill in fact makes it substantially easier for those who are in effect unable or unwilling to repay credit once it has been granted. It is something which the noble Lord might consider and I ask him to do so.
In an age where perhaps the standards of honesty are not all that they have been and bankruptcy is not regarded as it used to be (as anybody who read some of the newspapers last Sunday will immediately perceive) it is, I think, something which needs a little thought that such a sum should be raised 10 times. There is finally the point that a sum of £120 may be obtained from several different credit granters and the total may therefore amount up and it would be more difficult to unravel in the end.
There is another point which concerns the next entry on Schedule 1, which is line 31, page 10. Your Lordships will see that the minimum debt required to support a bankruptcy petition under Section 4(1)(a) has been increased to £300. Again, very much of what I have said applies in principle to this figure. The consequence could be that a man with no assets capable of being distrained on may well default in payment of a debt of less than £300 and in such circumstances it would be difficult, even impossible, to enforce payment. I wonder whether this figure of £300 does not go a little too far.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: The noble Earl has made two points. Again I shall study them and write to him or reply at a later stage. The multiplicator of 12 is based on the 1914 Act rather than the 1883 Act because inflation during that happy period was not significant. Nevertheless, all the figures in Schedule I were based on a common base of calculation. It might be invidious to alter the two figures of £120 in Section 182 and £300 in Section 4(1)(a). I shall write to the noble Earl in detail about this to show how these factors were calculated. If he is not satisfied, we will see what we can do at a later stage.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT 1963 (BISCUITS AND SHORTBREAD) ORDER 1975
6.10 p.m.
Lord JACQUES Lord JACQUES rose to move, That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Biscuits and Shortbread) Order 1975, laid before the House on 2nd December, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper be approved. The prime purpose of this Order is to require biscuits, when prepacked, to be put up in prescribed quantities. Biscuits will be the first product to be added to those which must be sold in prescribed quantities. At present as little ¼ oz separates pack sizes of biscuits and there are no fewer than 21 pack sizes between 3 oz and 8 oz. So consumers have little chance of making value for money comparisons and cannot readily identify one pack size from another.
Some 80 bodies representing manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, consumers and enforcement authorities have been invited to comment on our proposals. With minor exceptions industry have accepted the proposals as fair and reasonable, and have said they can implement them without raising the unit price of biscuits. Consumers have also generally welcomed the proposals, but some organisations have expressed reservations over the number of quantities permitted

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at the lower end of the range. Industry, however, have said that a radical change in pack sizes would be costly to implement and would inevitably lead to higher prices. All parties have agreed that it would be fair to review the position again in the light of experience with the proposed quantities and of whatever proposals might subsequently emerge from Brussels. As yet there is no EEC legislation on biscuits or shortbread, but the Commission has stated its intention of making proposals for biscuits in a draft Directive on prescribed quantities. The opportunity is also being taken to state the provisions for the sale of biscuits and shortbread in metric units. Both these products may already be sold in metric but so far only a few manufacturers have elected to market metric packs.
The main provisions of the Order may be summed up as follows: first, in future the weight of packs of biscuits and shortbread will have to be declared if above 50g (which is approximately 2 oz). At present the weight must be declared on packs of 4 oz (113g) and above. This is an important improvement. Secondly, above 85g (about 3 oz) biscuits may only be prepacked in prescribed quantities. Because of the limitations imposed by Section 10(10) of the Weights and Measures Act we have included an imperial range, but the industry has advised us that it intends to adopt the metric range only. To give some idea of the effect of the metric quantities we propose to prescribe, the 21 imperial pack sizes I mentioned earlier will be replaced initially by six,and later by five metric quantities.
Thirdly, shortbread in pieces exceeding 200g in weight need not be weight marked. The present concession is given at 8 oz (225g) and here we have metricated down rather than up to save the small baker—particularly in Scotland—. the expense of changing existing moulds. There are to be no prescribed quantities for shortbread. Fourthly, hand made biscuits (those baked, prepacked and sold by retail by the producer on his own premises) are not included in the prescribed quantities provision but they must be weight marked if prepacked above 100g. The present weight marking exemption limit is 4 oz (113g) in common with all other biscuits.
Fifthly, wafer biscuits—the type used with ice cream—are to be sold by count. Sixthly, special provisions have been made for the multiple prepacks so often seen nowadays in supermarkets. In this we have taken account of modern packaging techniques and marketing practices. Finally, I should like to say a word about the effective date of the Order, 1st January, 1978. As biscuits and shortbread may be sold now in metric quantities the importance of the date is that from then only the quantities prescribed in the Order will be permitted. The industry must therefore have completed its rationalisation by that date. I commend the Order to the House.
Moved, That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Biscuits and Shortbread) Order 1975, laid before the House on 2nd December, be approved.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships' House will thank the noble Lord for his precise and detailed explanation of this document that we have before us, and I do not wish to follow him in such detail. It seems that we shall be straining at a gnat if we spend too long on it, although I understand the movement was initiated some two years ago at the request of consumer bodies and, at the end of two years, the manufacturers feel that useful negotiations have been completed in so far as that is possible. I observe that we are beating the European Economic Community to the "draw "by about 12 months in making our Regulations. I cannot help wondering whether this little instrument will be overtaken in all its complexity by another little instrument coming from across the Channel. Whether or not the noble Lord will feel a certain amount of time has been wasted on this, and a little money wasted in the rejigging of the cardboard boxes, I do not know. Your Lordships will not wish to discuss the complexities of packs of mixed biscuits, some of which are and some of which are not cream filled, at this late evening hour, and therefore I will not object in any way to this instrument.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I must declare an interest as Director of the Cake and Biscuit Alliance which looks after the interests of the cake and biscuit manufacturers. We have, as my noble

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friend said, no objection at this stage, but I should like the assurance from the Government that they appreciate that in this country we shall be much more tightly regulated in relation to biscuits than any other country in Europe; and, furthermore, if as the years go on the Government see fit to reduce yet further the number of weight points which are allowed within the regulations, that will start to have a serious effect on the exporting of biscuits, both to the United States and also to Europe. It would be helpful to know that the Government are aware that we have gone just about as far as is reasonable in the form of restrictions on how biscuits should be sold.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, two points have been raised. First, in relation to the EEC, there are occasions when we should lead and not wait for others to lead; and here we are leading. It may well be the EEC will take as a guide what we arc doing in this country. I certainly hope they will. The second point was whether I could give an assurance that the Government appreciate that the industry has gone as far as it can. I think I will give the assurance in another way: an assurance that, in the course of time, we will make a review, in consultation with the industry and the consumer organisations, of our own experience arising from this order, and anything that might come from Brussels. In that review we shall certainly take both sides, industry and consumers, into account before we take our decision. In the same way as we have been able to reconcile the interests of both sides on this occasion, we are confident that we shall be able to do so in the future.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CATHEDRALS MEASURE
6.20 p.m.
The LORD BISHOP of COVENTRY The LORD BISHOP of COVENTRY rose to move, That this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Cathedrals Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I have been asked to deputise for the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London because he is ill. I am happy to say he
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is not seriously ill. It is a rather sudden and long move from biscuits to cathedrals, but I hope to speak briefly to this Measure.
Under the Cathedrals Measure 1963, which govern all except one of the cathedrals of this country, a special Commission must be appointed by the General Synod if it is desired to revise the statutes of a cathedral. When that Measure was passed every cathedral administrative body was represented in the then government of the Church, the Church Assembly, but this is not the case with the General Synod which prevails today. Consequently, it is more difficult for cathedrals to move the necessary resolutions in the Synod. Therefore this Measure proposes the establishment of a permanent Commission to which, if and when it is set up, proposals for revision of statutes can be sent direct by cathedrals.
In Clause 2 of the Measure there is a modification of procedural sections of the 1963 Measure in certain respects. A draft scheme will he prepared by the Commission in consultation with the cathedral concerned and, in addition to the Bishop and the Church Commissioners, ail other persons who may be affected by the draft scheme will have the right to make representations. If the Bishop and the cathedral authorities consent to the draft scheme, it will be laid before the General Synod, and unless the Synod directs the Synod by general resolution not to make the scheme, it will be made by the Commission.
Clause 3 provides for the scheme to be confirmed by Order in Council after persons have made written representations and the Commission have been informed of their right to appeal to Her Majesty in Council. Under the 1963 Measure, the scheme is laid before Parliament. In the last 30 years more than 60 cathedral schemes have gone through this procedure. In no case has there been an appeal, nor has a Resolution been moved in Parliament. Therefore, it is thought that this double procedure is not necessary and that the Privy Council can more easily deal with the issues that might arise. I do not think I need speak about the remaining clauses, except to say that when this Measure came up in General Synod for final approval, 174 members voted in favour and only one against.

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Therefore I think one can say that it is non-controversial.
Finally, I should like to say that the Ecclesiastical Committee is of the opinion that this Measure is expedient. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Cathedrals Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Coventry.)
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I am sure that we are most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry for presenting this Measure to your Lordships on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I have always understood that the Dean was the senior person in the cathedral, rather than the Bishop; and now, as I understand it, the Commission are to command the workings of a cathedral church rather than the Dean. I remember the late Bishop Anderson of Sarum treading on the toes of the Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, and the Dean then turning round and saying, "This is my cathedral, and not yours, my Lord Bishop! "I wonder whether we are getting to the point when the poor Dean will have no say in the Church.
I should like to convey the apologies of my noble friend Lord Sandford for not being in his place today. Unfortunately, he has to be away at this time. However, we are most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for having explained so clearly the provisions of this Measure.
The Lord Bishop of COVENTRY: My Lords, may I say that, putting it into rather secular language, I have always thought that the relationship between the Bishop and the Dean was similar to that of the chairman and managing director.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGES AND LEGAL OFFICERS MEASURE
6.26 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of COVENTRY The Lord Bishop of COVENTRY rose to move, That this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Ecclesiastical Judges and Legal Officers Measure
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be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: The main purpose of this Measure is to give effect to some of the recommendations made in the report of a Working Party, which was chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London on the Church's legal officers, their duties and remuneration. The report was favourably received by the General Synod in November 1973. Clause 1 of this Measure provides for a retirement age of 75 for chancellors and judges of provincial courts; that is, of course, the retiring age of High Court judges. The provision does not apply to those holding office at the commencement date.
Clause 2 enables the House of Bishops to make regulations governing the number of chancellorships that may be held by any one person. No person at the moment holds more than three such offices, but the power to make a regulation was considered desirable in order that younger members of the Bar should be encouraged to take an interest in the subject and so that the knowledge of ecclesiastical law should be more widespread. A regulation made under Clause 2 would require the approval of the General Synod and be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure in Parliament.
Clause 3 provides for the creation of a reconstituted office of provincial registrar, the holder of which is to perform the functions now exercised by the registrar and the Archbishop's legal secretary. The appointment will be made by the appropriate Archbishop, after consulting the Standing Committee of the General Synod. Clause 4 contains similar provisions with respect to the office of the diocesan registrar.
In Clause 5 the House of Bishops is empowered to make regulations with respect to the maximum number of registrarships which any one registrar can hold. In subsection (2) the retirement age for registrars is put at 70. Subsection (3) makes special provision for the four dioceses where the offices of registrar and legal secretary are held by different persons. Clause 7 provides that no further appointment should be made to the offices of archdeacons, official principal and registrar, and that on a vacancy the registrar's duty should pass to the diocesan registrar. At the present time only in 20 out of

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106 archdeaconries is there a registrar who is not the diocesan registrar. There are official principals in eight arch-deaconries only, and the office is virtually a sinecure.
When the Measure came to the General Synod for final approval 162 members voted in favour and one against. Apart from that vote, at no stage was there a division. Furthermore, the Ecclesiastical Committee is of the opinion that the Measure is expedient, and so I beg to move that this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Ecclesiastical Judges and Legal Officers Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.
Moved, That this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Ecclesiastical Judges and Legal Officers Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Coventry.)
6.29 p.m.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, may I say how grateful we are to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry for standing in for his right reverend friend the Bishop of London? Myonly worry is whether we are experiencing a reduction in the powers of the archdeacon. I know how important the archdeacon is, and it appears that the Synod is now asking for the archdeacon to do less and for a commission or some other body to take his place. I have always understood the archdeacon to be the most experienced person to take committees and so on, and my only concern at this stage is whether or not I have misread the Measure. Otherwise, as I said, we are most grateful to the right reverend Prelate.
The Lord Bishop of COVENTRY: My Lords, I do not think there is any desire to lessen or modify the power of the archdeacon. All we are trying to do is to cut down the number of officers. Already, in very few dioceses is there a separate diocesanregistrar and an archdeacon's registrar, and what we are really doing is putting the work into the hands of one man who will represent both the Bishop and the archdeacon very firmly.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I am most grateful.
On Question, Motion agreed to.