Lords Sitting of 15 June 1976

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Rochester.

AFRICANS: CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now asked our diplomatic representatives to collect data concerning the remuneration and conditions of service under which African employees in Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana work so that these can be compared with the equivalents paid in South Africa.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, no information has been sought about the remuneration and conditions of service of African employees in the countries mentioned; nor are there any plans to compare such information with similar information in respect of South Africa, which is a special case. The noble Lord is referring in his Question to independent African States where the indigenous workers enjoy political rights and the freedom to join trade unions. Wage rates in those countries are influenced by the activities of those trade unions and are generally at levels which accord with national development plans formulated by the sovereign Governments.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, if one is to set a standard for wages and remuneration which British firms pay in South Africa, would it not be logical to try to discover whether firms in neighbouring countries surrounding South Africa are paying comparable rates? If nothing is done to get this information through our commercial attaches, surely we are creating a disadvantage to British firms operating by the competitive price of their products; whereas the surrounding
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countries, housing firms from perhaps France, Germany and other industrial countries, may be paying lower rates and thereby getting some favouritism and better prices. is this not to the disadvantage of all who work in South Africa and of the British firms who operate there?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I think that it is generally recognised that South Africa is a special case in these matters because of the disadvantages at which the African worker is placed under the apartheid system. This has been the cause of the controversies over the last year or so. The questions that the noble Lord asks about comparisons with neighbouring States are perhaps matters for concern within international for a, but I do not think, since these countries are sovereign States, that it is a matter for British Government responsibility.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that, quite apart from apartheid, which is a different question, British firms have been denigrated by the suggestion that they are paying under the rate? All the evidence one can get unofficially is that this is not true and that they often pay over the general rate in those areas. Merely to say that because in what the noble Lord calls sovereign States the workers are free to join trade unions should not permit the world to denigrate British firms on the pay question. That is not in accord with what I would expect the British Government to try to do for their nationals.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, firms which operate in South Africa and are of the kind the noble Lord referred to are invited, and have been requested, by my right honourable friend to publish information indicating what are their wage standards. Some have done so and others have not done so. It would be well if all who were so invited were to publish that information.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, when my noble friend investigates this matter, could he let me know how the wage rates for women in these countries compare with the wage rates in South Africa?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, certainly any information that emerges will be available to my noble friend.
Lord BARNBBY: My Lords, the Minister in his first reply mentioned trade unions in connection with the countries named. Is it thought that the trades unions in those countries have the same kind of independent status that trades unions enjoy in this country?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the workers have the freedom to join their trade unions and they are free trades unions. That, I think, is an important difference between the countries named in the Question and South Africa.
Lord SAINSBURY: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that some of the countries mentioned in the Question do not compare with South Africa in wealth or in industrial development, and thus in the ability to pay?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, that is most certainly the case. I hope that no one will seek to justify inadequate wages in British-owned enterprises in South Africa simply on the basis that South Africa is surrounded by poverty-stricken countries.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, would the noble Lord consider whether it is realistic to say that in the countries surrounding South Africa the trades union are as highly organised as he suggests? Would it not help the trades unions to negotiate for better rates of pay if they knew how their wages compared with those paid in South Africa? He might be assisting the wellbeing of the coloured people surrounding South Africa. Would he not consider this most seriously? Is he not aware that the firm impression exists that in fact some 10,000 Africans travel on foot into South Africa in order to get jobs with better remuneration and better consideration than in their own countries? Would it not be useful for all Africa to know what wages are paid in the surrounding countries?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I return to the point that it is not Her Majesty's Government's responsibility to make these comparisons. I have already dealt with the underlying cause of the long walk to seek employment. This is,
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understandably, due to the surrounding poverty. As to the point about the organisation of trades unions within these countries, it is true that they are infant movements because these countries are infant countries. One does not expect miracles of social organisation within the course of two or three decades. But my main point is that they are on the right road, and South Africa in these matters is on the wrong road.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, the Minister says that it is the duty, as I understand it, of the British Government to inquire what British companies are paying in South Africa. Is it also the duty of the British Government to inquire what rates of pay are being paid by British companies, some of which operate in these other countries?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, there is no reason, I suppose, why such an investigation could not be made through the proper channels. The point is that special representations in respect of the special case of South Africa were made, and the Government responded to those representations.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, is it not a fact that if the British Government asked about the wages that British companies were paying in these other countries, they would find it extremely embarrassing for their case?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, most certainly not. The reason for low wages in the surrounding countries is the abject poverty in those countries. I will readily debate with the noble Lord the causes of that poverty: but it is no justification to defend inadequate wages in South Africa on that basis.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, would it not be true to say that the countries adjoining South Africa, whether or not they have lower wages, prefer lower wages—and might even prefer hunger—and freedom of movement, freedom to join trade unions? Is it not extraordinary that noble Lords opposite do not understand that men prefer freedom even where they have hunger?
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords. There are many aspects of freedom and my

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noble friend has drawn attention to the important ones. But another important aspect is the freedom to enjoy a reasonable standard of living; and the Government's policy in the aid and development field is directed towards that end.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, surely the noble Lord the Minister will agree that the fact—and it is a fact—that higher wages are paid in South Africa because it is richer highlights the need for Western technology to be deployed in these countries; and, furthermore, for these countries to accept that and provide conditions to enable Western technologists to go there.
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords, I think it is well known that we have aid and development arrangements with these countries with that end in view,
Lord HALE: My Lords, in view of the widespread interest manifested oil all sides of the House—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am so sorry that I have had to interrupt my noble friend, but more than nine minutes have now gone by on this Question. We know the great interest that noble Lords feel regarding this Question, but we have three more to come, quite a long day ahead of us, and another tomorrow. I think it right therefore that we should brine, this Question to an end.
Lord HALE: My Lords, in view of the widespread interest manifested in this matter would not publication of the Lonrho report provide much Valued information to all—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!

TORTURE IN PRISONS
2.46 p.m.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
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The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their Representative at the United Nations has made any suggestion that, when accusations of torture in prisons are made against any Government, they should be encouraged to invite the International Red Cross to make investigations and report.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): No, my Lords. We of course abhor the use of torture and will give our unstinting support to measures designed to eliminate it or curtail its incidence.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask him whether he agrees that we might take a lead in this matter at the United Nations? The United Nations is supposed to help to set standards of humanity all over the world. Would he agree that if this question was put—and there is no point in having a vote—the Government would be willing to make this invitation to the Red Cross? The Red Cross has an international standing and would be acceptable to the world in general. At the moment practically every week we have descriptions of tortures of persons in prisons from an admirable society, I have no doubt, but it has not the same standing as the International Red Cross.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I have every sympathy with the purpose of the noble Baroness's intervention. However, I think we might be well advised to concentrate on the fact that the United Nations itself, having produced an International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7 of which expressly forbids torture, and having set up a Human Rights Committee on which hopefully we may have our own representative, has the right machinery, if States' parties are willing to use it, to make a beginning on the attack on the use of torture wherever it happens.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister again for his reply. If we can make certain that we have a representative on this Committee that would he a step

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forward. Would he agree with me that those Governments which were not willing to invite the Red Cross in would obviously discredit themselves by their refusal, whereas those Governments who agreed to invite them would find it helpful not only to their standing in the world but to the prisoners? This is why I want to press strongly that we ourselves ought to make a start and an impression in this matter.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the suggestion has merit and I am in no way rejecting that or any comparable suggestion, or, indeed, suggestions for bilateral ad hoc interpellation with Governments with whom we have normal relations and to whom we can usefully make known our abhorrence of certain practices, always remembering of course that there is a danger of these representations being counterproductive. We have to be very careful about that. At the same time, while we are open to any suggestions, such as that made by the noble Baroness, it would be well for us to concentrate on making as effective as possible—hopefully as a member of the Human Rights Committee—and supervising the operation of, this covenant and the sister covenant on economic and cultural rights, at least in the next year or so.
Baroness HYLTON-FOSTER: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the danger that Governments might try to use the International Committee of the Red Cross as a cover-up, having made certain that when they make their visit there is no evidence of torture?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there is, of course, that danger. These suggestions, as the noble Baroness will recognise, carry with them certain points of attraction and, on closer examination, certain points of difficulty and danger. That is no reason why such suggestions should not constantly be examined as additives to the central procedure of operating international covenants of this kind as effectively as we can.
Lord CARADON: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that, whereas there may be objections to calling on the Red Cross to carry out such a difficult task, there is everything to be said for making a fuller use of an international endeavour
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through the United Nations to establish a system of international investigation similar to that which has long existed in the Council of Europe? Would he not agree that, if there could be international machinery to provide for international investigation, with the authority of the United Nations, we should act in accordance with that?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I certainly agree, and the first step towards that objective is to try to get a scat on this Human Rights Committee, which is after all a full-time body set up under the aegis of the United Nations.

EDINBURGH COUNCIL: COMMUNITY COUNCILS
2.52 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: 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 it is a fact that Edinburgh District Council have refused to implement Section 52 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, in connection with community councils, and whether the Minister will set up an immediate inquiry into Edinburgh District Council's decision.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (Lord Kirkhill): My Lords, the City of Edinburgh District Council have not refused to implement Section 52 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Although the District Council have indicated some doubts about the need for community councils in their area, they have been given until 31st July 1976 to submit to the Secretary of State a scheme for the establishment of these councils. The extension of time was granted at the request of the Council. No final decision about the scheme has yet been taken by the District Council and it would be inappropriate, therefore, for an inquiry to be set up into this matter.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord

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for his encouraging Answer—encouraging because I had understood that the City of Edinburgh District Council was quite adamant about that—may I ask whether he is aware that under Section 11, the relevant section, this is the second time the Edinburgh District Council have been granted delaying powers? If by July they have not produced a plan for a community council, will the Government take action?—because otherwise the Edinburgh District Council will be breaking the law.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, the Secretary of State for Scotland has default powers under Section 54 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. I am well aware that the noble Baroness paid very close attention to that Bill during its passage through your Lordships' House, but the underlying concept of community councils is that such councils should develop by way of consent and negotiations: hence the Secretary of State's agreement to a further extension.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, is it not quite clear that, while the desire of the City of Edinburgh for economy is very commendable, there is a clear legal obligation that where a community council is requested such a council should be formed, and it falls upon the local authority to do so? Was that not specifically stated by the Government during the Committee stage in 1973?
Lord KIRKHILL: Yes, my Lords; I agree with the substance of the question put by the noble Earl. But the present position is that there are indications that the Edinburgh City Council is moving towards the creation of a community council, and their propositions and any outstanding representations pertaining thereto will eventually lie with the Secretary of State for Scotland. I think, at this stage, the correct policy, which the Secretary of State is pursuing, is to give an extension of time for these discussions to take place.

RABIES LAWS: PUBLICITY ABROAD
2.55 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU:
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what publicity is being given to our rabies laws in Continental ports, marinas and yacht clubs.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, 15,000 foreign language posters explaining our anti-rabies regulations have been sent to our Embassies in eight European countries for distribution at ports, marinas, yacht clubs and other suitable locations. This task is being achieved, I am glad to say, with the full co-operation of the Governments and national organisations concerned.
A special television programme explaining our policy and regulations has already been shown in most European countries. In addition, a Ministry of Agriculture veterinary officer will be coordinating our publicity campaign in liaison with the veterinary authorities on the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lords for that reply, and appreciating the good intentions of the Government, may I ask whether he is aware that it was reported last night in the Southampton Echo that no posters at all were exhibited in Le Havre and Deauville? Is he also aware that many Frenchmen still think that the vaccination certificate is sufficient, and that many feel that the literature already abroad has not been properly distributed? In view of this most disturbing report, could he perhaps look into this aspect of the matter?
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, of course, my Lords. We are aware of public concern about this, and I may say we are meeting this threat with resolution and vigour. If the noble Lord, or any other noble Lord, has knowledge of any instances where the campaign has not been properly carried out, we shall be glad to hear of them.
With regard to France, the French Navy authorities have issued standing instructions that any animals belonging to French warships must be left behind before sailing to United Kingdom ports.

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The French Ministry of Transport has circulated such information to associations of shipping owners, to the fishing industry and to the unions concerned. Posters and leaflets about our controls and penalties have been circulated to nearly 500 maritime sailing clubs affiliated to the French National Sailing Federation. I do not think there will be any excuse for travellers, whether British or foreign, not being aware of our regulations.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord in how many foreign languages these warning notices are published and whether, in each of the ports concerned, French, German and so on, there are notices in more than one foreign language?—because Italians travel through French ports, and so do many other people.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the six languages are French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord also consider that these notices might perhaps be posted at airports, particularly those concerned with light aircraft?—because many light aeroplanes cross the Channel.
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords. I think this is probably being done and, as the noble Earl may know, to land an animal at any location other than an accredited port or airport is not permitted.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, did I understand the noble Lord to say—
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: This side next! My Lords, as most of the individuals responsible for the crime of bringing infected animals into this country appear to be wealthy and so have no difficulty in paying the fine, would it not be better to give them a short, sharp, prison sentence? This would be more salutory and would be reported in every paper in the world.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, of course that is permitted under our legislation. I think we must leave this to the courts concerned; but I may say that on indictment it is possible to order an unlimited fine and/or a year's imprison-
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ment. I think it is important to note from what one reads in the Press that magistrates are beginning to reflect public opinion about the seriousness of this offence.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, did the noble Lord say that a veterinary expert is co-ordinating the dissemination of information? If so, would it not be better if an expert on information did that job?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the co-ordinating authority for this whole campaign is, of course, the Ministry of Agriculture in conjunction with the Welsh Office and the Scottish Office: and the COI produces the publicity posters. We had a Press Conference last month, and I must say that we welcome very much the co-operation of the Press in this matter.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that it now costs about £300 to put a dog into a kennel during the incubation period, which in many cases is a real hardship? Also, are we spending enough money on improved vaccines, so that we can move to an arrangement under which we have a foolproof and effective vaccine? In many cases there is real and genuine hardship and the loss of a much valued companion and pet during the six months' quarantine which must now be imposed.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think that that is a different question.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I have had representations from a number of friends, who say that although there are stickers at airports they are not eye-catching and are, in fact, rather drab compared with all the other advertisements which are scattered about? May I also ask him whether, in order to stop the smuggling of dogs in cars, the Customs could put stickers on cars going out of this country, and ferry operators could put other stickers on cars coming in?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, that is a useful suggestion which we shall certainly bear in mind. I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord that our posters are drab. I have some here, both in French and in English, which, if your Lordships

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wish, I will arrange to have displayed in the Library. Also, I have put in the Printed Paper Office a memorandum, which is also available in the Library, which spells out in very considerable detail, first, what we are doing to prevent rabies-infected animals coming to these shores; and, secondly, in what we hope is the unlikely event of an emergency, what special plans will have to be implemented.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his original Answer, that the Government are taking this action, will give a great deal of satisfaction? Can he say whether the posters which go to the Embassies are being received with welcome by the port authorities? Presumably those authorities are under no compulsion to put up posters, so are the Embassies having any difficulty in persuading them to do so?
Lord STRABOLGI: No, my Lords. We have enjoyed full co-operation for a very long time; and, of course, we have also enjoyed EEC co-operation through each Member State. As well as working through the Embassies, we are working with British consulates in the main French ports and also in Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg.

BUSINESS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVEES of HASTOE: My Lords, perhaps I should make the next announcement in English, Dutch, Italian, German and Portuguese. May I inform your Lordships that, as the House will be sitting late tomorrow, dinners will be available.

LOTTERIES AND AMUSEMENTS BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee (on Recommitment) on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee (on Recommitment). —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 25 agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Permits for commercial provision of amusements with prizes]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 28, line 31, leave out (" £2 ") and insert (" £2.50 ").
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment alters the amount of the fee specified in paragraph 18 of Schedule 3 to the Bill. That paragraph derives from paragraph 16 of Schedule 6 to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. The fee that was payable under that paragraph became £2 by virtue of two subsequent Statutory Instruments. These, in turn, have been replaced by two further orders which came into force on 31st May 1976, by virtue of which the fee payable is now £2.50, which accounts for the Amendment I have the honour to move. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Repeals.]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 31, line 37, at end insert—

(" 1973 c. 65.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

In Schedule 24, paragraphs 28 and 29.")

The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment adds two further repeals to the list in Schedule 5. Unless your Lordships wish me to explain the additions, I do not think I need trouble the Committee further. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.
Lord DERWENT: May I say one word? Is it not a deterioration of the customs of this House, due I suppose to force by the usual channels, that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should be here on the first day of Ascot?
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

RATING (CHARITY SHOPS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES &c. (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
3.8 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The principal purpose of this Bill is to provide powers for phasing out the use of imperial units of weights and measures, and to provide a framework for further progress in metrication. In several important respects it is an improved version of the Bill which was introduced in another place earlier this year. Noble Lords will recall that the Second Reading there was postponed to allow further consultations. These have proceeded satisfactorily, but in the meantime the pressure on the timetable in the other place has considerably increased and that is the reason for introducing this Bill here.
Later I shall indicate the changes which have resulted from the consultations undertaken by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, but first it may be helpful if I sketch the historical background of the Bill, outline the progress that has already been made in respect of metrication in this country, and explain how and why the proposed new powers will facilitate further progress. It is not often appreciated that this country already has a long history of involvement with the metric system. Indeed, in 1871 a Bill to make the metric system compulsory failed by only five votes. Four years later, following the Metric Convention, an International Bureau of Weights and Measures was
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formed with the duty of establishing and preserving international standards of length and mass.
The United Kingdom joined the Convention in 1884. It has participated in its work ever since and has played a major part in establishing the SI—Système International—metric system as it is today. In 1897 the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act made metric units lawful for use in this country. Therefore what we are concerned with in this Bill is not making the metric system legal in this country. That was done long ago. What is involved is whether, and for how long, we are to continue with our present practice of having two systems side by side, the metric and the imperial.
This question was posed for us clearly in 1950 by the Hodgson Committee which reviewed weights and measures legislation. It stated the problem in these words:
" The real problem facing Great Britain and these countries "—
that is, other countries using imperial units, principally the United States and some Commonwealth countries"—
" is not whether to adhere either to the imperial or to the metric system but whether to maintain within their boundaries two legal systems of measurement or to establish world-wide uniformity by changing over completely to the metric system and abolishing the imperial."
That was how the Hodgson Committee set out the problem and it gave its answer to that problem equally clearly. It said:
"… we have come to the unanimous conclusion that the metric system is, in the broadest sense and in the interests of world uniformity, a better' system of weights and measures than the imperial; that a change from imperial to metric for all trade purposes is sooner or later inevitable; that a continuance of the present option to use either the metric or the imperial until the inevitable comes about will cause in the long run more inconvenience than an ordered change within a specified period; and that the long-term advantages which would flow from an organised change in the near future would far outweigh the inconveniences of the change itself. We therefore recommend that the Government should take the steps which we outline below with a view to abolishing within a definite period all use of the imperial system in Great Britain and to establishing the sole use of the metric system for all trade purposes ".
I thought that that quotation was worth giving in full because in my view it is a succinct statement of the case for the change.
In making that recommendation, however, the Hodgson Committee made two

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provisos which were very necessary in 1950 but are not necessary today. Because of our dependence on world trade, the Hodgson Committee said we should act in concert with North America and the Commonwealth and we should metricate our weights and measures only if our coinage was decimalised. Those two conditions are now fulfilled. Our coinage, of course, is decimalised. Commonwealth countries are well ahead with conversion and the United States last year passed its Metric Conversion Act.
The situation now, therefore, is that to all intents and purposes all our trade is with countries which use or which are in the process of conversion to the SI metric system and it is impossible, in my view, to overemphasise the importance of this fact. The market for exports in imperial units has shrunk dramatically over the past few years and will virtually disappear within the next few years. The inevitable result of this situation has been that British industry has been virtually forced to adopt metric units to a very large degree. A large part of industry is now metric as a result and I think that I should pay tribute to the work of the Metrication Board, whose chairman is with us, in helping forward this process.
Most inland and overseas freight tariffs are now based on metric units. Trading in industrial materials has been in metric for several years. Metrication in engineering is well advanced, with almost 60 per cent. of engineering products being in metric and more than 85 per cent. of engineering firms having some metric production. Nearly 60 per cent. of engineering firms do all their design work in metric. In agriculture and horticulture the situation is that by the end of this year farmers and growers will be working in a substantially metric environment. All major textile manufacturers work in metric units and commercial transactions are also in metric. Bulk deliveries of petroleum products changed over to metric units at the beginning of this year, and both postal and telephone tariffs are now on a metric basis. In our schools, colleges and other training establishments metric teaching is now predominant and children have been progressively, although not yet completely, released from the drudgery of having to
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learn by rote the complicated relationships between units in the imperial system.
The effect of this marked changeover to the metric system is, I suggest, already apparent to the ordinary consumer. Many products on sale in the shops are already in metric dimensions and weights. For very good reasons the metric system is in such widespread use and over so many areas of our national life that it is totally unrealistic to suppose that the tide can be stemmed, let alone turned back. The question is: can we, and should we, perpetuate the imperial system alongside it? Is the interest of the consumer likely to be best served by such a perpetuation, by what the Hodgson Committee called " an ordered change within a specified period "?
The hope has sometimes been expressed that it should be possible for industry to go metric without affecting the rest of us in our capacity as consumers. I suggest that we have to be clear about what would be involved if it were practical, which I do not believe it is, somehow to divide the economy into separate metric and non-metric compartments. First of all, both our domestic industry and foreign manufacturers wishing to export to this country would need to run separate imperial production lines for the United Kingdom retail sector. This separate production would entail duplication of design, packaging, stockholding and sales. Our schools would need to teach both systems in perpetuity and production workers would need to be familiar with both systems.
The result of all this would be that goods would be more expensive in this country than elsewhere and that British industry would be less competitive than its rivals. Living with two systems would be not only costly but confusing and the country would gain none of the economic benefits of going metric. In reality the ordinary citizen is inescapably involved; as I have said, many goods are already metric in the shops. If total and continuing confusion for the consumer is to be avoided and if the retailer is to be spared the headache of grappling with two sets of purchases, stock controls and pricing, we must standardise on the basis of a single system.
Quite understandably, it was concern at this stage of the process for the welfare

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of the consumer that caused the demand in another place for further consultations w hen the Bill was introduced there. As I have said, the Bill has been strengthened to meet the anxieties which were expressed. and I noted with pleasure that in a recent statement by the National Consumer Council (not all of which I agree with) they paid tribute to the changes which have been introduced. The Secretary of State will now be required to consult in particular with organisation representative of consumer interests before making an order under Clause 2: secondly, it will now be possible to continue to use imperial units of measurements for explanatory educational purposes alongside metric units. even though those imperial units may no longer be used as legal measures for trade. Thirdly—and this is the third difference from the original Bill—the Bill now provides for the display of conversion tables in order to help the consumer.
Perhaps. though. I should make it clear, since these were improvements from the consumer point of view, that consumer organisations favour the Bill. The message that we have received over and over again from all quarters is unequivocal: that the Government must step in and ensure that the final stages of the changeover are carried out in a planned and orderly fashion—otherwise there will be chaos—and that to do this the Government need the power to set cut-off dates for the use of imperial units.
Perhaps I may quote just one or two of the messages that we have received from organisations. Going back a little to the Consumer Council that existed in 1970, it said:
" The Consumer Council believes that conversion to the metric system will be of advantage to consumers ".
The Consumers' Association wrote to us recently:
" We are pleased that you are taking enabling powers in the Weights and Measures Bill, and we hope these will make rapid progress through Parliament. Each month that now goes by without these powers, the greater the possibility of utter confusion as some members of the trade change to metric measure and others do not."
Other organisations that I could mention are the National Federation of Consumer Groups, the Housewives Trust, Age Concern, which looks at these matters particularly from the point of
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view of elderly people; the National Council of Women of Great Britain and the Consumer Standards Advisory Committee of the British Standards Institution, as well as many local consumer groups. have all in their messages to the Department advocated the adoption of the metric system. I have already menioned that there was a recent statement by the National Consumer Council. It came to me somewhat as a surprise in the light of the statements of so many other consumer organisations in favour of what the Government are proposing to do.
Although consumer organisations, as I have said, have for some time been asking for a speedy conclusion of the changeover, it is true that delays and postponements have created a feeling of uncertainty among shoppers themselves. This loss of confidence has been reflected in some research that has been undertaken for the Metrication Board. The research has shown a falling off in support for metrication since 1972. and particularly since July of last year. On the other hand, the most recent research shows that the majority (some 57 per cent.) of people who have come across metric units found they " were fairly easy or I found no difficulty. A much larger majority (85 per cent.) accepts that as metrication is bound to happen it might as well learn to use it; and that I think is a quite pragmatic and practical approach to this question. So a summary of public attitudes is that there has been some fall in public support, but experience in using metric has been favourable and, in the final analysis, " people believe that metrication is bound to happen and they want to learn how to use it ".
I recognise that a major worry about metrication is the fear that it will lead to higher prices. One can understand the fear, but I believe that experience shows that there is no basis for this suggestion. In cases where the quantity or size of the products changes as a result of metrication—and this does not automatically follow, as is sometimes supposed; it sometimes can be a smaller quantity or size—the price too will obviously change; but in the field of, for example, prescribed quantity goods, metrication which has been proceeding has not led to any increase in the price of the goods themselves.
The parallel is sometimes made of what happened, or rather what was

1117
supposed to have happened, at the time of the decimalisation of the coinage. Whatever is the truth of that argument—and I doubt whether anyone finally will be satisfied—I should stress to the House that there are three fundamental differences between the present position and the position of decimalisation of the coinage. From the consumer point of view decimalisation of the coinage happened overnight and across the board. Metrication has been a gradual process and it will continue to he a gradual process on a sector by sector basis. This means that the industry, the retailer and the consumer can closely monitor what is happening.
Secondly, there is now in existence the price control system which is administered by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection through the Price Code and the Price Commission, and it is their task to ensure that no unwarranted price increases take place. This is a most important safeguard for the consumer which did not exist at the time of the decimalisation of the coinage. But I must reject the allegation in some of the suggestions that are put around, that most retailers are cheats who use every opportunity to make unjustifiable price increases. This is not only unfair to them but it fails to recognise that retailers in this country operate in a highly competitive market. So even if they were disposed to cheat, they would not have much opportunity of getting away with it.
Thirdly, to ensure that the consumer will still be able to make value-for-money judgments during and after the changeover, the Government have unit pricing powers under the 1974 Prices Act. These will be extremely valuable in this connection, and the Department is currently considering the way in which they can most effectively be used during the changeover period in the shops.
In bringing forward this Bill the Government are very conscious of the views of all sections of industry, trade and consumer organisations and, indeed, have been influenced by the strength of the views put to them. I have already indicated the strength of views from consumer organisations. But the CBI has consistently urged the need to bring in this Bill, which it believes to be extremely
1118
important for British industry. The Trades Union Congress has similarly placed on record its view that a prolonged changeover period is undesirable. I think it fair to say that perhaps until recently the retail trade has been more divided, some parts of it having been more enthusiastic about going metric than others. Traditionally, parts of the food side have been opposed to metrication. But over the past year or so there has been here a growing recognition by the retail sector that cut-off dates are desirable, indeed necessary. The recorded views of the very many trade associations are perhaps too numerous effectively to put on the Record here, but I think that the position of the Retail Consortium accurately sums up the overwhelming view throughout this sector of the economy.
My Lords, at a recent meeting with my honourable friend the Minister of State, the Consortium made it clear that while they did not particularly relish the prospect of metrication, they considered it to be essential for the Government to step in and take the powers proposed in this Bill if chaos for the trade and the consumer is to be avoided. Finally, I come to the Treaty of Accession to the European Economic Community which firmly commits the United Kingdom to the adoption of the SI system by 1978, and to the phasing out of the general use of imperial units for legal purposes. On the Accession of the United Kingdom to the European Community, this country accepted the commitment to the SI system and the Directive was amended to incorporate imperial units in a separate Annexe.
In the proposed amending Directive currently under consideration by the EEC Council, imperial units have been absorbed into the main body of the Directive, and the proposal is that certain units should cease to be authorised by the end of 1977, some by the end of 1979, and the future of the rest, which includes all the everyday important imperial units, to be decided by 1979. The main point to emerge from all this is that we are obliged to adopt. that is to say, obliged to authorise legally, the SI system for all purposes by April 1978, but we do have some flexibility to decide the timetable for phasing out imperial units.
I have felt it right to concentrate almost entirely on the metrication aspects

1119
of the Bill, and these are covered principally by Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill. They simply establish the piece of flexible machinery to enable the Government to bring forward proposals to remove or restrict the use of units of weights and measurement for the purpose of trade. As a piece of machinery it is entirely neutral; it does not say that we have to get rid of or restrict the use of any units, nor does it establish any timetable. The Bill places an obligation on the Government to carry out full consultations before bringing forward any orders under it. It further provides that such an order will need to be debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
Briefly a word or two about subsequent clauses. Clause 3 empowers the Government to make regulations authorising the use for trade of prescribed weighing or weighing equipment where the stamp indicating that it has been passed for use for trades has been obliterated or defaced. This power is needed primarily to deal with price changes on petrol pumps. Clauses 4 and 5 confer powers to standardise containers. At present under existing legislation many important household goods, mainly foodstuffs, can be sold only in prescribed quantities. For certain products, however, particularly those with varying densities, standardisation by weight is not necessarily the best aid to the consumer. A good example of this is the case of washing powders, where standardisation by weight would result in a confusing multitude of different pack sizes which would be of little help to the consumer, whereas standardisation on the basis of the size of the container would be of real assistance.
Lastly, Clause 6 will enable local authorities to charge fees for work undertaken by their weights and measures inspectorate, not only in carrying out their national responsibilities, but also in connection with EEC obligations. I said " lastly ", but I have found another.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Oram, comes to the final point, would he allow me to go back to Clause 4? I should like to ask what is the purpose of standardising material of which containers are to be made? What is the purpose of that provision? I think it will save some discussion if we know that now.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I recognise that certain trade associations arc in trouble over this. If the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, would agree, I think it would be more helpful to take this up on Committee stage, because discussions have been going on about this point. Although I cannot indicate this afternoon how, I hope we can be helpful in that respect.
My Lords, I come to the last point in explanation of the Bill. In Clause 8 the Government propose to take powers to relax or suspend certain provisions of the Weights and Measures Act and the Food and Drugs Act during times of shortage. The need for such a power became apparent during the sugar shortage of 1974. Noble Lords may recall that during this period, packs of sugar were specially imported—from Holland in particular, I recall in my own shopping. This sugar was imported to cope with the emergency situation, but in many cases the sale of the sugar was technically illegal. I do not think any prosecutions were proceeded with, but it was technically illegal, and therefore retailers were technically at risk in selling the sugar. This clause would give the Government power to suspend or relax these requirements if a situation of shortage were to arise in the future, and thereby ensure the risk of prosecution would be removed.
My Lords, I am sorry to have taken rather long in introducing this Bill. However, I think it will be recognised that although its particular provisions are perhaps technical and those of establishing machinery, the Bill does deal with an important development in our national life, one about which there is some misunderstanding and some controversy. Therefore, I felt it was right to go over the background fairly fully. I hope that approach has been helpful to your Lordships, and that at the end of the debate you will give the Bill your approval.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Lord Oram.)
3.40 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has been generous to us in the clarity with which he has introduced this Bill, and we would not grudge him the length of his introduction, which we are still able to measure in minutes. The

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public affected by this Bill fall roughly into two groups, and the noble Lord has already alluded to them. They are, on the one hand, the producers and the manufacturers, most of whom want it, and on the other, consumers, many of whom do not. There are exceptions in both. But the retailer is caught in the cross-fire. By and large, it is the retailer with a pair of scales who is concerned, and the retailer of prepacked goods is slightly more fortunate. Her Majesty's Government are, therefore, faced with a band of opinion that wants no compulsory legislation and a band that does, and the Bill falls neatly between two stools and satisfies neither group; for by its recourse to legislation it offends one group, and by its failure to specify dates it disappoints the other. The prospect now is not for one, as it were, capital M-day but a whole scattering of m-days, with food, one gathers, coming right at the end of the queue, a queue which will be marshalled by the Secretary of State by means of a series of Statutory Instruments made under Clause 1(2) and Clause 2(1), which will become the new Section 9A(3) in the 1963 Act, as amended by the Bill.
Where this procedure results in a delay, it may have one or two fortuitous but welcome advantages. The Government first attempted to bring this Bill in when inflation had reached a crescendo, or what we hope will prove to have been a crescendo. It remains to be seen whether the present attempt will coincide with something less fearsome; but inflation, and savage inflation at that, there undoubtedly still is. It is a feature, regrettably, under these circumstances of the imperial to metric conversion tables that the nearest metric equivalents to the normal convenient units of sale in grocery and other lines are, on the whole, 10 per cent. larger than the imperial equivalent. A public rendered sceptical by experience of new larger economy packs of this and that commodity are not going to accept easily the proposition that a 10 per cent. increase in price is necessarily the result of a 10 per cent. increase in quantity, even if they are absolutely clear as to what 10 per cent. in real terms is. It is just no good telling a lady with only 50p left in her purse that the smallest available quantity of a product which now costs 55p
1122
is bulk for bulk no more expensive than last week's smallest available package costing 50p. It may be no more expensive, but the fact remains that last week she could afford it and this week she cannot.
It has been suggested, first, that metric packs should be marked with both the metric and imperial measures of contents, and orders already exist to make this possible. I welcome the noble Lord's allusion to his intention to continue this trend. Secondly, it has been suggested that a watchdog body of some sort should be empowered to referee this aspect of the changeover and to disqualify price increases greater than those justified by increases of quantity. We hear this afternoon that the Price Commission will have this task. It will be the duty of the Government not merely to tell us that in this Chamber; it will also be their duty to tell us how they will convince the public at large, as convince them they must, that they are doing the job and doing it effectively.
I do not wish to imply that most producers, wholesalers or retailers, will take this opportunity to add an unacceptable margin to their profits. The noble Lord said that it was frequently put about that most retailers are cheats who make unjustified profits out of changes in the law. I join him in rebutting that allegation. I did not think it was as frequent an occurrence as he suggested, but it goes a long way to justify the doubts and reservations which some of the retailing organisations, some of the producing organisations and many individual consumers have about this piece of legislation. First of all, to increase by 10 per cent. the standard quantities in which commodities are sold, when those commodities may independently of metrication rise in price by up to 15 per cent. is to magnify the appearance, and, therefore, the psychological effect of inflation across a wide sector of the hoard. Secondly, for those for whom either poverty or the fact of living in isolation dictates that the smallest packs are always and only the ones to be bought, it increases the actual impact of inflation as well, since it increases by 10p in the £, as I hope my earlier illustration showed, the cash that has to be tied up in the necessaries of life week by week.
Some industries have taken great trouble to avoid any shred of justification for a

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charge of profiting by metrication. If it is not invidious to select one, the sugar industry in particular has undertaken to keep its prices within 1p per ton of the present level, and that is indeed a very close margin. It intends to change over on 1st July, thus demonstrating the superfluity of this Bill, at least so far as sugar is concerned. I should like to return to timing in a moment. But it is an irony of circumstances that that is the date on which the intervention price for sugar is due for revision, and the chances are that any change in the price of sugar will be attributed by the public not to this factor but to metrication. The sugar industry has chosen a date: it has acted voluntarily in advance of the Bill.
I would refer your Lordships to the very important paragraphs 103 to 105 in the Metrication White Paper of 1972. Although time passes quickly, it is not yet out of date. I think it would be trespassing on your Lordships' patience if I were to quote these three paragraphs in extenso, but the effect of them is that without reservation it is the view of those forming the report that timing is of the essence for the success of the scheme, and that the exact right timing will vary not merely from industry to industry but from factory to factory.
Retooling for packaging is a task of quite extraordinary expense, at least in my view, when you consider the flimsy cartons that finally emerge. It is most important that the Secretary of State shall bear in mind recommendations he is given when discussing the timing of individual orders to be made under this Bill. We ought to bear in mind that while a great part of the industrial and technical sectors have already voluntarily gone metric, and while this change affects a very large volume of trade both at home and abroad, a much larger number of individual people remain both to be exposed to the effects and to be convinced of the merits of metrication than have so far crossed this bridge. These are the purchasers for personal purposes, the consumers who can be recognised as the child buying a quarter of toffees, the housewife buying a lb. of potatoes, the pensioner buying an oz. of " baccy " and the householder ordering a cwt. of coal.
All the denominations that l have listed
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are due to be swept away. If the step is taken arbitrarily, and if in advance of the events great care is not taken to educate the consumer to a much greater degree than at present, then, in spite of the rhyming and often effective efforts of my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing and his Board, I fear the result will be confusion followed by resentment. Most people who feel confused by a transaction end up by feeling that they have been done when it is concluded, and the resentment will, quite unfairly, be directed, not at the Government, not at the Board, not at the EEC, but nine times out of ten at the supplier, who hence earns the reputation, which the noble Lord said he had had attributed to him so frequently already, of being a cheat who makes unjustified profits out of changes in the law. We, therefore, welcome the provisions included in the Bill to continue to use imperial measures for explanatory and comparative purposes during the changeover period.
We live in difficult times, but it is usually possible to gain advantage out of a difficulty. We are all aware that one cause of the underlying weakness of our industrial system has been a prolonged phase of under-investment. Many companies are operating with obsolescent equipment. Where replacement awaits a decision on adopting a metric standard for the product the decision will not be taken early or willingly so long as expenditure on new equipment remains so costly as to render retooling an uncertain way of maintaining or increasing profits. It should not be necessary to underline that without profits there will not be business or employment in the private sector, and that even the present Government cannot afford to borrow sufficient cash to take all private industry into public ownership.
It is essential, therefore, to remove some of the disincentives from re-equipping wherever they can be found and re-equipping to metric standards. There are occasions when a decision on the introduction of a metric item on a production line may prejudice and delay a complete retooling of a factory. Therefore, if it should be possible to find some incentive for what may amount to a considerable sum of reinvestment, then I think that this is something that the Treasury should look into. It is not the function of this House to interfere in fiscal matters, and I

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would not commit anyone, least of all my noble friends, to a policy on this, but it would seem sensible that some system of tax allowances or benefits should be made to coincide with any timetable of re-equipment so that the intervention in this aspect may not be unwelcome.
That scheme should apply not simply to the manufacturing and packing industries but also to the retailers. There is logic in this and also justice, for while it is possible to argue that the manufacturers' troubles will be over when metrication is complete, I strongly suspect that for the retailer that will he when they begin. It is he, after all, and not the manufacturer, who has to argue with the housewife. It is worth noting here that, while the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum says that the Bill will have no significant financial effects in the short term, this is correct only in so far as Government finance is concerned, and the cost to some industries of going metric and indeed to some retail groups as well will he very considerable indeed.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, could the noble Lord give us the basis on which he makes that last statement?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am not quite sure which half of the statement it is to which the noble Baroness refers, but I believe that there are something like 200,000 points of retail and, on average, about three pairs of scales at each. So taken across the country the sum is very large. Some of the multiples and chains are very large organisations. I regret that I did not anticipate the noble Baroness's intervention, which I should have done, and did not bring the figures in with me, but they are of that order and I think that that is sufficient to show that it is a considerable expenditure.
This is perhaps the right point to ask the Government to go a little further than they did on the matter of European legislation. The noble Lord referred to a document, which I have before me, R/3070/75, which is introduced ill the European collection of documents downstairs as being a letter from M. Lardinois to Signor Rumor, and proposing for a Council Directive amending the Council Directive of 18th October 1971. I am fairly confident that we are on the right
1126
document here. This document has in parallel another with the same reference which purports to be from the Minister of State for the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection describing the letter which I have mentioned as being a draft submitted by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection.
The reason why I raise this matter at this point is that I think that a number of us, though perhaps we should not he, are a little in the dark about the procedures here, because if it is advanced that we are under an obligation to follow the ruling in this proposed draft Directive—and I. am not clear from what the noble Lord said whether in fact it inevitably will become a Directive or whether it may stay in the draft condition—and if this draft Directive is to become law, and if that law is to be binding on us, then it would seem to have been drawn up by a Minister prior to consultation with Parliament, and the Minister is then in the position to come to Parliament to say, This is what we have got to do, because, force majeure, we have no alternative." I think that the noble Lord will wish to reflect upon that. It is a matter of some importance, as indeed are the contents of the document itself.
The document contains four chapters in the Annexe listing measurements which it shall be, and which it shall not be, legal to use in, among other places, the United Kingdom. I am puzzled and will pursue in Committee the fact that the schedules in these chapters do not everywhere coincide with the Schedules in the Bill we are going to look at in Committee. I am sure there are reasonable explanations of this but they are not at once apparent. I notice that Chapter C, for instance, contains a number of items including the yard, the square yard, the cubic inch, the hundredweight, the quarter of a ton, but all these we are familiar with and we know how the Government propose to deal with them. We notice also the British thermal unit stamped on the side of so many of your Lordships' boilers, and the therm. But C is the chapter which contains the units to be abandoned by the end of 1979. Chapter A contains the units which are passed as acceptable: B the ones which have to be abandoned by the end of 1977 if the draft Directive becomes a Directive, and I take it that the actual existence of the Bill implies that that is the case.

1127
In that we find, among other things, the calory, with which so many noble Baronesses have had a long-standing love-hate relationship: and also the hand, and many of your Lordships will find yourselves at a loss to describe your hunters if you are not allowed to use it. Those apparently, according to the document that I have referred to, have to go out of use by 1977. I have not yet found them in the Bill, which I find puzzling. Also we have a Chapter D which contains the items which may come under review by 1979. As I say, I will not dwell on this longer but it would be very agreeable to know what consultation, and particularly what Parliamentary consultation, was taken before these items were put into these chapters to be inserted into what it would appear is about to become a piece of legislation which Parliament has no choice but to accept.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I have the noble Lord's permission to ask him a question? In view of that long series of criticisms of this piece of legislation, is it the intention of the Opposition to vote against the Bill, because if that is their intention they can rely at least on one vote from this side—mine.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, it is always heart-warming to give way to the noble Lord because he always surprises one almost in the last sentence with the agreeable nature of his interruption. I should not like to go quite as far as that at this stage. I have asked, after all, for information. I have said that it may be regrettable that many of your Lordships are not aware of what processes this document has gone through. I am one of those, and for that I must apologise.
We shall be looking at this Bill very carefully between now and Committee stage with a view to removing what appear to be a number of anomalies, to elucidating a number of conundrums, and to making it a more serviceable tool for the purpose intended, and for assuring that no unnecessary or dictatorial powers are given to this, or indeed a successor Government. We shall also want to satisfy ourselves similarly about the powers given to the inspectorate, and the provisions for consultation by the relevant Minister before he sets in motion the machinery for making Statutory Instru-
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ments. We will be particularly interested in any proposals the Government have to render more satisfactory the present arrangements for rounding or approximating weights which at present can lead to exactly indentical packs of tea being half a gramme different in their translation, as it were, on the label from imperial to metric.
At present what we see before us is a Bill which, while it goes some way to satisfy some sections of the manufacturing and distributive industries, goes rather further to exasperate a few of them and a very long way towards antagonising the purchasing public. Your Lordships will be aware by now that it is the consumer with whom we are concerned principally in this and that there are no substantial difficulties in the industrial field. Let us remember that for more and more people in the consuming area, a shopping expedition has become a rather alarming experience in the last few years. More and more people on fixed incomes and on incomes that do not keep pace with inflation feel a vague sense of insecurity as they enter the supermarket or village store—though in the latter they are perhaps a little reassured by the fact that they can probably get credit—because they cannot be sure exactly how much of what they want or need they are going to be able to buy with the contents of their purses. If we add to that an element of uncertainty as to exactly what quantities it is that they must make their purchases in, and a sneaking suspicion that goods prepacked in metric sizes 10 per cent. above their imperial counterparts are dearer as well, we shall be doing them a grave disservice.
My Lords, I have already suggested that the poorest proportion of these customers may find themselves temporarily at least unable to buy one or other item on their weekly shopping list. It is this sort of feature that gives the Bill a bad name, that makes many of us sympathetic to arguments against compulsion, and that must be alleviated wherever possible. I feel that the Government have done less than is possible to convince the purchasing public of the desirability of this piece of legislation. If we do not welcome the Bill with enthusiasm, we will at least endeavour to see that it leaves this House better than it entered it.
4.2p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, adopted such a hostile tone towards a piece of legislation which, in my view, is very much in the interest of the consumer. I assure him that when he speaks of the consumer being the person with whom he is principally concerned, he is not alone in that. Everybody in this House and. I should hope, in another place is vitally interested in the effect of any legislation on the consumer, particularly legislation which is of such immediate impact as the change in the system of weights and measures. I hope, therefore, that Lord Elton will not claim any monopoly of interest on the side of the consumer. At least the noble Lord's speech elicited an interesting intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. It never occurred to me that one of the disadvantages of this piece of legislation is that Lord Shinwell will be deprived of the opportunity of measuring the height—or is it the width?—of his horses in units of hands. It was at that point in the speech of Lord Elton that Lord Shinwell intervened saying that he would he on his side if the Conservatives chose to press the matter to a Division
The only other point in the speech of Lord Elton to which I wish to refer is his reference to what he described as a failure to please any section of the community. The gist of his remarks seemed to be that the failure to specify definite end dates was annoying to some people and that the introduction of the legislation had disappointed others. If the noble Lord reflects on it, I think he will see that that was inevitable. We cannot always please 100 per cent. of the people; in legislating we have to do what is best for the vast majority and in my opinion, and in the opinion of my Party, that is precisely what this legislation does.
I have always thought that we had a tremendous amount to gain from the adoption of SI units and I sincerely believe that the longer we spend in the period of transition, the further we delay the time when these benefits can be realised. The worst possible situation we could face would be one of prolonged retention of imperial units for some purposes while metric units are already in general use for other purposes. Nothing could be more confusing to the public and
1130
wasteful to manufacturing and retailing industry than to have two completely different sets of measurements operating in parallel for an indefinite period.
The advantages of the SI system are well known and should not need rehearsing yet again. The fact is that throughout the world—this was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Oram—there are very few countries which have not yet decided to make the change, and it is worth naming them. They are Burundi, Burma, Liberia and the two Republics of the Yemen, which are hardly the markets which immediately spring to mind when that fine old cliche " export-led boom " is under discussion. But if the argument for change is so overwhelming, why is legislation necessary? That is a legitimate question, and the answer, as Lord Oram pointed out, is that manufacturing industry retailers, trade unions and consumer organisations have, virtually unanimously, asked the Government to lay down a definite time-table so that they can make firm plans and minimise the cost. And in speaking about the cost we should remember that it is a once-for-all cost, whereas the benefits which we expect will continue for ever.
It has been said by a few opponents of the Bill—not by Lord Elton—that this legislation, compelling us to use metric units by law, is an infringement of liberty. However, as Lord Oram pointed out, Governments have for many years laid down permitted sizes and weights, and if most people are agreed that it is necessary for these units to be expressed in metric quantities, then it is obviously a denial of democracy if a small minority is permitted to insist on the retention of imperial units.
There remains the question, the most important one—this is the only point on which I agreed with Lord Elton—What will the effect, if any, be on prices in the shops? It is widely believed that decimalisation of the currency triggered off inflationary price increases and some people fear that the same may happen with metrication. So far as I am aware (and Lord Oram confirmed this), there is no evidence whatever to suggest conclusively that decimalisation led to a general wave of price increases, although there were a few instances of profiteering. I was discussing this with the taxi driver

1131
who brought me to the House this afternoon. He told me of a café where, prior to D Day, the proprietor charged 4d for a cup of tea and 4d for a slice of toast, which meant that he could buy a cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast for a shilling. Immediately after D Day, he told me, the proprietor charged 10p—that is, until people noticed. This is where the point about competition comes in, although he did not protest at the time, he could have decided not to patronise that café or tea stall any longer, and the same option will be open to any consumer who discovers overcharging taking place as a result of the conversion to metrication. However, we are now far better organised to deal with this issue than we were at the time of decimilisation. At the same time, it is now less easy for the unscrupulous trader to " con " the public because so many goods are already sold in metric units. Thus, the consumer is familiar with them whereas, as Lord Oram said, the changeover to decimal currency occurred on a single day.
As to the costs falling on manufacturers which might legitimately be recoverable in higher prices, I disagree with Lord Elton that there should be any additional tax or other incentive given to them to cover their costs. That would obviously be grossly unfair on, for example, the sugar manufacturers, who are already making the change voluntarily, and I do not think that any group in industry or commerce has seriously advanced that case to your Lordships' House. Certainly, in none of the literature which I received before this Second Reading has there been any suggestion that public money should be used to help finance the changeover. If the metric packs are generally speaking very slightly larger than imperial ones, costs ought to fall because the amount of material used in packaging increases as the square of the dimensions, whereas the contents increase as the cube of the dimensions. Therefore, the amount of material necessary for a given pack would decrease as the 10 per cent. increase in size came into effect. We have already seen this in the case of cornflakes, where there was a 10 per cent. increase in the size of the pack and where the manufacturers offered the public only a 5 per cent. increase in price, so that the cost per unit was reduced.
Much more important. is the tremen-
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dous opportunity which metrication gives us to standardise the range of containers and pack sizes so that we should be able to exploit significant economies of scale both in manufacture and in the reduction of inventories in manufacture and retailing which should also lead to keener prices. I do not believe that people really think that the shopkeeper will have an opportunity to cheat them nor that costs are likely to rise. I believe that the few cranks who still oppose metrication—for instance, the English National Party, led by Dr. Hansford Miller—do so for purely emotional reasons which they have to cloak in a semblance of rationality purely for public consumption. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will reconsider some of the things that he said this afternoon so that he does not fall into that group.
4.13 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I suppose that there is no one else in this House who welcomes this debate quite as warmly as I do. For four years until last month, I was deputy chairman of the Metrication Board and I was therefore, by the conventions of this House, obliged to remain silent when these matters were discussed. I extend my sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, who, being still chairman of the Metrication Board, is unfortunately not able to participate. On the other hand, Lord Ritchie-Calder, a former chairman, is now free from bondage and will be able to testify to the truth. I hope that we shall continue this debate on a higher level than, for example, the letter which appeared in the Daily Telegraph some 10 days ago—and no doubt it is a favourite newspaper of the noble Lord, Lord Elton—in which a gentleman from West Wickham asked, " If God had intended man to go metric why did he choose 12 Apostles and not 10? " He had failed to observe that the Creator in his wisdom had given us 10 fingers and 10 toes.
I was extremely disappointed in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I will say frankly to him that I thought it sour, superficial and, in a very important respect, thoroughly irresponsible, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in bringing in a quite spurious suggestion of incentives. That is a matter which I shall touch on in a moment,

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but I felt that the noble Lord fell so far below the standard that we are accustomed to expect from him in this House that I trust that, in the future stages of the Bill, he will reconsider some of the things which he has unfortunately said this afternoon. I would remind him that, hitherto, this has not until very recently been a matter of Party difference. The decision on the part of the United Kingdom to adopt the international system of measurements—and I would remind the House that it is not just a European system but an international one—has been taken with the full cognisance and consent of Ministers of all Parties in Government over the past decade and more. If I may remind the noble Lord that Ministers on his own side who have been responsible for and who supported this move include Mr. Rippon, Mr. Peter Walker, Mr. John Davies, Sir John Eden and Sir Geoffrey Howe, it will be seen that the support covers a fair spectrum of opinion in the Conservative Party. On our side, Mr. Jay and Mr. Benn, who are not exactly ardent Europeans, supported the change and the present Minister, who has given us perhaps the most effective support, is Mrs. Shirley Williams.
I would also remind my noble friend Lady Phillips, to whose remarks on the radio I shall refer again later, that she used the words before millions of listeners that the Government was " rushing into the matter ". She should know. It is true that she has not attended a meeting for nearly three years, but she is still a member of the Advisory Committee on Consumer Affairs of the Metrication Board, and she should know that we are now in the eleventh year of a programme of conversion to the metric system, the decision having been taken at the insistence of British industry in 1965. I stress that this was not a spontaneous notion of the Government of the day. They recognised that it would not be an easy or, probably a popular process, but it was under the consistent pressure of British industry that Britain decided in 1965 that we must face this change. It was because our industrial leaders—not the politicians—at that time quite rightly foresaw that the world was going metric. I know that certain people have been disposed to link the change with the decision whether or not to apply for membership of the
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Common Market, but that is really only a fraction of the problem. When, two days before Christmas, so it received no publicity in this country, the President of the United States signed the legislation passed by Congress, the very last argument of all on the international front for remaining imperial—and what an old-fashioned sound that has. anyway!—had really vanished.
We cannot, as the Confederation of British Industry has said in the notes which I think it sent to a number of' noble Lords in the last few days, afford to dilly-dally as we have for the past decade. It has done us no good at all. That is why I was so much disappointed with the lack of resolution in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. He cannot possibly have devoted his considerable intellectual powers to this subject. Otherwise he could not have spoken as he did. If he had taken the trouble even to read the memorandum of the Confederation of British Industry he would have appreciated their view. I know that he said he was not addressing himself to the problems of industry but was concerned with those of the consumer; but they are indivisible.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I merely wish to say that the noble Baroness has accused me of superficiality and something approaching incompetence, and also of reading the Daily Telegraph. I am not sure which is the more serious charge. I wish she would not also belabour me for not having done my homework. The fact that I do not draw the same inferences as she does does not mean that I have not done my homework nor, when she comes to read Hansard tomorrow, as I hope she will, will she find that I have followed a partisan Party policy or attempted to obstruct the Bill.
Baroness WHITE: Handsome is as handsome does, my Lords. We shall see what happens in the later stages. I repeat I that those concerned with industry and commerce in this country have been of the view, which they hold now almost with desperation, that unless the country really faces this problem with resolution we shall be wasting time and involving ourselves in quite unnecessary expense and shall be adopting a posture which cannot bring us respect in the rest of the world. After all, if so many other countries—now, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, virtually

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the entire globe—have decided to take this step, how do we look if we are so fearful that we cannot face the problems? I certainly do not belittle them, but if we tackle them with resolution they can be solved, and I am quite certain that that is the desire of industry and the desire of those concerned with commerce. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned organisations which were against this Bill, though he did not specify which they were. The majority of those of the highest standing in the fields to which I have referred—the CBI, the Food Manufacturers' Federation, and the Retail Consortium; I could give a long list—all recognise that the time for delay and hesitation has passed and that we should now bend all our energies to solving the remaining problems.
The noble Lord mentioned costs. I do not wish to weary the House with details of the extreme difficulty of calculating the true cost of conversion. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, the immediate cost can be defined, but the ultimate benefit, which is spread over a very long period—possibly to infinity—is much more difficult to calculate. If one tries to estimate any global figure for this change it must be remembered that it has been the common experience of all countries which have attempted this exercise that it just cannot be rationally undertaken. I might refer the noble Lord, or any other noble Lords who are in any doubt on this point, to the experience of the Australians and the Canadians, and in particular to the very thorough study made in the United States before that country finally took the decision. The United States report to Congress on "A metric America", made plain that those responsible would very much have liked to be able to estimate the cost. They went to considerable trouble in their endeavours so to do. As was said in the report:
" The ideal outcome of the procedure would have been a simple aggregate figure representing the net benefit or cost to the nation of going metric under a co-ordinated national plan. This conceptually simple approach was not feasible. Virtually all the costs would be incurred during the transition period at a time when benefits were only just beginning. Many of the benefits would come after the transition, and some are intangible: others cannot be attributed purely to metric change."
All I can say is that those of us who have studied this problem over many years have come to the conclusion that the costs
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of not going metric are difficult to calculate, but are very considerable indeed—more particularly the costs of maintaining two systems. That is really the final folly: to try to continue with two systems, with all the work and effort of accounting, of stock keeping, of thinking in two systems, as well as the delays and hesitations that obviously must arise from that situation. So the arguments in favour of a more rapid change are irrefutable. In the past few months, in fact from the moment when in another place the Minister, Mrs. Williams, under pressure from conservatives (I say that with a small c ") on both sides of the House, withdrew the Bill—so that we are now handling a No. 2 Bill in this House—the expressions of dismay which were received from every consumer organisation, except the one represented by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips—
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, would the noble Baroness forgive me if I intervene briefly? I wonder why she assumes that anyone who happens to have a slightly different opinion from hers is either sour or conservative?
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Baroness thinks that perhaps she is both. I think she must know that the majority of consumer organisations in this country were very much disturbed by the statements made by the organisation which she represents, which has been in the business for rather less time than most of the others. My noble friend Lord Oram referred to a number of the organisations with which the Metrication Board has been in constant consultation, year in, year out, as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, can testify. There is the Consumer Association, publishers of Which?, which is extremely well known, the Housewives' Trust, the Women's Institutes. One could go on indefinitely listing such organisations of people with whom we have discussed the very genuine problems of dealing with consumer protection. Not least among them is Age Concern. At the Metrication Board we went to the most considerable trouble and expense to commission a special study of the particular needs of older persons. Not everyone is such a robust nonagenarian as my noble friend Lord Shinwell, but obviously even he finds metrication a little difficult.

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We recognise that there are difficulties, but may we look at the other end of the age spectrum, the young people? This is something which concerns me more than almost any other aspect of the delay in this change. In this country, in the past six or seven years at least, we have had a process of education based, so far as arithmetic is concerned, very largely on the metric system; and in many schools it has been based exclusively on the metric system. Among those who were most dismayed at the thought that the Bill which we are now discussing might be postponed or even abandoned were the educational organisations in this country. We reckon that by now 15 million of our population of children and young persons have been brought up in familiarity with the metric system and find our old imperial system—not the metric system—the difficult one. The metric system, when it is conjoined with decimal currency, which we now have, is infinitely simpler on its own merits. It is a failure to recognise that which leads me to despair of certain noble Lords and others who fail to see that we are really damaging the younger generation, and the efficiency of that generation, by our slowness, as an older generation, in consummating this change.
I have here pages of comments from all the main teachers' organisations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, protesting at the possibility of any further delay in bringing the world outside the school into line with the teaching which has been carried on, with great devotion and assiduity in most cases, within the school. The National Association of Head Teachers writes:
" Most serious would be the waste of human resources. A whole generation of young people now thinks metrically, and for the less gifted child, school mathematics are now a great deal less irksome."
This is extremely important. The National Union of Teachers wrote last month:
"The union therefore reiterates its general support for the proposals which have already produced great benefits in our schools and strongly opposes the postponement of existing plans. Important developments have already taken place in the majority of schools and to defer the full implementations of metrication is an indefensible waste of valuable time and resources and could create problems in future educational planning."
I could give your Lordships a number of further quotations—although I shall
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not—from the Headmasters' Association, the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education, and so on. Surely the message is clear: those who delay this change further are responsible for undermining the efficiency of our industry, for adding to the costs of our industry, our exports, and our commerce, and also for undermining the confidence of young people, who have been brought up to face a modern international world and to look outward and onward and not inward and backward.
My Lords, I appreciate that there are, as I have said, very genuine difficulties for many consumers, and that they are entitled to all the assistance which can be given them by Government, by voluntary organisations, by the retailers and shopkeepers, and by anyone else concerned; but one must be rational about this. For example, I understand that the National Consumer Council suggested at the weekend that goods in certain categories should be allowed to change to metric only if, in the previous six months, their prices have gone up by less than 5 per cent. My Lords, how unpractical can one be? When such a body makes a statement of that kind it can only mean that their natural and very proper concern for the consumer has completely blinded them to the practicalities of the case. No one who has weestied, as I and my colleagues on the Metrication Board have had to wrestle, with the individual problems of different industries, and who knows how important it is for them to have some kind of certainty as to timetable and how frustrated they are when they cannot have a point of time by which they can be assured that the change will take place in an orderly fashion, could for one moment be so irresponsible as to suggest that a factor of uncertainty of this nature should be built in.
It really is incredible that an organisation of public standing like the National Consumer Council should have been responsible for such a proposition, which can only mean that they have not studied what goes on before you change to metric in any particular sector. If you knew what had to go on before you could make the change you would never suggest anything of the kind. That is one reason why I greatly welcome the provisions in this Bill which will give the Government the power—not the duty, but the power—

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after due consultation and with proper discrimination, where necessary, and where it is fully agreed with the trade concerned, to have a cut-off date after which, for purposes of trade (and I emphasise that: only for purposes of trade), it will he illegal to continue to use the imperial system. This does not mean that you cannot go on using your old cook books or your old pattern books, or whatever, in private; this is purely in the trading situation.
I did my very utmost, in one particular sector of fabrics, furnishing materials and carpets, to go as far as I could on a purely voluntary basis, and I should like to pay tribute to those who co-operated to the full in this process. We had a date—February of last year—when the change was to take place. The large retailers, the major stores, the large consortia, took considerable pains. The Metrication Board did what it could to help them, but it was primarily their effort. We very largely succeeded, only to find that a considerable number of their competitors in smaller shops, who were of course under no compulsion whatever to change, decided that it would be simpler for them not to, and did not. The result of this was endless confusion for the consumer, for the shopper, and a gradual disillusionment on the part of those who had gone to such trouble to effect the change.
It was this experience, among others, which convinced the Government and also the retail organisations concerned that the only sensible thing to do was, after due consideration, as I say, and with full concern for the interests and conditions in any particular section of the trade, for the Government then to say, Look—from such-and-such a time all trading must now be done on a uniform basis; in other words, in the new metric system." It is really the only intelligent way to tackle this problem; and, therefore, I am very glad indeed that the Government have had the good sense to include such a provision in the Bill.
Finally, my Lords, I should like to refer again to the problem that we all face in educating the consumer. This is one of the most difficult things. The Metrication Board has a certain sum of money, and can spend it on advertising in the public Press, on leaflets, on conversion tables, on various aids in the shops and
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so forth, and ultimately, I suppose, if it was given enough money, it could go into some television advertising. I believe an even greater effort is needed—something which would be impossible for the Metrication Board even if it were more munificently financed and impossible for the voluntary organisations, on whose co-operation, for which we are all so extremely grateful, we have so greatly depended. It seems to me that this is something which should be tackled as a long-term national problem by our broadcasting system, particularly television. The BBC has done an absolutely magnificent job. I think, in tackling a quite different problem—that of illiteracy. Their " On the Move " programme has, I think, won tremendous renown.
It seems to me that, to help the consumer over the next year or two with the problems of shopping in metric, a comparable effort is needed, and I would hope very much that the Metrication Board, with the Government Department concerned, would have consultations with the BBC to see whether they could not take up this challenge. I think it is needed, not by means of one or two programmes here and there but as a sustained effort over a period, may be this coming winter and perhaps the winter after, so that people can adapt to the new system with confidence. We have made tremendous progress on the industrial front, and we are making substantial progress on the commercial and retail front. I do not think that any one organisation can really tackle the problem on the consumer front, and I would therefore hope that, in co-operation with the Government Department, with the Metrication Board and with all the voluntary organisations which have been so helpful up to now, not least with the educational establishment and the teachers' organisations, we should now pull ourselves together and, with the cooperation of our national broadcasting and television system, say, " Look—we have two years. Let us get through with it, let us get it done; let us face the problem, tackle it and win through ".
4.39 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, for I think the first time in my career in your Lordships' House I must preface my remarks with an apology for not being able to attend the whole of this

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debate this afternoon. This is not by my wish at all, but I have inescapable obligations to third parties; and I shall read the rest of the debate in Hansard with the greatest interest and attention tomorrow. I am sure anybody who knows how closely I have been associated with these matters in the past will exculpate me from any voluntary wish to absent myself.
It is difficult to conceive how to make a Second Reading speech on what is rather a Committee stage type Bill. But those who preceded me succeeded in doing so and f shall try to do the same. The most general aspect of the Bill is to empower the Minister to get a move on and this I thoroughly endorse. But getting a move on with what? Essentially a work of altruism. At a certain measure of inconvenience to ourselves, which should neither be overestimated nor underestimated, we can simplify the educational and arithmetical work for children for ever—for our children, our grandchildren, their children and their grandchildren, for as long as language has its present form; because our language is a decimal language and metrication involves learning the practical units in which we carry out our transactions within the structure of the language that we speak.
We count from nought to nine and then ten; and ten times ten is one hundred. Ten hundreds are a thousand and we have a word for it. The Greeks had a word for ten thousand, a myriad. The Hindus had a word for 100,000, a lakh. We have a million, a billion and a trillion. This is true of all the sophisticated languages. I am not talking about the primitive bush languages which have words for " one " and " two " and then nothing more except " many ". This applies to all sophisticated language: the Indo-European, the Turco-Tartar languages, the Semitic languages—all are based on decimilisation. The advice Jethro gave Moses about delegated authority in the Book of Exodus is a decimalised scheme: to divide the children of Israel into tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. So metrication goes back far into a time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
We must retrace this system of language in order to describe practical units. At the
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time of the French Revolution, European units of measurement were just a chaos. It has been my professional responsibility at one time to do my homework on the history of currency; and a long dreary tale of muddle it is. Every attempt to reform it always landed into deeper and deeper arithmetical difficulties for one reason or another until the French Revolution, when some theorists decided to make a new beginning with a decimal system. At the Treaty of Amiens in 1809 we had the opportunity to get aboard the band wagon. If only we had done so then, it would have been so easy. As time goes on, our society gets more and more complex and more and more interlocking interests need to be reconciled and they become more various and the operation of reform becomes more difficult. Therefore the job which is started earliest gets finished earliest.
I am at one with the noble Baroness, Lady White, in the need to get a move on. I think there tends to be a certain amount of misunderstanding between the units specified as legal units and the shopping module. You do not go into a wine and spirit merchants and ask for 26⅔ fluid ounces of whisky. I would take a bet that the majority of your Lordships do not know that a bottle of whisky contains 26⅔ fluid ounces. Whoever cooked up that extraordinary sum? It is quite simple. The unit in the wholesale trade is a two-gallon case of 12 bottles: and if you divide 12 bottles into two gallons you get 26⅔ fluid ounces. But you do not ask for that in the shop. You say, " Give me a bottle of whisky!" When we go decimal—and I shall declare an interest as a director of the Distillers Company—it happens, conveniently for us, that 26⅔ fluid ounces is almost exactly 750 millilitres, which is three-quarters of a litre. We are not going to one-litre bottles; we are not going to scrap our bottling plants and our commercial arrangements. We shall simply re-label: " 750 ml " or " three quarters litre " and we shall carry on selling just the same.
Again, if I go into a grocer's to do my weekend shopping—I sometimes do this to help my wife—I say, " Give me half a pound of cheese! " What I do not get is half a pound of cheese. I get a lump of cheese which the grocer holding the cutting-wire judges to be approximately half a pound. That is put on a 'price-calculating scale and I am given exactly

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the weight by price per unit and I pay the amount. I could ask for a " small half pound " and the grocer can wield the string or wire and say, " Like that? I say, " Yes ". That is how people do their shopping. That is why in France you buy cheese by the livre which is half a kilo. In fact, our pound is not half a kilo. A kilo is rather more than 2 lbs; but I have no doubt that in due course we shall modify the concept of the pound to mean half a kilo; so that the word will remain in the language after having changed its meaning.
It seems to me that people tend to make confusion over this. You do not necessarily buy things by the unit but by the bottle—and a bottle of soya bean sauce need not necessarily contain the same cubic centimetres as does a bottle of Tabasco sauce. This will have been settled by the marketing manager of the people who sell it. You buy a bottle.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is not here. I do not suppose that he is sorry, because he has got it hot and strong continuously and much as I should like to let him off the hook I must even in absentia give him a wigging over the special pleading that he indulged in. Let us take the first matter. This was the lady who was down to her last 50p piece so that she could not buy something which was priced at 55p. But you are always down to whatever sum of money happens to be in your pocket. There is always something that you are not able to buy. It does not matter whether it is 50p or 45p or £1.55p —whatever it is, there is still something costing £1.56 that you must either put " on the slate " (if you can) or go without.
To speak as though this situation is going to be transformed as a result of metrication is special pleading, the finding of bad reasons to justify your not doing what you had made up your mind in advance that you were not going to do. Then there was the question of resentment. People are continually suspicious that somebody is doing them down. Some people are. Some people always have to grumble. If they do not grumble about decimalisation they will grumble about metrication or they will grumble about the weather. If we were never going to take forcible executive action for fear that people might grumble, we
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should do nothing. Therefore it is time that we got a move on and I endorse the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Oram, gave for getting on with this Bill.
It is a mistake to go on shivering on the brink and putting off the jump into the water. You indulge in this in the belief that the water is very cold. My experience is that even if it is cold there is an even colder wind outside and the water feels warm when you get into it. I think we should get a move on and push this through as quickly as possible. I have two experiences of metrication in companies with which I was associated. In one, we had a large export order where we had to quote everything in metric. We said: " Do not let us take two bites at the cherry; let us go metric now. Bang!—this year ". We did it and it did not cost much. That is all ancient history now and we are metric. In the other case, we decided to metricate all new models and to keep the old system going side by side on old models and their spare parts. Then I listened to the special pleading by those who argued about holding spare parts in two standards, and what it would cost. But the old models would still have to be held, and the jigs and tools to make them. And the new models would have had to have spares held, too. So the special pleading was false and we metricated in stages. I believe that we should take no counsel of our fears but jump in and get a move on.
4.50 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I was going to start my speech in exactly the same way as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, because I ought to be somewhere else, and might, in that case, be deprived of the pleasure of listening to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, winding up. I hope that he will forgive me if I cannot stay until the end of the debate. May I congratulate him on the lucidity of his speech. I envied him being able to declare the Government's position in this matter. Six years ago when I spoke from the Box, then before the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury (who said just now some things with which I did not disagree), I was not in exactly the same position of clarity of position as are the Government. It was only a year after the Metrication Board had come into being, and it was early days at that time so far as metrication was concerned.

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For my part, I welcome wholeheartedly the Government's measure; in fact, I can say that for years now I have been waiting for it in Government and out of Government. The changes which have been made are really very simple. I do not think I have come across a Bill before where the real " guts " of it are in the repeals provision—that is to say, Schedule 4. What that does is to remove the last few words in particular of Section 10 of the Weights and Measures Act 1963 which says:
" … but the Board shall not so exercise their powers under this subsection "—
that is to add or remove any measures, or measurements or weights from Schedule 1 or Schedule 3 of that Act—
" as to cause the exclusion from use for trade of imperial in favour of metric units of measurement, weights and measures."
We will never get to the end of this business until the Government do just that. I regard this as the real " guts " of the Bill. The sooner we get there and do it, the better.
Metrication has been going on ever since 1965. Then Mr. Douglas Jay told Parliament of the intention of the Government that this country should go metric. The interesting thing about this is that it was before any question of our going into the EEC, and of course Mr. Douglas Jay was not in favour of going into the EEC in any case. I say this merely to illustrate the fact that metrication at the present time is nothing to do essentially with our going into the EEC. Of course, the EEC are making rules now that we are there. This was done in the interests of our international trade before this question really arose, or at any rate came to a climax. At the time when I came on the scene and stood at the Dispatch Box and made a speech, in 1970, the CBI had just said this:
" After five years' intensive preparation, industry is irrevocably committed to metrication ".
That was in 1970. Yet there are still some slaggards, laggards and recalcitrants who are still talking as if metrication were an open question.
My next point has been made clear by the noble Baroness, Lady White, and the noble Lord, Lord Oram. Industry committed themselves because our so-called system of weights and measures was complicated and irrational, and
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because, apart from the United States of America, all the major trading countries in the world were either already using the metric system or were well on the way to metrication. Now the United States of America, after seven years of study during which some metrication has been going on, has committed itself to metrication. Clearly, international trade is going to be conducted in the future in metric weights and measures, so whatever happens we are going to have to use metric weights and measures to a very large extent.
As the House knows, we are entitled to use either form of measurement at the present time under our present law. But is it really sensible for this country alone to carry on with imperial weights and measures for its own internal purposes? Would not this he a form of self-indulgence that we certainly could not afford? May I put it in another way. Those of us who I served in the Board of Trade (as it then was) found ourselves urging this country and others at all costs to remove non-tariff barriers as much as possible. Could one imagine a greater non-tariff barrier than our requiring all imports into this country to be marked in imperial weights and measures which were not being used anywhere else in the world except Burma, Brunei and one or two other places?
Australia started metrication after we did, in June 1970. As in this country, it is being carried out on a voluntary basis, and as in this country the aim was to complete metrication in 10 years. In five years 60 per cent. has already been completed there. Here in 10 years we have not got so far. It has been said that the costs of not going metric entirely are very considerable. That is true. There is the obvious savings in not having to keep double sets of stocks, in not having double sets of machinery, marking and all the rest of it, some for overseas and some for here. The savings for industry in terms of stocking are undoubtedly very considerable. I should like to take an example of fasteners which is contained in an Australian bulletin which was sent to me by Dr. F. T. Pearce of the University of Birmingham. I was very glad to see it. Marconi (U.K.) by adopting international fasteners have been able to reduce the numbers of types of screw used from 7,000 to 180. In Australia hinge

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manufacturers were producing 153 variations of imperial sizes for the building industry. They are now producing 11. They have reduced the number of sizes of fan belts from 1,000 to 100.
This is not only metrication; it is the opportunity that metrication gives for rationalisation. But it is a very important factor. Metrication is vital for industry and training. No doubt it is less important for road signs, speed limits and road distances. It would be silly in the long run not to express road distances in terms of kilometres once all the maps are being published in metric measurement. Metrication is a " must " both in manufacture and in commerce for us. Gradually it is becoming more acceptable for the consumer. An indication has been given of the progress which has been made in fabrics, carpets, hardware, and so on, and metric packs are already being introduced under recent regulations for pasta, salt, cornflakes and washing powder.
It has always been recognised that there were two main obstacles to progress in the consumer field. First of all, there are the requirements in Parts VIII and IX of the Weights and Measures Act that certain common foods— for example, butter, tea, coffee, jam, salt, sugar, flour, and so on—should only be packed in certain quantities. The second obstacle is the one to which I have already referred, the last words of Section 10 of the 1963 Act. These are the two main things that the Bill does—and high time, too! I congratulate the Government in doing this, even if the second major obstacle is removed in the obscure way which I have indicated.
My Lords, may I turn now to the question of the interim period. I hope that the Government will not allow dual marking to continue too long. The Australians, who are perhaps in some ways tougher and more realistic than we are in these matters, took the following line. I should like to quote to the House what they said:
" Experience has shown that sole metric marking of goods is an important part of consumer education rather than a phase to be introduced only after the education of the consumer. The Board believe that the dual marking serves little purpose in consumer education and merely extends the period over which reassurance must be given."
Given the climate of opinion in this country and the great sensitivity to the
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consumer, I would agree that it is better to have dual marking for a time, even though it is likely to slow up, rather than hasten, the education of the consumer. So long as the BBC gave expected temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade, people only registered the measure they were accustomed to, and it is only by ruthlessly refusing to give temperatures in Fahrenheit that people who are more familiar with Fahrenheit will bother to learn the Centigrade equivalents.
Of course, many difficulties will be involved for all of us. I can never remember my collar measurement in metric, but I daresay I shall learn it in the future and shall at least jot it down in my diary. It is a case of " thinking metric ", just as it was a case of " thinking decimal " when the currency was changed. But do not let us keep dual marking longer than is really required. I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White, when she spoke about cut-off dates which would be arranged for particular groups of products. But we are coming to the stage, if we have not already reached it, where a cut-off date should be provided for converting scales and balances used in the course of trade. Until that is done, some loose goods will still be sold under the old system; but sooner or later that decision has to be taken and it would be a good thing to have it done as soon as possible. The first thing is to mark with metric equivalents all goods which are prepacked in certain quantities. Then we must require them to be marked in metric quantities with the imperial equivalents; and, finally, the imperial measurement must be dropped altogether. This can be done for each product in accordance with the pre-planned time, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, when the manufacturers and packers need to change their machinery and equipment to metric weights and measures. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, referred to loose goods sold by weight. Incidentally, I am not sure that I share his general experience, because when I buy cheese it is usually in a horrible little bit of transparent paper and of pre-packed weight, and of course you cannot smell it so you do not know what it is like and I would much prefer to have it cut for me. In selling goods by weight it seems essential to lay down a fixed date by which scales in shops must be converted to metric weights.

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I am sorry that this is not in the Bill and perhaps the noble Lord will be able to explain why it is not there.
It is also sensible to provide in the Bill for occasions when it proves impossible to meet deadlines without causing shortages, as is done under Clause 8. It also is sensible to provide for consultation as and when time permits, and not to tic the Government down to a definite amount of consultation. I am sure it is wise to provide for consultation with consumers as well as with distributors' and manufacturers' organisations, even though decisions must be taken on logistics rather than on what consumers would like to happen. Certainly consumer consultations on price, when local shortages appear, would he desirable.
Lastly, I would ask, as I did in my earlier intervention—and I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way—why it is thought necessary to give powers to make orders prescribing the descriptions of containers to be used for particular goods and the material from which such containers are to be made. I can understand the reasons for prescribing the size and capacity of a container, though there are good practical reasons for not doing so in certain cases. If a container is clearly marked with the quantity of the contents, the fact that one container looks taller than another seems to me irrelevant. Surely the consumer should be expected to read details of the weight or volume of competitive packs, whatever their dimensions. As to the material from which containers are made, I would suggest to the noble Lord that the provision seems rather unnecessarily inflexible. It will tend to handicap and delay innovation. It is also bound to discriminate against some manufacturers. I take it that the Government will apply this to imported as well as to home goods and to goods imported from countries other than EEC countries as well as to EEC countries.
I hope the noble Lord will be able to say a little more about this when we come to the Committee stage. Personally, I am absolutely convinced that this Bill is in the national interest. I believe that the noble Lord was absolutely right in saying that we must have an orderly and planned transition and as speedy a one as is practicable. I would assure the noble
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Lord that I personally would certainly not oppose this Bill.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, from the various murmurings I have heard, I seem to be cast as the villain of the piece this evening. If I am described as a crank, as irrational or non-intellectual, it does not bother me in the least because, so far as I can recall, from time immemorial anyone who dared to go against the mainstream was always described as " a crank ". One can read that even about Louis Pasteur.
We have been told that metrication is inevitable. So is death, my Lords, but one need not hasten the process unless one is convinced that it is to one's advantage. Metrication was first started in its more formal stages in this country in 1963, with the Metrication Board being set up under the Conservative Government of the time in 1971.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I beg the noble Baroness's pardon, but the Metrication Board was not set up in 1963.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I did not say 1963. It would help if some noble Lords would really listen.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: I was trying to.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I said that metrication was started in a formal state in this country in 1963. As I am surrounded by so many chairmen and ex-chairmen of the Metrication Board, I shall have to be careful about this. But I would suggest that even since 1969 the state of the nation has changed. I am not opposed in principle to metrication, but I am concerned that it might be introduced before inflation has really been brought under control. We have heard a great deal about what people believed happened during decimalisation. They believed that hidden costs were added because of decimalisation. I would be the first to agree that we have a very responsible distributive trade, and the industry certainly was not guilty of that, but the mere fact that people thought such a thing was happening means that we do not want to have the same belief arising again.

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When we get the metric size packs, they are larger, as the noble Lord pointed out. Let us take the kilo, for example, which is 2¼ lb. Therefore even half a kilo will be more than a pound, and when somebody goes to buy a larger pack inevitably it will be more expensive. Therefore people will relate a higher shopping bill to metrication. No matter what kind of education people are given, somebody will have to think of a very clever way to get round that difficulty. We have been given various reasons about the introduction of metrication—for example. it has been on the stocks for a long time now and we ought to carry it forward —but only at the end of his speech did the Minister mention the European Community. When I heard one of the Ministers at the Department of Prices and Incomes speaking to the National Consumer Council, of which I am a member, he mentioned this first; and those of us who are on the Select Committee on the Harmonisation of Instruments, which is sitting in this House, know that at this very moment there are two Directives before us on the changeover to metrication. So it would be fatuous to suggest that there is not some correlation—I put it no higher than that.
I would correct one detail of the statement that was attributed to me. I said on the radio that one of the British Members of the European Parliament, who is related to me, spoke about this subject at Strasbourg and pointed out that if people are to be convinced of the reality of these harmonisation proposals they must not be railroaded into decisions which they deeply suspect may add to their cost of living. They deeply suspect that this will add to their cost of living, and I am delighted to see that following discussions the Government have made changes in the original Bill and it is only fair to pay tribute to them. It is equally fair to pay tribute to the people who made the points which enabled the Government to embody those changes.
However, in Committee I shall be seeking further changes; first—which one of your Lordships did not like—to get general inflation under control before the orders are laid. The figure of 5 per cent. has been mentioned and that is near the target of the Government for 1977, so we shall not be doing anything different. So it is reasonable for orders not to be
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laid before we have an annual increase which is down to the level of 5 per cent.
Secondly, I shall be trying to introduce a compulsory six months' price freeze on each food product as it is metricated. That suggestion was put forward by a Minister at the Department. He is not row there, and has been promoted or moved sideways, but he suggested it as a possibility. So that this is not something which the National Consumer Council has just pulled out of the air. Of course, I recognise that chaos can result if we do not move in a tidy fashion, but I am not certain why we have to move in the way we are doing.
I shall give your Lordships a little gardening sum which I saw in the Sunday Telegraph, and which some of you may also have seen. In reply to a letter in a South African newspaper, the gardening expert said:
" I think your soil is a bit too acid. Try adding 1.3 kg. of lime on 7.28 square metres."
It seems to me that there is a simple way of putting over a proposition of that kind, and while it may not be an argument for opposing the Bill it is an argument for making certain that every consumer understands what is happening, and recognises that prices are not going up because of yet another change.
5.14 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I think that most of the arguments in favour of this Bill have already been put forward far better than I can do it myself. I cannot really appreciate the arguments against, and I am afraid that what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said shocked me. I have great admiration for his ability, and I can only conclude that he may have been speaking on behalf of some other opinion, as is often done by those on the Front Bench, and hope that he was not representing the Conservative Party as a whole.
I do not think anybody has gone so far as to say that we should not have metrication, but there are two other alternatives. First, we can slow down the pace; and, secondly, we can have both imperial and metric units lasting for some time. As regards slowing down the pace, I think that nearly every consumer organisation, apart from the National Consumer Council—which does not surprise me—has said that the sooner we get over this slightly

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traumatic experience the better. There is no doubt that for some years we have been dragging our feet unnecessarily on metrication. It is bound to come, it is coming fairly quickly and it will not be very long—I think 1978—before metricised packs from abroad begin to come on the market here. So if we are to have a proper phased programme, and see that it works in the best possible way for consumers, it behoves us to get on with the job at a reasonable pace taking all the difficulties and factors into account.
One of the maxims in life that I have always believed in is that if a certain course of action has been decided on one should pursue it with resolution, because only if one does so will the full benefits result. But in Britain today—and this is just one more example—there seems to be a dither syndrome, which may well be the reason why we are in our present position. One of the most important factors is our gross national product and there is no doubt that metrication will help there, but it depends on our manufacturers and duality of goods is far more expensive for them and makes life far more difficult. So let us, just for once, press forward with a little more resolution and a little less looking backwards.
What have the National Consumer Council said? They have said, " Delay, certainly on food, until we get down to inflation of 5 per cent." That would be a wrecking Amendment, because it looks as if our imports—and we must not forget that we are dependent upon our imports of food to an immense degree—will not get down to 5 per cent. for many years. Furthermore, it has been argued that it is better not to wait until there is no inflation. I do not know why, because, if even some people try to make a profit out of the changeover, with our present rate of inflation it will be only a month or two before it evens out. At the very worst, they will have put up the prices two months early and with our present rate of inflation that will not make much difference.
This Bill is not a charter for unreasonable haste. It is a charter so that we can move at a reasonable pace in the interests of the consumer. I shall be very sorry if people put their ears to the ground and find excuses and reasons of little weight for delaying our changeover to metrication.
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It is not popular, and those who like to play to the gallery will no doubt have their ears to the ground.
5.19 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have to declare an interest and air a grievance. Your Lordships will already have had drawn to your attention the interest which I have to declare, that I was the first chairman of the Metrication Board; and my grievance is that I have been waiting ever since for this Bill. I do not know how much this has cost me in litres of beer because at my last Press conference in 1972 when I handed over to my successor, the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, I rashly wagered to sceptical Pressmen that Britain, for all practical purposes, would be metric by 1975. The sceptics were right and I was wrong because successive Governments have failed to remove the road block which would have made that possible.
As a word of personal explanation, may I say that in 1969 I undertook to introduce metrication by voluntary consent because I believed that that was the proper way to go about it and that in preparation for the acceptance and development of metrication in this country there was not much of an alternative. I ought to point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips (who is not here at the moment), that what happened was not a rushed job. As has been pointed out already, we have been on our way to metrication since 1875; we have had permission to use the metric system since 1897 and we have been operating through the interested parties—that is not a pejorative term because the people who undertook and demanded metrication were doing so in the best interests not only of themselves but of this country—who were already in action by 1965.
As has been pointed out, the Government at that time, with Douglas Jay at the Board of Trade, agreed to phase metrication over 10 years. When I came into the picture in 1969 I found—as I think we all found—that there was an impressively growing concern in terms of the British Standards Institution, the CBI and the big trading and industrial concerns who themselves were undertaking this process. However, I took on the job in 1969 on the clear understanding that

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when the black list of reluctants had become the white list of co-operating industries, commercial firms, schools, et cetera, the Government would amend the statutory Weights and Measures Act to make the conversion progressively complete.
As I have pointed out, since 1897 the use of metric weights and measures has been authorised as an alternative system. The amendment of the Act is necessary to extend the permitted uses until the alternative system becomes the primary system. Throughout one must bear in mind what has been reiterated: that however much we do this progressively, in the various sectors and circumstances we must have a very well conceived cut-off, otherwise if we wait for everything merely to converge, almost by accident, we shall not get very far. I once described the Metrication Board as a marshalling yard—that our function was to bring together all the programmes of all the sectors and despatch them in the right direction. The only trouble is that we have got the signals fouled up by the Government's failure to give us the all clear.
I want to pay a heartfelt tribute, and I feel that it ought to be done in this House —my noble friend Lord Oram has mentioned the Metrication Board and I want to be even more forthcoming in terms of that Board—to my former colleagues on the Board: to the long suffering members of the Board and the staff, to the deputy chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, who was my first vice-chairman, and to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who joined the Metrication Board. We are very good at making converts when we get them inside and work upon them, although both noble Lords brought their convictions with them.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the noble Lord had only 10 days in which to educate me.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: Yes, my Lords, but what a 10 days! We did the job. Then the noble Lord went on to become our Minister. That is the point. I want also to pay tribute to the then Director General, Gordon Bowen, and to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and his Deputy-Chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady White. I say this with great feeling
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because they have gone through, as I was beginning to go through. an enormous sense of official frustration: but they have, kept metrication going forward, despite everything. I think that those who have been involved will support me in paying tribute to the members of the steering committees dealing with the various sectors of the economy, whose job it has been to provide the liaison, the instruction and the persuasion among their colleagues —because they are drawn from these sectors—and who have given the drive which has produced the voluntary changes. It was a very effective structure that we created and it has been very effective in its operation.
As has been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Phillips, we have much to answer for—and by " we " I mean the Government and everybody else, including myself and the Metrication Board—because we ought to he concerned, as I am, about the 15 million school children who have already been taught metric. We had the early support of the Schools Council, and we had no difficulty whatever in persuading children to go metric because it is so much easier. It has been reckoned that a thousand hours per school life are saved simply by teaching the metric system and forgetting all the rote—I was going to say " rot " but I am deliberately putting an " e " on the end—of the imperial system. If you work it out. that means that we have saved 15,000 million school hours by metrication. We did not have any difficulty with the class teachers. At that time my daughter was a teacher and when she left to take her class every morning she always said. not " Goodbye " but " Go metric ". We had difficulty with certain head teachers in England but not in Scotland—there was no difficulty there whatever—to whom the discretion was left and who, we found, could be as cranky as some other people.
As has been stressed today, all the teachers' organisations have declared their support and growing disappointment at the present delay in going over to metric as the primary system. Therefore, I repeat that this may well be because they, we and successive Governments have betrayed their pupils who have emerged into a confused world, which we promised —at least I did—that they would not, of imperial measures. One must remember that as a result of this they have now to

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learn imperial as a second language of numeracy.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment, can he say whether he thinks that the whole of English literature ought to be re-written for the benefit of the children to whom he has referred, who in future are apparently to be deprived of any instruction in the use of imperial measurements upon which so much of our Anglo-Saxon heritage is based, or does he think that such children should no longer read our literature?
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have not quite grasped what the question means but I gather it means that because we are going metric, children will not understand Chaucer since a great deal of it is in imperial measurements—which even we would not understand. What I accept is that in teaching literature or any subject we have a function to make people aware of the folklore we are introducing. During my term I had to contend with two contradictory obstacles: folklore and the Common Market.
The vociferous critics—and there were fewer than the Government had thought—joined forces. There were those who saw the hallowed pint going to be threatened and those who were then opposing the Market who saw metrication as a kind of hi-jacking conspiracy to get us into the Common Market. I may say here that for other reasons my attitude to the Common Market should not have given that impression. It is really ironical now because whatever the fate of the Bill we shall be compelled to accept metric measurements by April 1978, as has been pointed out, under our EEC obligations, and we have to allow the free circulation of goods in metric quantities.
With regard to folklore, I am addicted to folklore myself, even when it accepts the length of a Viking's hug as the measure of a fathom or the stretch from the tip of a king's nose to the tip of his outstretched middle finger as the length of the yard. I am all for it. I would go into literature in these terms but I would not go into numeracy on the same terms.
When I was speaking as chairman to an audience of Scottish farmers and their wives I told them that I was in the
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invidious position of rewriting Robert Burns:
"Go bring to me 0·56827 cubic decilitres of wine
And fill it in a silver tassie
That I may drink before I go
A tribute to my bonny lassie."
But I also reminded them that Burns wrote in To a Mouse:
" A daimon icker in a thrave's a sma' request ".
I asked them what that meant and one farmer's bright wife said that a " daimon " was an odd piece, and somebody else said that an " icker " was a head of corn, but no Scottish farmer there knew what a " thrave " was. So I said that if a farmer met a thrave he would run a kilometre but the fact is that a thrave is 24 sheaves of corn, and if anyone can catch up with that and put it into the literature, he is welcome! In measurement terms it makes no sense at all.
The point which raised temperatures by degrees celcius in this discussion was of course the pint, but I used to tell people that my job was not to abolish the pint but to liberate the litre. We discussed the possibilities of the " metric pint " or 500 millilitres. That was too little, but 600 millilitres would have given them six teaspoonsful more of either milk or beer. One of the loudest opponents of the metric system once said to me on television that he would go to the barricades to defend the pint. I pointed out to him that I had not seen him tearing up the kerbstones to oppose the 15½ fluid ounces of beer which is what he gets in the tins in his refrigerator. It seems to me it is the physical exercise of pulling the pint which is at issue, and not the quantity itself.
As has been pointed out, when we start to calculate the advantages of metrication as regards costs, they are practically incalculable. You cannot do it; it is a once and for all in actual cost. One of the great things which have been demonstrated (and this is why the years which the locusts have eaten have not been completely devoured) is the fact that in all the processes of going metric we have reminded people that just the fact that we have to think about changing the nature of the unit means that you have to think about processes and the rationalisation; the clearing out of the lumber is one of the biggest factors in it. In fact, one firm in Scotland called themselves " MacMetric " and their slogan was " MacMetric, MacMoney."

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There is a limit to our nostalgia. We must not treat young people as though we were persuading children to give up their comforter—an imperial dummy. This is nonsense, rubbish. The rational arguments are now completely and totally overthrown. I particularly resent the delays in this country when I recall how we at the Metrication Board were the tutors of our Commonwealth cousins and the Americans who came to learn from us how to go metric painlessly—Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and the United States. All of them are now ahead of us. I was invited to give evidence before a committee of the United States Congress. I reminded them that their last symbol of allegiance to George Ill was the imperial system of weights and measures. They did not take that too well and I found out afterwards that they altered it to conventional measures. I recalled that in the age of reason—and I say this to those who think we are hurrying metrication—Jefferson gave the United States the first decimal coinage, well ahead of the French, but stopped short of metrication because he lost his nerve when they transferred what was to be the length of the pendulum at the Equator, which was to be the length of the metre and then somebody started to work it out on the length of the quadrant of the meridian. That really foxed him so he gave it up. They did not go metric then. Quincey Adams as Secretary of State 40 years later put forward to Congress all the arguments for the metric system and then advised against introducing it ahead of the United States' main customer—Britain. Over a century later the argument was being turned the other way: Britain should not go metric ahead of the United States. In this Bicentennial year the United States are now going metric, and going metric in the way in which perhaps we should have done, because they have done the clearance Bill before they started. The rest is how far one can get the co-operation, which has gone quite far in the United States.
Canada had the same hesitation as the United States about going metric. As Trudeau said:
"When you are in bed with an elephant you have to be careful which way it turns ".
Well, the United States has turned and Canada is going metric fast. Last week in Canada I was amused to find that the
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cigarette packages now provide a ready reckoner for conversion to metric units. They also have the compulsory notice about the danger of cigarettes to health, so now with the help of the cigarette manufacturers you can convert the size of your coffin into centimetres.
As so many other people here think, I believe that dual marking will he very dangerous and very expensive. People can play the " find the lady sort of game, and now we are really at the end of the road from which we are hoping to get through, because what we are doing here is to alter the locks, which I hoped we would do so many years ago, merely to open the door and let us go through and join the rest of the human race.
5.39 p.m.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, unlike Mr. Patrick Hutber who wrote in the Economic Opinion column of the Sunday Telegraph on 13th June last as follows:
" Baulked in the Commons, the Government is trying to sneak in compulsory metrication by introducing the Weights and Measures (No. 2) Bill into the Lords ".
For my part, I welcome the Bill, and therefore do not share his views. In effect it is an overdue measure, for I understand that for a number of years now, industry has been urging Labour and Conservative Governments alike—this was mentioned to some extent by the Minister in his opening—to repeal Section 10(10) of the 1963 Weights and Measures Act. One can understand this on the part of industry, on account of the intrinsic merits of the metric system itself: for instance,its simplicity and rational internal relationships. In this context, I was interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, refer to 1·3 kilos of dolomitic lime having to be spread over 9.28 square metres of soil. I should have thought it was fairly easy to spread 1300 grammes of this lime over land which was a fraction over 3 metres by 3 metres.
My Lords, secondly, what more frustrating when, in 1965, the case for a changeover to metrication was accepted by the Government of the day (with so many of our major imperial trading partners following suit) and still at that time no positive action being taken, especially taking into account the fact—which remains relevant today—that

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industry has to import, transform, export. British industry has also to contend with the fact that increasingly, countries wishing to buy our goods are refusing to permit entry to non-metric goods. This is an important aspect relevant to this debate.
Also, which foreign markets remain which have no plans whatsoever at the moment to change to the metric system? They are very small indeed. So far as I can ascertain, they are Brunei, Burma, Liberia and the Two Yemens, negligible in the context of the other countries in the world. For a small island like Britain which produces almost exclusively manufactured goods, every detail of whose dimensions and performance, components and fittings can be prescribed in purchaser's specifications, external trade considerations surely cannot be ignored in a debate such as this. I understand, too, that all the various inquiries that have taken place here and abroad which preceded the decisions to change over to metrication, stressed that the worst of all possible worlds would be a mixed, half-and-half situation.
In his opening remarks, the noble Lord the Minister referred in this context to the Hodgson Report. Perhaps in this instance we might look to Australia, to take one country which is a member of the Commonwealth, and referred to by the noble Lord who spoke before me. Australia is metricating positively, quickly and successfully. With your Lordships' permission I should like to quote what was said earlier this year by Mr. J. D. Norgard, chairman of the Metric Conversion Board. He wrote:
" All sections of the community had cooperated particularly well with the introduction of what, for most, was an entirely new system of measurement. This achievement could not be underestimated because metric conversion affected every man, woman and child in the country.
" The quickly expanding metric environment, together with the impetus the conversion program now had, indicated that Australia should be almost completely metric within the next couple of years, well ahead of schedule."
Mr. Norgard said—and this would apply to this country as well—that metric conversion affected every man, woman and child in the country. Would those who advocate stopping the change in its tracks consider the penalties which such a decision would incur, and the disadvan-
1162
tages? So far as I can gather, these same advocates who are for stopping any change say, " Save the shopping public from this unnecessary doctrinaire decision ". On the other hand, Dr. F. T. Pearce of the University of Birmingham said in a paper that came out this month:
" A whole series of retail bodies, speaking for their members, have set their faces against voluntary metrication ".
According to Dr. Pearce these would include butchers, grocers, dairies, bakers, chemists, voluntary groups, large multiples, departmental stores and coal merchants, all actually demanding mandatory terminal dates for imperial measures. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister, when he winds up, could confirm that I am right in this. In opening he mentioned that the retail trade—and he did not state which areas of the retail trade—thought that cut-off dates were desirable, but he did not go beyond that.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, sits down, could he tell us which products he is referring to? This is a very important point. As I understood him, the noble Lord said that countries were refusing certain goods which were not in metricated sizes. Is any food included in that? Do we actually export food which has been refused because it is not metricated?
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, I was quoting from a report by Dr. Pearce, and I was asking for the Minister's confirmation on this. In his report, Dr. Pearce took a wider view of United Kingdom metrication. For instance, he quotes grocers, but he does not specify which food products in the grocer's are concerned. But this is a valid point, to give details of the grocers and foodstuffs and such things; but I am giving a general attitude at the moment.
My Lords, to come back to the remarks last Sunday of Mr. Patrick Hutber, to which the noble Baroness referred, one would assume he is an advocate in favour of stopping the change in its tracks. I am not criticising him, but I wonder whether his remarks are totally unbiased when he refers to the Amendments of the previous Bill as being trivial Amendments. As the noble Baroness will know, a consultation with consumer organisations is not trivial; a display of conversion tables is not trivial, and priorities as outlined in a

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Ministerial letter are not trivial. So I think that Mr. Hutber has been rather sweeping in his criticism of this Bill. Has he considered sufficiently these two facts?— that industry, for its part, has had to support the burden of working, stockholding and selling in two systems for long enough, and secondly, that after all, industry produces a substantial proportion of its output directly for the shopping public. Therefore, I should have thought it reasonable that industry should soon reach—the sooner the better so far as I can see—a situation in which these products are equally acceptable in home and export markets. So, in conclusion, although I have not referred to it earlier, I do not feel that membership of the European Community —and I am in favour of membership is a central issue in this present metrication debate, although I would agree that we must, as a member of the Community, heed its Directives.
The Minister referred to an April 1978 deadline, but we have a certain amount of latitude. I feel, on the other hand, that the two overriding considerations are the merits of a more rational system and our ability to trade worldwide. I think those are the primary considerations we should bear in mind. As Dr. Pearce said in his June 1976 report:
" Consultation and planning need to come to quick completion in the food industry and in retail trades. Metric periods or days need to be set to give the necessary manufacturing lead time, for …"
and I agree with him; I hope he is right—
"… it is possible to complete metrication by 1980, but time is possibly no longer on our side".
5.52 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I should like, first, to apologise to the Minister, in that I am afraid that because of an engagement I had entered into before I knew the date of this debate I will not be able to stay for the winding up. I am not this evening speaking primarily as a member of the Liberal Party but in my position as President of the British Standards Institution. The British Standards Institution, working as it does on both a national and an international basis, has developed standards on a metricated basis, and worked early in this field, so that by as early as 1970 it had prepared standards ready for metrication. Since 1970 it has not in fact worked out any standards in
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any form except a metricated form, and the message from the British Standards Institution is to say to the Government: " Go forward as fast as you possibly can with metrication. The delay is damaging us in a number of very important areas ".
My Lords, when one looks at the main arguments which have gone on in this field they surely boil down to the effect on industry and the effect on the consumer. So far as industry is concerned, the evidence that has come forward from industry, to a point, at any rate, speaks for itself. Overwhelmingly, industrial opinion is in favour of going metric and going metric quickly. May I say here that from the point of view of industry nothing can he worse than the indecision in which once again it finds itself. Industry's complaint about so many Governmental policies is not that Governments do the wrong thing—though no doubt they frequently think that Governments do the wrong thing—but that industry is left in a state of uncertainty because Governments cannot commit themselves to a line of action and follow that line of action to a logical conclusion.
I sometimes wonder whether politicians and civil servants fully appreciate the costs in money, in time, in manpower and in morale—and all are important—that are involved when industry embarks on a change of this sort. If metrication is to be introduced up and down the country, individual men and women in scores, no, in thousands of' offices, in hundreds of factories, have a very great deal of work to do, and they have embarked on that work in the expectation that metrication will be introduced. Indeed, they began on this work, as did the British Standards Institution, in the days of 1969 when the Metrication Board was set up, because that was surely taken by industry and by organisations working in the industrial area as an indication that it was intended that we should go metric.
Of course, it is quite impossible for industry to go metric at the drop of a hat. They have to make this investment of effort if they are going to be ready when the legislation is passed. And to be informed that the House of Commons has decided to drop this Bill is yet another example of the unreliability of Governments. and the extent to which industry,

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already frustrated and angered by the treatment it gets from politicians, is again saying " What do you expect? They have not the slightest idea of what running our businesses in fact involves." So to come to a conclusion, and to put this conclusion into action as soon as possible, can only be the desire of those very large number of industries and industrial organisations which have registered their approval of the idea of metrication, and have laid their plans and laid out their money on the anticipation that it is going to come about.
Surely, it must be self-evident that it is in industry's interest to go metric. Something like 99 per cent. of our export trade, our so precious export trade, is now with countries which either already are, or are in the process of going, metric. It cannot but damage our trade if we are not producing goods to the same standards and the same system of measurement as the countries to which we wish to sell. it was, I think, the noble Lord. Lord Drumalbyn, who pointed out also that metrication has meant that it is possible I to have a greater degree of standardisation,. and, therefore, to reduce the number of parts and the variations which have to be produced in a whole variety of different articles. This saves money. The more you have to have a wide variety, far beyond what is necessary to meet reasonable choice of variations, of the same article basically, the greater are the costs. The more you can standardise, when it is not a matter of taste that comes into it, the more you can cut your costs. The more you can make articles in the sizes that your consumers overseas want, the better will be your export trade. So, of course, industry sees that this is going to add to its profitability, and, of course, for that reason, they want to go ahead with it.
There are other examples of the way in which metrication will make for greater efficiency in industry. In the steel manufacturing industry it has been estimated that where the staff are working to all-metric standards there is a saving of 15 per cent. in both design time and manufacturing time, because the measurements are easier to use and a greater efficiency arises from this. So clearly it is, for all these reasons, and no doubt many others I have not quoted, in industry's interest to go metric.
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That, of course, links with the second argument, the argument with regard to consumers, because what really benefits consumers in the long run is for industry to cut its costs, for industry to be able to produce more cheaply. If metrication is going to enable us to improve our export position, to cut our costs and produce more cheaply, this in the long run is overwhelmingly more important from the point of view of the consumers than any temporary inconvenience they may experience, or the result of any temporary little fiddle that it may be possible for some manufacturers and retailers to pull off during the actual stage of moving from Imperial to metricated standards.
So the consumer surely has to gain from the improved trading of industry, and it is up to all those other organisations, including indeed the National Consumer Council, to see that the benefits of that improved export trade, and the benefits of the improved efficiency which will come when we are metricated, are genuinely reflected in reduced prices to the consumer. But that is the point at which the National Consumer Council ought to be intervening, not to stop the process of metrication which can, in itself, so greatly benefit consumers.
I was, I must say, amazed, and other speakers have been amazed, that the National Consumer Council could seriously suggest that metrication should be delayed until inflation has fallen to only 5 per cent. I do not wish to add to those who are knocking the pound, but if we are to wait until inflation falls to 5 per cent., I fear that we shall wait for a very long time indeed. With the fall in the value of the pound, does anybody seriously consider, even the Government—except when they are doing their most shiny public relations act—that next year, the year after, or the year after that, that we are really going to get inflation down to 5 per cent.? That can be, as other speakers have said, nothing but a wrecking Amendment; a determination to see that metrication is put off until the Greek Kalends.
It is indeed the greatest disservice that the National Consumer Council could have done to put that Amendment in that particular form. If they had said, " Stop metrication now, and never bring the issue up again ", then at least the people concerned with metrication, the

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whole range of industry, would know where they stand. But they are saying: " Delay. Do it one day. Of course we are not really against the principle. The time will come when it will be right to introduce metrication, but not now. " It is the old cry of St. Augustine: " Make us pure, O Lord, but not yet. " The argument of 5 per cent. inflation is so naïve that surely they cannot really have expected that any of us would believe it.
Nor can I really accept the point made in the evidence that they produced in which they line up the effect of decimalisation on increasing prices. They have compared this with the effect of inflation and the expectation of how metrication will increase prices because of what will happen in the retail trade with the changeover. They compare this, in its effect on prices, with inflation. These are elements of such a totally different order that it is disingenuous in the extreme to mention them in the same breath. Nobody can seriously believe that whatever happens at the time of decimalisation, whatever could happen at the retail level at the time of metrication, could begin to be comparable with the rise in prices which has resulted from all the other reasons—which obviously we do not want to go into—for inflation in this country. The two things are simply not in the same world at all, and should not have been mentioned in the same paragraphs in the publications brought forward from the National Consumer Council.
Further, I would say that metrication, even for the consumer, after a very little while makes life easier, not more difficult, for the consumer. True, you have to learn the new measures, but most of us—and I am no great mathematician; far from it—find it easier to deal in units of ten than to deal with these extraordinary Anglo-Saxon figures which we have inherited from the misty past. I always find it difficult to remember whether there are 16 ounces in a pound, and 14 lbs in a stone, or whether it is the other way round, because there is no logic whatsoever in the relationship between ounces and pounds and pounds and stones. You have to memorise the whole thing and keep writing it in your pocket book, like the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, if you want to know when you are told how many pounds you weigh whether your weight in stones has gone up or gone down. When
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it is in kilos one will know the worst all the time.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, would my noble friend allow me to present her with a BSI conversion slide, which allows you to make this change very simply?
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, it cannot be all that difficult if, as we are told on very widespread advice, that the primary schools are advanced at it. I know that it is easier to learn some things when you are seven than when you are 70, but if the primary schools can do it I cannot accept that it is beyond your Lordships on either side of this House. Of course, there are one or two things in the Bill which, at Committee stage, one might like to look at again. My noble friend Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran has asked me to say that he is worried about Clause 4(2)(3A) where it says something about the method of closing a container. The method of closing a container is something which is perhaps best not included in an Act of Parliament. But that, surely, is a Committee stage matter and one which really ought not to be raised this evening.
I should like to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. At least I would like to if everybody else had not done so. I am beginning to feel rather sorry for the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who has been ticked off by everybody from every Bench so far—from in front of him, from across the passage, and from behind him. But at the same time I must say that I find it extraordinary that he should have advocated incentives for industry to do something which is so preeminently in their own interest. The way in which the Tory Party deviates from the pure gospel of free enterprise surprises me again and again. If it is in their interests, then why in Heavens name should public money be spent on encouraging them to do it? It is in their interest, and it is not a matter for extra expense, especially at a time when we are all urging the Government to spend less and less. The case against this Bill is the case that comes again and again from people who believe that the Continent is cut off by fog, and who really want to make the fog thicker and thicker: and the people who do not accept that if we are to hold our own in a world which can get on very nicely without us, then we have got to get in

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line with the way in which they do their thing, and not expect that, against all the evidence, they are going on tolerating our old-fashioned ways.
6.8 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I count myself fortunate in replying to a debate such as we have had on this subject, not only because of the almost unanimous support that the Bill has received—I think that only my noble friend Lady Phillips was an outright opponent of the Bill—but also because I am fortunate in having had the support of the first chairman of the Metrication Board in my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder and the lately resigned vice-chairman, my noble friend Lady White. Not only did we all listen with great interest to what they had to say, but I found, particularly from the speech by my noble friend Lady White, that she was enabling me to say less in winding up than I might otherwise have needed to. I gather that even the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was endeavouring to express support for the Bill although, to coin a phrase, he could have fooled me, and I think he almost did fool quite a number of your Lordships. At least he said that he was not proposing to obstruct the Bill, and 1 took comfort from that. I found it difficult to know whether he wanted the Government to do more or less in this matter—whether he wanted us to move more quickly or more slowly—but no doubt on this point we shall have further opportunities to clarify his mind. or at least for him to clarify our minds.
However, Lord Elton produced some important points to which I want to respond. He emphasised the importance of timing; presumably he meant in the timetable as the orders come forward. On that, I entirely agree with him, and that is why we have put such stress on the need for my right honourable friend to consult with all the interests, and in particular now with the interests representing consumers, at each stage when an order is made. Although the noble Lord expressed some anxiety about a lack of consultation in other matters, I hope he recognises that we do intend there to be, and have provided for, the fullest consultation in working out the timetable under the Bill. I am grateful to Lord Elton for having given me notice of the
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questions he raised relating to Europe and our obligations as a Member of the EEC. He will recognise that I included in my opening remarks at least an outline of the position, and although it may not in detail fully satisfy him. I feel sure that he can raise other points in Committee. I was grateful that he recognised that points about the Schedules were better dealt with in Committee.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask him to answer my query about whether the draft Amendment of the Directive to which I referred is still in draft, as it was when the version which I have was printed, and, if not, whether it was discussed in another place or here before it was tabled with the Community?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I was about to deal with that point. As I understand it, the draft Directive was prepared by the Commission. The noble Lord was quoting from a document which he said seemed to have been drafted by the Minister of State. It was in fact an explanatory memorandum on the draft Directive and was prepared by my honourable friend in order to help Parliament in its discussions; indeed, it has been dealt with already by the Scrutiny Committee of this House. Thus, while the noble Lord may not be entirely satisfied that every opportunity has been afforded for discussion of it, there has been that opportunity at any rate and if there is any further difficulty I am sure that we will be able to clear it up at a later stage.
I have already referred to the most helpful series of speeches made this afternoon. In particular 1 thank my noble friend Lady White for dealing so effectively with the question raised by a number of noble Lords as to the cost of the transfer to the metric system, and I entirely endorse what she said about it being up to us to avoid the cost of not proceeding with metrication. This could indeed be a serious cost, but experience shows that the actual cost of conversion is not nearly so dramatic as it is sometimes represented to be. She dealt also, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, very stringently with the proposal by the National Consumer Council that metrication should be postponed until some point indicated by a 5 per cent. inflation

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rate. I would not go so far as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, did in suggesting that this would be the Greek Kalens, but I think that this proposal would introduce a sad note of uncertainty into a field which has been ridden all too much with uncertainty and delay; and therefore, as other noble Lords have said, I do not think that this is a proposal which we can seriously look at.
Lord Elton and a number of other noble Lords pointed to the importance of information and education in all these matters, and I particularly noted what my noble friend Lady White said about hoping that the BBC would take this up. I entirely agree with what she said about the programme " On the Move in relation to illiteracy, and if someting of that kind could be done in this field it would be of enormous benefit. I am sure that we all enjoyed the intervention of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and similar points made by my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder in their historical references, which enlivened our debate, as indeed did the practical shopping illustrations which the noble Earl brought forward; I rather gathered that his diet consisted largely of whisky and cheese, an interesting combination.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, quoted Section 10(10) of the 1963 Act and I tend to agree with him that if one were to pick out a point more important than any other in this Bill, that is probably i it, although I welcomed his support for a number of the other provisions in the Bill. I had a great deal of sympathy with his suggestion that we should not be too long about dual marking: he did not oppose this and I am sure that he would not wish to. I regard it as an educational method, or an explanatory method: in other words, something like a crutch when one has had an accident—it is needed for a temporary period but one does not want to use it unduly long. I think that that is a parallel which we would put forward in this connection. I was grateful to him for spelling out the point in connection with Clause 4, a point which he had already made in an intervention while I was speaking. I assure him, as I assured him then, that discussions have taken place already on this point. The issue was also raised on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. We fully anticipate that we will
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be able to meet the points about materials and closures of containers, and I have no doubt that the matter will be raised in Committee.
I come to the only opposition speech, that from my noble friend Lady Phillips, who feared that she would be called all sorts of unpleasant names, including a crank. I do not want to engage in any such name-calling, except to suggest that as she is a member of the Distribution and Consumer Committee of the Metrication Board, and as she is also, I believe, proud to have helped found the Housewives Trust, she would take the views of those organisations into account as well as the views of the National Consumer Council, of which she is also a member. May I suggest that she has tended to develop a split personality in these matters? That is the extent to which I shall go in name-calling, and I express the hope that her charming personality will soon be restored to its accustomed shape. I see that my noble friend is about to leave but there are one or two other points which I should like to make.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, which part of me would my noble friend like to remain?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, my noble friend quoted some awkward bits of arithmetic. One can play that kind of game in this transition period, but I suggest that this is not a very constructive approach to the problem. What she and the letter writers whom she quoted should do is not to think of funny or difficult correlations between different tables, but to point out how simple all this can be if we can only get along the road of metrication at a reasonable pace.
Baroness PHILLIPS: For the record, my Lords, my quotation was not intended as something funny. It was an actual reply from a gardening correspondent in a South African paper.
Lord ORAM: I am sure that gardening correspondents in South African papers are quite capable of trying to be funny and this one may have been trying to be funny. However, whether it was put forward seriously or jocularly, I feel that this sort of thing should be avoided. Let us all get on to the possibility of good

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education on the simplification of these things. On that, I would urge not only my noble friend but, if I may, the National Consumer Council and the Conservative Party to get on with this. I believe that we are embarking upon a very important transition in the matter of weights and measures. In my judgment, the case is overwhelming. I believe that the support that we have received from the debate confirms that. It would be far better if, instead of introducing unneccessary complications, we—the Parties in this House and another place, and the media—all got together and, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, sought to improve the measure. We will join in that. We shall seek to improve it, and improvements have been pointed to. But, for goodness sake! let us deal with the Bill in a constructive way so that its passage through this House and another place is made as smooth and as rapid as possible.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

FOOD AND DRUGS (CONTROL OF FOOD PREMISES) BILL
6.24 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill he read a second time. The Bill is a Private Member's Bill. It was introduced in another place by the Member for Brighton, Kemptown, Mr. Andrew Bowden. It has a trouble-free passage in another place. Indeed, it was welcomed on all sides and I hope that your Lordships in turn will be able to give it an equally warm welcome here. It is quite a small and simple Bill. Nevertheless, it is an important one. It has one objective. It seeks to close a loophole in the law by which premises which may be in a filthy state can nevertheless continue to sell food to the public. On the whole, the catering trade has a very high standard and I am sure that the Bill will be welcomed by the trade as it will affect only a very few recalcitrant members of the trade and will improve the reputation of the trade as a whole.
The Bill gives the environmental health officer an additional weapon to take quick action against the very few people who run filthy, unhygienic restaurants or who
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sell food from premises which arc so unclean as to be a danger to public health. Mercifully, there are not many of them, but there are some. As an example, I give the case where an environmental health officer went into an establishment and found the floor filthy with, among other things, the droppings of vermin. He opened a refrigerator and a cockroach jumped out at him, and the bottles of soda water and other soft drinks which were on the shelves had the tops rusted on to them, not by water but by the urine of rats and mice. I am quite certain that your Lordships will agree that food should not continue to be sold from premises such as that.
At present, an environmental health officer who finds such a state of affairs can issue a stack of summonses against the proprietor, but the practice of the courts is such that there may he a delay of six or even 12 weeks before the case is heard and it is only after a successful prosecution that a court order can be obtained to close down the premises. So, from the time when the inspector first found the filthy premises to the time when the prosecution is obtained—and, as I say, that could be up to 12 weeks—the owner of the premises could continue to sell food to the public with an attendant health hazard and no one can stop it. On top of this, the operator, on receiving a summons, can at present quite legally transfer the premises into somebody else's name. He might possibly transfer it into his wife's name and the business can continue in the same way until yet another prosecution is brought.
So the Bill seeks to make a few simple but specific alterations to the law. First, the Bill is directed to premises, not proprietors. Although it is the proprietor who may he prosecuted for keeping a disgusting kitchen, it is the premises which may he closed, irrespective of who is the proprietor. Secondly, the Bill refers to all premises which sell food, including butchers, market stalls, greengrocers, cafés, grocers' shops, hotels and so on. It does not refer simply to restaurants. Thirdly, the procedure for terminating a closure order is simplified. At present, a closure order, when it is applied to some premises found to he in a filthy state, lasts for six months and the proprietor must apply to the court to be allowed to reopen his premises. Under the provisions of the present Bill, the closure order must specify

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the points which must he remedied in order to make the place fit to sell food from it again. Once the proprietor has satisfied the environmental health officer that he has remedied the defects, he may get a certificate from the local authority to permit him to reopen the premises and he does not have to go back to the court for that permission. So this should simplify the courts' procedures.
However, the real power in the Bill comes in Clause 2, which enables the environmental health officer to apply to the magistrates for an emergency order to close the premises. He has to give at least three days' notice of his intention to apply for an emergency order. If the court, on hearing the environmental health officer's view, grants that order the premises will be closed down forthwith. However, the fact that the officer must give at least three days' clear notice of his intention to apply will give the proprietor time to remedy the defect, and it is anticipated that in the vast majority of cases the defects will he remedied within the three days and before the application ever gets to the court. This is the vital part of this provision because it is in fact a deterrent.
What in effect the environmental health officer will be saying is, " Your kitchen is foul, or your store cupboard is full of cockroaches, and if you do not clean it up within three days, I will apply to the court for your premises to be closed—and to be closed immediately—and the premises will remain closed until such time as you have put right that which is 'wrong." Your Lordships may he thinking that the more enthusiastic environmental health officers might go around slapping emergency closure orders on all premises, even in those cases where there are doubts, and so I should refer to one important limitation which might curb such officers. The limitation is that the emergency order for closing can be applied for only if legal proceedings for 'prosecution for an offence under the Food and Hygiene regulations have already been initiated. In other words, the condition of the premises has to he so bad that the proprietor is to be prosecuted for breaking the regulations before the environmental health officer can say, " And what is more, the condition of the premises is so bad and so insanitary as to constitute
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an immediate risk or danger to health, and so will the court please close down the premises forthwith? "
The only other point to which I should draw your Lordships' attention is that the same provisions also apply to ships, boats and pleasure craft, on which a food business is carried on, which are moored on, or which go on, inland waterways, which have trips not exceeding 24 hours, and which do not go abroad. This covers, for example, boats which go up and down the Thames carrying day trippers and boats which leave ports to go around the coasts, with day trippers. Not for one moment do I suggest that these boats are at all likely candidates for action under the Bill; it is merely the case that the provisions of the Bill cover those vessels as well as ordinary premises. But of course the Bill does not cover ocean going or naval vessels.
There are one or two local government Acts which provide to local areas similar protection to that which is given in the Bill. These areas include the London boroughs, Derby, Port Talbot, Rhondda, Salford, and others. This Bill gives to the whole country the protection which these areas enjoy under local Acts. I hope that I have given your Lordships sufficient indication of the reasons which have prompted the introduction of the Bill, as well as sufficient explanation of its contents. I hope that your Lordships will agree that this Bill will help to protect the public from the very few premises which purvey food from unhygienic places, and I hope, too, that your Lordships will welcome the Bill and give it your approval. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Earl Ferrers.)
6.34 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, as we have come to expect, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, has put this matter very clearly and very simply, and so no one can be in any doubt at all as to what the Bill seeks to do. Therefore, I propose to say only a few words about it. I had come prepared to spend some time in explaining it in some detail, but that is no longer necessary. I want to make clear the Government's attitude towards the Bill, which is that they give

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it wholehearted support and hope that it will reach the Statute Book this Session. The noble Earl pointed out that there are certain defects in the Drugs Act 1955. He listed them. I may not have heard one of those which he mentioned, but it is important to remember that the Bill will deal also with " take-away " food shops, and many of us regard this as very important.
I do not want to detain your Lordships unnecessarily, but one point about the Bill that I must make is that the Government do not envisage any increase in public or local authority expenditure or in local authority staff as a direct consequence of the Bill. The Government think that this is a very vital and necessary measure, and they ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
6.36 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, for having given the Government's wholehearted approval in an even more succinct fashion than that in which I was able to describe the Bill. The noble Lord is entirely right—the Bill covers " takeaway " food, as well as all barrow stalls. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord say that he did not anticipate any increase in Government or local authority expenditure as a consequence of the Bill, and that alone must commend itself to everyone on all sides of both Houses of Parliament. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome to the Bill and to his Department, too, for the help they have given myself and others in regard to details of the Bill. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill your approval.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DANGEROUS WILD ANIMALS BILL
6.37 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I am one of those people who feel that on the whole there is too much legislation, not too little. None the less, I am convinced that there is an
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unanswerable case for this Bill. The Bill received a Second Reading on the nod in the other place, despite the fact that it had drawn only 20th place in the Ballot. That was unusual, and it showed that the Bill was not of a controversial character. It had a fairly detailed Committee and Report stage, and is now in fairly good shape. I have not myself received a single verbal or written criticism of this measure. It is down for its Committee stage on 2nd July, when any suggestions for improving it will naturally be considered most carefully. I should like to thank the Home Office very much for the help they have given me personally over this measure, on which much work was done by Mr. Temple-Morris in another place, although in the end it was introduced by Mr. Peter Thomas, who had drawn 20th place in the Ballot.
Noble Lords will all agree that it is wrong that any animal should be kept in cruel and unsuitable conditions and it is wrong, too, that dangerous animals should be kept so that they can he a risk to other people. I believe that in quite a straightforward way this Bill avoids both these risks. The purpose of the Bill is
" to regulate the keeping of certain … dangerous wild animals ".
In view of the absence hitherto of any general debate on the principles of the Bill, it may be convenient in introducing it today if I detain your Lordships rather longer than might otherwise have been appropriate, and I apologise for having to do this.
In recent years there has been a great surge of interest in all aspects of wild life, both here and abroad. This is shown in many ways, by all the conservation societies and their growing membership, and by the fact that the words " conservation " and " ecology " are both in common parlance now, whereas 10 or 15 years ago we seldom heard them. This fact has brought one problem in its train: the keeping by private individuals of exotic wild animals—as pets or for other reasons—in conditions which may he highly unsuitable for the animals concerned and may quite easily create a serious threat to the general public. There have been a number of recent incidents, generally involving the larger cats, which have been widely publicised. Some of your Lordships will

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have read of these incidents in the papers, but there are signs that these are only side effects of a growing trend. There have been many examples of advertisements for the sale of cubs, especially of the cat species, and I have brought along with me one or two advertisements in which these animals are advertised for sale at all kinds of prices. In one example lion cubs were advertised for sale and there were more than 30 applicants for them.
The production of a surplus by the natural breeding of these animals in safari parks has itself created one source of supply. It has been matched by a comparable demand, often on the part of people who, through thoughtlessness, bring young animals into an environment where, as they mature, they give rise to serious problems. The object of the Bill, therefore, is to deal with this situation and to introduce a system of control which will protect both the public and the animals themselves, to avoid the matter getting out of hand.
My Lords, although some features of the Bill may appear a bit complex, in essence the proposals it contains are simple. The animals to which it applies will in future be allowed to be kept by private individuals only if they obtain a licence from the local authority and comply with the conditions imposed by that licence. Before a local authority may grant a licence, it must be satisfied that there will be no risk to the public, that the applicant is a suitable person and that the animal's own welfare will be properly catered for. These are stringent requirements, and the general policy of the Bill is quite clear. It is that in future the keeping of dangerous wild animals by private individuals should be made a wholly exceptional circumstance.
The Bill does not attempt any general definition of a dangerous wild animal, which would indeed be difficult. In certain circumstances it is possible to regard almost any animal, I should say, even the small rodents, as having dangerous characteristics; but it would not be right to introduce a system of control which constituted a wide-ranging interference with the keeping of species which, with the observance of sensible precautions, present no threat in normal circumstances. That is why, my Lords, the procedure adopted in this measure
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has been to specify in the Schedule to the Bill those species which are so self-evidently dangerous that the application to them of the restraints imposed by the Bill can be seen to be manifestly justifiable.
This principle on which the Schedule is based is subject to two minor qualifications. One is that, in the interests of keeping the Schedule as short as possible, which is, I think important, certain species have been omitted which, despite their dangerous character, are never likely to be attempted to be kept privately. The rhinoceros is an example which springs to my mind, and I can think of others: for instance, the buffalo and the hippopotamus. Noble Lords will be able to think of others as well. One could even think of some insects. Secondly, I am advised that the only satisfactory way to identify the animals in question is by their scientific classification. This has meant that one or two rare kinds, or kinds which are perhaps marginally less dangerous than others in the same family, have had to be included. No satisfactory alternative exists, I think, where this particular matter is concerned.
When the Bill was first introduced in another place, it listed only the scientific names of the animals, and there was pressure for the common names to be given to make it easier for everyone likely to be affected by the Bill to understand it. I am certainly strongly opposed to legislation which the ordinary person cannot understand as easily as possible. So, in response to that, this was done: the Schedule was amended. I think it will be agreed that in its present form the Schedule is much more informative, and the change was generally welcomed in another place. Even so, my Lords, there were still some who would have liked the common names to be given even greater significance, instead of being relegated to the status of serving merely as examples, which is all they do. The difficulty, however, is that common names cannot be relied on alone without introducing serious ambiguities, and I do not think there is any doubt about that.
However the Schedule to the Bill does not represent the last word, as it will be seen that Clause 7 gives the Home Secretary power by order, exercisable by Statutory instrument, subject to the Negative Resolution procedure, to add to or to subtract from the kinds of animals

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included in the Schedule so as to cater for any unforeseen contingency. In another place there was a proposal that the family of snakes known as boidae, which includes such snakes as boa constrictors, pythons and anacondas, should be added to the Schedule. This was withdrawn, however, on an undertaking that the matter would be considered further. Although there may be some grounds which would justify the inclusion of this family, at the same time its members were less self-evidently dangerous than the other families of snakes which are included in the Schedule. This may well he a subject to which your Lordships will wish to return when we reach the Committee Stage
Before leaving the subject of the animals with which the Bill deals, which is no doubt the most colourful feature of this measure, I should perhaps touch on one other question of definition or, rather, the lack of it. The Bill contains no definition of the word " animal". Noble Lords will he familiar with many definitions of this word which can he found in the Statute Book, and which give it unexpectedly narrow meanings or definitions which seem to involve strange confusions of species. It may he asked whether, in the absence of a definition, the meaning of the word in the Bill is wide enough to embrace any dangerous creature a Home Secretary may wish to add to the Schedule. There is a good precedent for the use of the word " animal " in the widest sense, as it is in fact described in the Oxford English Dictionary, which I shall not bother your Lordships by reading, and this precedent is in the Animals Act 1971. which makes comprehensive provision in respect of civil proceedings arising out of damage or injury caused by animals.
My Lords, I have, I hope, sufficiently indicated the circumstances to which the Bill applies, so may I now turn to those to which it does not apply? There are two kinds of exemption conferred by the Bill: those which might be described as " permanent " exemptions under Clause 4, and the " temporary " exemptions under Clause 6(2). The Clause 4 exemptions comprise zoos, circuses, pet shops and research laboratories. The reason for the exemption of pet shops and research laboratories is that these, as the clause
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itself indicates, are already subject to statutory systems of control. The exemption of zoos and circuses is based on a very different reason. These are activities, in some cases of a scientific character, in others of a commercial one organised for the education or entertainment of the public, where it is quite proper, however much many people may deplore it, that under suitable conditions of security the animals to which this Bill applies should be kept.
Surprisingly—surprisingly to me, that is, my Lords—I find that zoos and safari parks are not at present subject to statutory control of any kind, although there is, I am sure, a growing case, and a strong one, for such control. It might therefore be asked why the opportunity has not been taken to use this Bill to achieve this end as well. I think the answer is fairly obvious. It is that it is not really appropriate to try to control two such very different activities by the same machinery. As it happens, I understand that the two associations concerned with zoos and safari parks are currently working on proposals for introducing a licensing system for these establishments. This is of course a matter which has already been the subject of a Bill in your Lordships' House, introduced a number of years ago, which encountered a great deal of opposition and failed to make any progress. But I think there is something on the stocks which will make a good deal of sense and he widely accepted. This is perhaps something about which the Government Front Bench may be able to tell your Lordships.
The other exemptions conferred by Clause 6(2) are, 1 think, self-explanatory. Their purpose is to ensure that when a dangerous wild animal comes temporarily into the possession of a vet, of a person who has recaptured an escaped animal or of someone who is simply transporting the animal, possession will not constitute an offence against Clause 1(1) of the Bill and will not require a licence.
My Lords, I think that now, as briefly as possible, I should say a few words about the more technical aspects of the Bill, because although this is of itself a small measure dealing with quite a small problem, it is inevitably a little complicated, and it became rather more complicated as time went by in another

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place and it was amended at Report stage. The activity which is made an offence by Clause 1(1) is keeping a dangerous wild animal. " Keeping " is defined by Clause 6(I) in terms of possession. The number of licences granted under this Bill will, I hope and expect, be small, but the variety of situations that may need to be catered for is considerable. The owner of an animal, for example, may be helped by members of his staff or his family who Will from time to time be in possession of the animal. Alternatively, he may on occasion entrust it to his manager while he is away abroad. The Bill seeks to cover these situations and at the same time to avoid the need for a multiplicity of licences by the provisions contained in Clause 1.
The effect of these is to require the licensing authority at the outset to investigate all the proposed circumstances of the application. The authority is required to refuse the application unless it is satisfied that there is no risk to the public. That is the first necessity. Secondly, that the applicant is a suitable person. Thirdly, that the conditions of the keeping will be satisfactory in all respects. The inquiries made by the local authority may often lead it to reject an application; and, I think, will do so. In such cases the authority may or may not exercise the power conferred by Clause 2 to arrange for an inspection of the premises involved by a vet. If it is minded to grant an application, then, before doing so, it must obtain a vet's report.
The licensing authority is expected to grant a licence normally only to the owner of the animal although it may, exceptionally, depart from this. This is in accordance with the idea of " keeping " on which the Bill is based. The intention is that in those cases in which a licence is granted the licensee should be the person who has the most comprehensive control of the animal and of the circumstances in which it will be kept, and can be expected to exercise the greatest degree of responsibility and to be held answerable for that exercise. All other " keepers " of that animai will, in effect, be the licence holder's agents or servants.
My Lords, one other aspect of this question of who is to be the " keeper " is that minors are now disqualified from applying for a licence. As the Bill was
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originally drafted, it sought to allow minors to hold licences; but this proved excessively complicated and so, on consideration, it was thought preferable—and, I think, rightly—as a matter of policy to exclude minors so that the 16-year-old who is passionately keen on keeping a dangerous snake must persuade a responsible adult to assume the obligations of a licence holder imposed under the Bill. That seems to me to be sensible.
If a licence is granted, the licensing authority is required to impose a number of mandatory conditions. The effect of these is, first, to define in the licence the person or persons who, and who alone, may be the " keepers " of the animals in question and the places where they are to be kept; secondly, to require satisfactory insurance cover to be obtained; thirdly, to impose any necessary restrictions on the species or numbers of animals that may be kept: fourthly, to ensure that the conditions are brought to the notice of all those who will be " keepers " under it; and, lastly, to safeguard the animal's welfare. If the licence conditions permit an animal to be moved to a place outside the area of the licensing authority for a period longer than 72 hours, the authority must consult the authority for the other area involved.
Licences will normally run for one year and provision is made for variation of the conditions in appropriate circumstances. Clause 5 gives a court power to cancel a licence in the event of certain convictions. There is provision for an appeal against a refusal to grant a licence or against conditions imposed or varied. Breach of the conditions of the licence may make the licence holder himself, or any other " keeper " under the licence, guilty of an offence the penalty for which is a maximum fine of £400. This penalty also applies to the offence of keeping a dangerous wild animal without a licence, contrary to the provisions of Clause 1(1). Originally, in the Bill there was a minimum line for a first offence of £200, and for second and subsequent offences of £400. In either case, there could also be a prison sentence of three months; but on due consideration it was thought in another place that this was wrong and not consistent with modern practice, and so there is simply a maximum fine of £400 for any offence.
My Lords, the remaining provisions are technical. Clause 2 provides the licensing

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authority with power to order the inspection of any relevant premises at the expense of the person applying for or holding a licence. Clause 3 empowers the local authority to seize and dispose of any animal in an emergency, the cost again being recoverable from the licence holder or the person unlawfully keeping the animal. I have already dealt with the provisions of Clause 4, containing the main exemptions. Clause 5 covers penalties; Clause 6, interpretations; and Clause 7 the power to vary the Schedule. Clause 8 is a transitional provision and gives any person keeping a dangerous wild animal when the Act comes into force 90 days to apply for a licence. This, too, seems reasonable. Clause 9 deals with the Short Title and extent and provides for the Bill to come into force three months after it has been passed.
My Lords, in conclusion may I say that this is a modest but a useful and practical measure. I apologise for taking up more of your Lordships' time than I would normally have done, but this was because there was no Second Reading or Third Reading debate in another place and therefore nothing in Hansard for the ordinary person to read so as to know what this measure is all about. This Bill deals in a timely way with a mischief which has already become apparent and which, without provision of this kind, definitely threatens to grow larger. Its main purpose is to discourage the keeping of dangerous wild animals as pets but it is sufficiently flexible to allow for exceptional circumstances. The number of licences issued is likely to be small and the administrative burden imposed on local authorities will, I think, be negligible. In accordance, I gather, with current practice since 1972, local authorities are given discretion to charge a fee sufficient to cover their administration costs in full; and provision is made for any other expenses which may arise to be recovered. I think that I can safely say, therefore, that without any addition to the manpower or financial requirements of local authorities, this measure will effect an improvement and fill a gap in the law which will increase the safeguards afforded both to the security of the general public and to the welfare of the animals themselves. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Chellwood.)
6.57 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, there is no doubt that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, for giving such a clear explanation of the Bill which will do so much to improve the safety of the public who are sometimes subjected to frightening experiences from involuntary meetings with wild animals—like the lady in the street the other day who was set upon by a lion while she was wearing a leopard skin coat. This was widely reported in the Press and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood. Fortunately, the lady in question sank to the ground without a sound. This probably saved her from a worse fate than a little anxiety. Whether it would have been a case for a fine under this Bill is another matter; but it might have made the owner more careful if the Bill had already been passed.
My Lords, since Noah rescued the world population of animals, the human being has kept many and various live objects as pets. Although some of them have become fairly domesticated, we are now trying to limit the dangers to the public and to the animals themselves from those who are unable to adapt to the year 1976. As was also mentioned, now that advertisements for potentially dangerous animals are appearing in the Press, it is evident that licensing is becoming essential before too many have escaped and turned the whole country into one enormous safari park. We do not mind wild animals tearing their owners to pieces—that is their owners' affair—but not the general public. We do want these somewhat defenceless but dangerous animals to be kept in reasonably happy surrounds. For that reason we welcome this Bill.
However, there are some parts of the Bill which are not absolutely clear to me. I should like to mention them briefly. It appears that a hippopotamus in the herbaceous border is quite acceptable while an ostrich in the orangery is not. I wonder if there are so many ostriches in captivity that are not in zoos to make them specified. Perhaps a baby elephant should be included—surely a very attractive playmate when small and useful for hosing down the car—but he is not listed and on weight alone he must be considered just a little dangerous. I confess that this is probably a matter for

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debate in Committee. But there are obviously also many other very small and dangerous animals, and even insects, from different parts of the world which might more easily escape and cause danger to the public. There is one other question which springs to mind and that is the apparent lack of a clear dividing line between a large garden and a small zoo. After all, so long as occasional people are asked to contribute the difference does not really exist. Maybe this will be covered in the new laws being thought about regarding safari parks and zoos.
Finally, my Lords, I am not a little worried by the likelihood of different councils charging widely different fees for licensing. There could be many reasons for this and I hope that the Government will consider either imposing a maximum fee or issuing clear guidelines to local councils as to the fees they should be charging. I do not think that any precedent for allowing councils to determine levels of fees has very much to do with this particular Bill and I would ask the Government, not necessarily now but before Committee, to look at this very carefully indeed.
So, my Lords, with those reservations regarding some details of the Bill, we on this side of the House wish the Bill every success, and if there are any anomalies we shall ferret them out in Committee, although I accept the fact that we cannot anticipate every problem. After all, as Frederick the Great said in a letter to Voltaire,
" Every man has a wild beast within him ".
7.2 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I also should like to join with my noble friend in welcoming this Bill which has been so ably moved. It is a most necessary Bill. Some wild animals have been kept in some extraordinary circumstances: there was a widely reported case of a gentleman who did not wish to keep an animal subject to the Guard Dogs Act so he used a lion as a guard dog. It was very suitable because it did some rather naughty things to his neighbour who came over the wall to see if it was a guard dog. I should like to ask my noble friend to give some thoughts to certain details. Like my noble friend Lord Newall, I should like this subject of fees looked at with some care. Local
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authorities nowadays are more and more burdened with things which they were not normally asked to deal with. The licensing of a back garden for wild animals appears completely outside their scope. After our experience with the Breeding of Dogs Act they would undoubtedly have to call in experts from the veterinary profession or perhaps from safari parks, or suchlike. One of the principles we must agree is that the charges for people who wish to keep wild animals in their own private grounds must not be permitted to fall on the rates. I also feel that the charges for the licence must be kept as reasonable as possible and not be made prohibitive. I would ask my noble friend to look at that aspect.
I am not happy about licensing. I have read the proceedings of another place and I have read this Bill. I am not a hit happy that someone can take out a licence to keep one of the animals in these places and immediately hand over the keeping of it to some person who is not mentioned in the licence but ultimately is the keeper. The man or woman who takes this licence out has to be justified as suitable. There appears to be nothing in the Bill to ensure that anyone who likes to act as a keeper need necessarily be suitable until such time as it is discovered that he is not suitable by something happening. I have a feeling that it may be advisable to think about this and if the actual man who applies for the licence, and is issued with it, is not going to be the person to look after the animal, then the person who is might also be included on the licence as being the person authorised to look after the animal under the licence, apart from owning it. That sounds extremely complicated, but I trust your Lordships may understand me.
I feel very sorry for district councils under this Bill. The interpretation is going to be extremely difficult by them. As I have said, with the Breeding of Dogs ! Act they had some considerable difficulty in a small way in licensing breeding kennels. There is going to be some difficulty in issuing licences of suitability with these wild animals. Regarding insurance, the Bill says, if I understand it correctly, that an insurance must be taken out to cover injury to any person caused by the animal, and that the local authority shall be satisfied. Are we to say that that covers the holder of the licence and his family. or is it merely to be the public in

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general? Is that insurance not only to cover any injury that might happen to the person, but to cover any damage to clothing, property or such things as that? If the interpretation of this subsection is not that, I feel that in Committee we must extend it to make quite sure that any wild animal held under licence should be insured to cover all the possibilities.
In Clause 2 we come to inspection. One of the things which those of us interested in the licensing of such things as pet shops, boarding kennels and the Breeding of Dogs Act, are always very worried about is inspection. Under the various Acts there has to be an inspection once a year. It is very much like an army inspection. The local authority says, " We have to inspect this place; we will ring up the man ". The man says, " Do not come this week; come next week ". By that time he has tidied up and the place is shining. And that is the last the man sees of the inspectors for a year. Regarding this Bill, there should be more than one inspection annually to see that the provisions of a licence are being complied with. A casual inspection at least once or twice a year, to make quite sure that these wild animals are being kept in accordance with the terms of the licence, would be essential.
Once again, we come to the question of costs regarding these inspections. I am assuming that the costs of the licence and inspections will be as low as is reasonable. But I feel that if a man is determined to keep such an animal in his garden then he, as the owner, should pay for the cost of any inspection which may be needed. Such a cost must, of course, be reasonable and based on the actual cost to the council, so that no extra burden is placed on the rates or on the ratepayer.
A small point came to mind on Clause 3. The local authority is given powers under this clause to seize an animal and then it may either keep it in its possession or otherwise dispose of it. The mind boggles. I can hardly imagine that any authority, having decided to seize a lion, for example, would have any place at its disposal where it could he kept. I agree that it should seize the animal, but would the words, " or otherwise dispose of it " cover the parking of that animal in a zoo or safari park? Will the council
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be permitted to charge the owner of the licence for the cost of the animal's keep until it is either destroyed or otherwise disposed of? That is a point to which I think some consideration should he given.
I was very pleased to see that there is an appeal to a court against the refusal of the licence. I think it is vitally important that a person should have such a right of appeal, even though one may not altogether like what he is doing.
I am a little worried about the methods people may use in order to avoid paying for a licence. It is extraordinary that as soon as it is necessary to obtain a licence for something people will go to endless lengths in order to avoid doing so, and they will make use of whatever little crack there may be in an Act of Parliament in order to avoid getting a licence. hope the noble Lord will be able to give an assurance that there is no loophole in the definition of " zoological garden ", which is quoted as being—
"…any place, other than a circus or deer-park, where wild animals not living in their natural surroundings are kept for the purpose of being regularly exhibited to members of the public for gain."
While we have not got licensing of safari parks and deer-parks, how shall we get round that, if a gentleman says: " Every Wednesday from three o'clock to six o'clock you can come and look at my pet lion, and so on, in my back garden throughout the year for a charge, perhaps of £10 "? Surely that means that his animal or animals are regularly exhibited, and such a thing would completely defeat the purpose of the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will also be able to reassure me about that. Perhaps we may be able to clarify the words " regularly exhibited " at a later stage.
Then, does the noble Lord think that three months will be long enough, following the passing of this Act, for the local authority to collect sufficient expertise and knowledge to operate the Act fully? I should like to mention one further point. Shall we be in the same position over this Bill as we are with the Breeding of Dogs Act—that if a person does not apply for a licence there is no power of entry to inspect the premises? While it is blatantly obvious with large and fierce animals, some of the smaller

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ones which are mentioned in the Schedule, such as the alligator, may be kept without a licence and without anyone's knowledge, except through sheer chance. Is there to be a power of entry in the event of somebody suspecting that such animals are being kept, under strict limitations, of course, to make sure there has not been a breach of the law?
I must apologise if I seem to be taking up a great deal of time about these matters, but these were points which occurred to me and so I felt it right to refer to them. Incidentally, I was delighted to see the common names inserted in the Schedule, but I found one which I did not know, and I still do not know what it is. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would kindly tell me, under " Canidae", what a " fennec " is?
7.17 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Government fully support this measure, which sets out to curb and control the hazardous and increasingly widespread practice of keeping dangerous wild animals as pets—a practice, as recent incidents have shown, which has at times been carried out with little regard for the safety of the public or for the welfare of the animal concerned. The timeliness of this measure, if I may say so, can he judged by the fact that it has received widespread support and has encountered no opposition at all in another place.
The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has already explained the provisions of the Bill in some detail, and I do not think there is any need for me to cover all the ground with which he has dealt so adequately. The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has referred to some of the exemptions conferred by the Bill. Although zoos, safari parks and circuses are exempt from the Bill, the Government fully recognise that dangerous wild animals kept in these places are capable on occasion of representing a threat to public safety if the highest standards of care and security are not scrupulously observed. The fact that the Government support this measure, from which they are excluded, does not mean that it is the Government's view that they are not in need of some form of control.
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Noble Lords will be well aware that there have been some recent attempts in your Lordships' House to introduce legislative control over zoos and safari parks. These failed largely, I understand, because of disagreement between the two organisations which represent the interests of zoos and safari parks—the Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the National Zoological Association. However, I understand that the difficulties which the earlier proposals encountered are in the process of being overcome and that a new Bill which dispenses with the features which earlier gave rise to disagreement is at present being prepared.
My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department indicated in another place that the Government's view is that the better course of action is to wait for these proposals, which are likely to offer an appropriate system of control of these establishments which exhibit exotic animals to the public, rather than attempt to widen the scope of the present Bill. It might appear at first sight that, since the present Bill deals with the control of dangerous wild animals, it will therefore be a suitable vehicle for bringing zoos and safari parks speedily under statutory control. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has indicated, the policy which lies behind this Bill is that licences for private persons to keep dangerous wild animals as pets will he granted only in wholly exceptional circumstances. Meanwhile, I will content myself with underlining the general proposition that, given the basic philosophy of the Bill as the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has so cogently set it forth, and the existence of the power to amend the Schedule in the light of experience, I think Parliament should be reluctant to enlarge the Schedule at this stage.
In conclusion, it may be asked what steps will he taken to bring the provisions of this Bill to the notice of all those likely to be affected. Assuming it continues its smooth passage—I now have some doubt—I understand that my right honourable friend's Department will issue an explanatory circular to local authorities and police forces explaining its provisions in detail, so that the Bill can he brought effectively into action at the appropriate time, which seems likely to be October or November this year. In addition, the

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Department will be issuing a Press notice and will be taking particular care to bring it to the attention of the specialised Press. The Government believe that this will be a useful measure to deal with a real and growing mischief, and are glad to give it their support and to join the Promoters in commending it to your Lordships.
Having heard what the noble Lords, Lord Newall and Lord de Clifford, have said, perhaps it is not for me to make any suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood. But a number of quite serious points have been raised and 1 find myself in the position in which I found myself some time ago in regard to guard dogs, where we could not effect an agreement during the Committee stage. If the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, does not think it impertinent on my part, I am wondering whether some useful purpose would be served if we got together with anyone else involved—presumably the mover in another place—and met with appropriate advisers from the Home Office. It may be that we could then resolve a good many of the matters which have been raised, which it would not be fair to expect the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, to deal with in detail this afternoon, and that the Bill would then find a smooth passage through your Lordships' House.
7.25 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for what he has said and for giving the blessing of the Government to this measure. I take up with alacrity the suggestion he has just made, that there might be a meeting between some of us who have expressed interest in your Lordships' House and the Promoter of the Bill, together with some of the noble Lord's officials who have been so very helpful, in order to try to provide the most satisfactory possible answers to the interesting points that have been raised in this short debate. As I think was bound to be the case, the most interesting point of all arose because of what is or is not in the Schedule. One could have quite a lot of fun with this, but I am sure that the right course is to keep it as short as possible. I am sorry that I cannot answer my noble friend Lord de Clifford who asked about the fennec, although I am told that it is a
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small and very rare fox with rather large ears.
Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX: My Lords, as my mother has one I know something about these animals. There are some fennec foxes loose in the African desert. It is a very small animal which stands nine inches to a foot high, and is about the same in length. It has very long ears, comes out only at night and is very timid. There are only half a dozen pairs in the United Kingdom, three of which are in the London Zoo.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, is not that proof, once again, that in this House one can find knowledge on every conceivable subject, without any question?
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to both my noble friends. This problem arose—I must not go into too much detail now, because this is a Committee point—because by using a scientific name one covers a whole species. If the fennec is not there, then it can probably be taken away without any difficulty at all. I confess that there are a number of animals in the Schedule which I have never heard of, not being a zoologist. But I will make sure when we get to the Committee stage that if I am asked any further very difficult questions I will have the right answers. It has been suggested to me that the tarantula and the scorpion should both be in the Schedule, though I have not heard that they make particularly good pets. For that matter, I do not know any reason why the hyena is not there; it ought to be under the canidae, I suppose, but for some reason it is not. Perhaps a little tidying up is still necessary, and I fully accept that.
As regards the second point raised by my noble friend Lord Newall about councils having absolute latitude to charge different fees for licences, I have checked this carefully and it is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, under the Conservative Administration of 1972 this principle was established, and, rightly or wrongly, the same principle is also in the Local Government Act 1974. I confess that I am not entirely happy about it and it might be better—f only say " might "—to give some guidance here, certainly where the maximum licence fee is concerned, so we will look most carefully into this point, too.

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My noble friend Lord de Clifford raised a large variety of points showing what great interst he has taken in the measure but I have to admit that I cannot give him proper answers to all of them. Some of them were undoubtedly Committee points to which we shall come later, but I will look at them all with great care which is my duty, having agreed to sponsor this measure in your Lordships' House.
I will look into the question of the suitability of the temporary keeper who may be covered by a local authority licence, as well as into the important questions of insurance and the powers of search if there appears to have been a breach of the law. I will also look most carefully into the inspection of premises, because I very much see the point of an occasional snap or casual inspection. I remember so well, in the short time that I was an undistinguished Regular soldier, that on the day of the brigadier's inspection everything was polished up or covered in blanco, even the stones, and in Cairo we used to sweep the parade ground so that it looked very tidy. But if the brigadier had turned up a week earlier it would not have been the same. So there is obviously a point here.
Another point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford—I think again it was a personal view—that 90 days is not a reasonable period to allow for existing owners of dangerous animals listed in the Schedule to apply for a licence. However, that is a matter of opinion which we could discuss again. We could also look at the question of how local authorities should dispose of a dangerous animal. Presumably the last thing that they would wish to do with a dangerous animal, which might have some value to a zoo or safari park, would be to put it down. I hope that that would be the last thing they would do, but they might be forced to put the animal down, with some professional help, if the animal was running amok. I do not know; I am only thinking aloud.
Going on from there, the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, raised another important point which caused me a little further anxiety: whether there may be a loophole in the drafting of the Bill arising out of the words " regularly exhibited ". By having two or three monkeys, keeping them in perfectly good conditions in
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your back yard, opening it to the public and charging them to see these monkeys every weekend, the point is whether you would be regularly exhibiting them, and whether, therefore, that back yard would be classed as a zoo. It might be a matter for interpretation by the courts, but we cannot be too careful in making sure that any legislation we pass is as sensible and as easy to understand as possible. Therefore, I give your Lordships an absolute assurance that I will look with the very greatest care at all the points which have been raised and at any others which are raised with me.
I should like to conclude by thanking your Lordships for taking such an interest in this Bill. I began my Second Reading speech by saying that on the whole I thought we had too much, rather than too little, legislation in this country. In other words, if people want to butt their heads into brick walls, by all means let them do so. I would not want to take any part in passing a law that stopped them from doing so, so long as it was their own brick wall. However, I think that there is a clear need for this measure. My noble friend Lord Newall mentioned the case of the lady who was wearing a leopard skin coat, around whom a lion put its arms—if a lion has arms! Perhaps I should say its front legs.
Several noble Lords: Paws!
Lord CHELWOOD: Well, my Lords, paws are on the ends of legs, surely. Anyhow, this lady was embraced by the lion, and perhaps that taught her a lesson. I am glad to say that she did not get hurt but perhaps she should not have been wearing a leopard skin coat. But never mind. There are other examples of this. I could not find this note when I made my opening speech, but quite recently two other lions were kept in a back garden in Wolverhampton, one of which, for the second time in six months, seriously mauled a man. The keeper of the lion had defied a court order to keep the animal securely locked up at his home. Then there was the case of a puma which was kept at the bottom of a back garden in East Acton and terrified the neighbourhood. I have found other examples, all of which I understand are accurate: of wolves being kept in a back yard in Streatham, of alligators being kept in a Surbiton cellar, of a bear being kept in a

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Surrey garage. So the risks are real; we arc not imagining them.
It is quite easy to obtain these animals. This was something else which I mentioned but which I forgot to support with facts. Quite recently I looked at Horse and Hound and Exchange and Mart and found in the former this advertisement:
" Magnificent nine-week-old tame lion cubs; house and car trained; very reasonable to good homes ".
And in Exchange and Mart:
" Lion cubs, tame, £220 each. Male lions, one-year old, £100. Tigers, £900 ".
I am sure that there is a need for this small, modest measure. I hope that it now has a fair wind and that before we have finished with the measure it will be in perfect shape.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down may I ask him to remember that my mother once kept a jerboa. Before the noble Lord decides to add jerboas to the Schedule, I shall be very glad to give him all the information I can about the vices and virtues of the jerboa.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I have such respect for my noble friend that I always remember everything that he says. In particular shall I remember that.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (ARMED FORCES) BILL
7.34 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. First of all, may I be allowed to congratulate the honourable Member for Woking who piloted this Bill through the House of Commons, the 16 Members of Parliament who served on the Committee and supported him, and those who supported him at the Report stage. I know only too well how difficult it is to get Bills through the House of Commons. I remember, too, my fate on two occasions—the first being when I got to Committee stage and three
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Labour and three Conservative Members sat in the passage in order not to give me my quorum; the second when I was slightly more successful and got the Bill to Report stage, when 40 Amendments were put down and the Bill was talked out. However, both of these Bills are now on the Statute Book because they were taken over by the Government, so if this Bill has an unfortunate fate, I hope that this Government will remember that ultimately they generally take over my Bills.
I hope that I shall have your Lordships' support for what I consider is a Bill to give fairer opportunities to Her Majesty's Services. I want them to take part in Elections. We have to remember that the Services support any Government, irrespective of Party, and that they serve them very well. I think it is a very important point that whatever their feelings and whatever the result of an Election, the Services serve the Government to the best of their ability.
I understand that there has been a separate system of registration for the Services since 1918. While I was looking up past history, one interesting fact that I found was that in 1918 the men serving in Her Majesty's Services after that war were given the vote at the age of 18 because it was considered—and this was the first and only time it has happened—that if they were old enough to tight for their country they were old enough to have a vote for their future. Since that date special provisions have been made. I understand that they were originally made to serve those who were not Regular Servicemen and it was agreed to continue this practice until the Representation of the People Act 1969. Previously this had meant that once a Serviceman registered himself he did not have to reregister until he left the Service or cancelled his registration. As from 1918, it was the duty of the commanding officer to notify the Serviceman each year of his electoral rights. New voters were declared each year and then attested at their units, checked, and, together with previous voters, forwarded to the constituencies for the electoral registration officers. Voting then could take place by post or by proxy. Also it was possible for them to opt out of the system. If they had a civilian residence, then they could vote in that neighbourhood.

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The system lasted until 1944. The Vivian Committee on Electoral Machinery produced a White Paper in December 1942 and recommended the setting up of controlling machinery in the form of a central index on the lines available for the National Registration Central Index, in the same manner as for civilians. In 1946 there was another Committee on electoral registration, the Oliver Committee, which recommended the transfer of responsibility from the Central National Registry Office to the record offices of the three Services. However, this was not considered practical as the CNRO was working well and, I am glad to say, was economical. Therefore, it was not considered necessary to change.
One remembers the period in 1945 when it was considered that Servicemen should have the vote. There were three weeks between civilians voting and the Service votes coming in, because the Servicemen were stationed all over the world. In 1968, the Speaker's Conference to which the matter had been referred made the recommendation that the continuous registration of members of the Forces and their wives should cease, and that annual registration should continue. In 1948–49 the Representation of the People Act was revived, so 1949 was the first occasion when wives were able to vote if a residin overseas with their husbands. In February 1968 there was another Speaker's Conference, which again made recommendations. The report said:
" The present arrangements for continuous registration of members of the Forces and their wives should cease."
This is the point that I want to change in the Bill which is before your Lordships today.
The Service authorities should in future be required to obtain information for the purpose of registration from any member of the Forces who appears to be qualified to be registered whenever similar information is required to be given by a civilian householder, in other words, they have the same type of registration then as civilians. I want to underline the point that it should be the duty of the commanding officer of each unit to see that this is carried out and that an entry is made in the ordinary register.
As your Lordships will realise, this is not a very practical suggestion so the
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legislation recommended was not carried out as then intended. Forms were just handed out to individuals and they were supposed to send them to the appropriate registration office, and there was no compulsion on the officer to issue the forms. This has been one of the difficulties. Many people did not want to go to their officers for forms; many officers perhaps were too busy to remember the forms in time, and this has meant that many people did not get on the register because there was no compulsion for the officer to issue the forms or for the Serviceman to take any action.
I understand that in the latest figures available it is stated that out of 400,000 only about 300,000 were registered, for various reasons. I can understand it, because for those serving in Sabah or Sarawak, for example, during the confrontation, or those serving in Belize there was a gap between enlistment and the opportunity to sign a Service declaration. This shows some of the difficulties; being in overseas areas it was difficult to obtain information if they had not actually been registered. On the other hand, it might have been considered that those who had left the Service might still have their names on the Service register. However, as civilians they would be required to register yearly once they had left the Service, and to my mind that would be a correction as no one could have two votes.
In 1973 there was another Speaker's Conference which reconsidered the whole matter, and they found that the eligible voters registered had fallen to between 20 and 30 per cent., and they recommended that:
"The present arrangements for annual registration of members of the Forces should cease ".
Each Serviceman and new recruit should be registered, but he can still declare each year if he wants to make a change or have his name taken off. The wives of Servicemen also should be registered as Service voters, and no military offence is created if, for example, the Serviceman or Servicewoman does not want to vote.
I understand too that when an honourable Member of another place raised this matter in 1975 the then Minister stated that the Government considered the question suitable for Government legislation and hoped to introduce legislation at

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an early opportunity. So I hope noble Lords on all sides of the House will be prepared to support this Bill, as it went through the other House at Third Reading " on the nod ".
If I may, I shall explain briefly the effect of one or two clauses because, regrettably, there are very few noble Lords in the House and I hope that perhaps they may read in Hansard what has been said tonight and therefore when we come to the Committee stage we shall not be worried with a lot of useless Amendments. The effect of Clause 1—and I shall only sketch it because the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, knows this much better than I do—provides that, in future, members of the Forces, and their wives or husbands, once registered in pursuance of a Service declaration, shall remain registered without the necessity of making a fresh declaration each year. That covers the point I have already made. A declaration would remain valid until cancelled or the declaration ceases to be in force on a change in the circumstances giving the Service qualification.
Under the existing law members of the Forces have a Service qualification whether they are in the United Kingdom or abroad. Their wives or husbands—and quite a number of women in the Services have husbands—have such qualifications only when residing abroad with their spouse. Clause 2 of the Bill would confer on them the same qualification as a member of the Forces; namely, they would have the qualification whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.
As I mentioned before, there is an obvious risk that under the once-for-all registration system the register will become out of date because of the inclusion as Service voters of persons who have in fact left the Forces. However, I understand that the Ministry of Defence intend to overcome this by making arrangements which will ensure that registration officers are informed as soon as a Serviceman leaves the Forces. The existing provisions for annual Service declarations will be retained for Crown servants and their wives and husbands and the members of the British Council and their wives and husbands. All these have Service qualifications only when serving abroad or when
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residing abroad with their husbands or wives.
I regret that this clause cannot affect this category of persons and they cannot make the Service declaration. I sincerely hope that a new Speaker's Conference will consider such matters as whether voting facilities should be extended to such persons as international civil servants, especially as there are now so many working in the EEC, and there are also Red Cross and NAAFI employees, businessmen and other British subjects temporarily residing abroad.
Subsection (1) of Clause 1 is designed to clarify the whole purpose of the Bill. It refers to the existing provision of Section 2(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1969, that a Service declaration shall be made only with a view to registration in the register of electors for that particular year. The effect of this is that at the expiry of a particular year the person who declares will get on the new register only if he or she has made a fresh Service declaration.
Subsection (3) of this clause provides that a Service declaration made by a member of the Forces (defined in Section 46(l) of the Act of 1949) or the wife or husband of such a member shall, if not cancelled, continue in force so long as he or she has a Service qualification. This means that a member of the Forces who has made such a Service declaration and transmitted it to the appropriate registration officer will remain on the register for that electoral area indefinitely without the need to make a fresh declaration each year. I understand that the qualifying dates for this after the Bill becomes an Act will be the 10th October in the United Kingdom and 15th September in Northern Ireland.
The purpose of Clause 2 is to confer on the wives and husbands of members of the Forces the same right to register in pursuance of a Service declaration as their spouses already have. The right to make a Service declaration depends on whether one has a Service qualification. Servicemen and Servicewomen have such a qualification, whether in the United Kingdom or abroad, by virtue of their membership of the Forces. They thus fall outside the arrangements for registration via the ordinary civilian canvass

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but may, if they wish, register after making a Service declaration. Their wives or husbands, if in the United Kingdom, are subject to the normal civilian arrangements. If they leave the United Kingdom to reside abroad with their spouses they acquire a Service qualification for the time of their residence abroad. This clause will enable them to register, after making a Service declaration, in the same way as their husbands or wives.
I realise that there are drawbacks to the present system for the majority of Service wives. They frequently move house as a result of their husbands' postings. This may mean that it is difficult for them to acquire a permanent address. This in turn means that, regrettably, they may not become registered. Even if registered, they may well have moved away from their constituency by the time of an election. They would then in effect be confined to a postal vote. This may be difficult to arrange or to cast in the short time available between the announcement of a General Election and polling day. I understand that the Ministry of Defence, after consultation with the three branches of the Armed Forces, have therefore concluded—and I hope their conclusions will he regarded as correct—that the interests of the great majority of Service wives would be best served by the change. This would confer on them a Service qualification while in the United Kingdom as well as while abroad.
So in future a Service wife will be able to appoint a proxy whose appointment will remain in force at her convenience or until her Service qualification lapses. She will still, of course, like other Service voters now, be able to vote by post or in person if circumstances permit. But if the exigencies of her husband's Service career make this difficult or impossible, her proxy vote will remain safe. This is her husband's position now, and it will be strengthened by the new system, if it goes through the House tonight, of the once-for-all registration created by the rest of the I believe it is right we should give the wives of Servicemen the same safeguard of their right to franchise.
My Lords, I should like to emphasise that this will not put anyone at a disadvantage. There are wives, although it is considered they are in the minority, who are perfectly well served by the normal
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civilian arrangements. There is no question of disenfranchising these. They will simply get on the register by different means than existed before. There may be the odd case where the elector resents being compelled to take one route to registration rather than another, but I understand that the Secretary of State for Defence believes it will be for the benefit of the great majority of Service wives to make this change.
My Lords, Clause 3 covers consequential Amendments and repeals previous Acts of Parliament. Clause 4 covers the Short Title, Citation and Commencement. Subsection (2) of Clause 4 provides that the Act shall come into force on such a date as the Secretary of State may order, and the order may be made by Statutory Instrument. I hope that tonight your Lordships will give this small but important Bill a Second Reading, and that the Secretary of State will then be able to take action at the earliest possible date.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. (Baroness Vickers.)
7.52 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for introducing this Bill, and also for the very full way in which she has explained all the provisions, and the purpose of the Bill. I am sure the House will be aware that the main part of the Bill seeks merely to bring electoral law as it affects Servicemen back to the position it was in before the Representation of the People Act of 1969 altered the rules of registration.
Various estimates have been made of the number of Service voters registered as such. The figure of 100,000 has been mentioned in another place in an earlier debate, and we must remember that this total is numbered among approximately 400,000 Service voters who would be eligible to vote as such. The 300,000 Service men and women, together with their spouses, are not disenfranchised, hut it is often difficult for them to ensure that they are on the register somewhere within the United Kingdom.
I believe that it is indeed encouraging to read of the Government's views on this when the Bill was given a Second Reading in another place. It was admitted that

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there are powerful reasons for supporting the Bill: first and foremost because it will lead to a substantial increase in the Servicemen's vote: secondly, because the Government in another place admitted that the situation was unclear whereby the onus of registration lies with the Servicemen (they admitted it is not necessarily for the best), and lastly, because the Government cannot find enough of their own Parliamentary time to permit orderly discussion and, we hope, the passage of the Bill. Yet the Government admit that the number of Servicemen who will be affected is substantial. I think the noble Lord. Lord Harris of Greenwich, would agree that this figure is in the region of 400,000.
In the course of the Second Reading debate in another place the Government pointed out that the position of the Service voters before 1969 had become totally out of date, since each Serviceman was registered at his last known address before he enlisted in the Armed Forces. In several cases this resulted in Servicemen having a vote, and being registered at a street or particular area in towns, cities, or even in the countryside, which no longer even existed. But it was admitted in another place that, as a result of the Representation of the People Act 1969, the Service vote, registered on the non-perennial system whereby each Serviceman is responsible for ensuring that he is registered each year in the same way as civilians, this vote fell to a figure as low as 30 per cent. of the eligible voters. Surely this cannot have been intended, in spite of the benefits to the electoral registers. In cases I have already mentioned, there were benefits.
There was a Speaker's Conference in 1973, which discussed the problems of the Service voters. This Conference recommended that the present position should be maintained, and also that each Commanding Officer or Commander of a particular unit should have to accept the obligation of ensuring that all Servicemen and women under his command were correctly registered each year. Above all, the Conference considered that Service voters should have the same rights and obligations as their civilian counterparts. While this may be a laudable concept, I really cannot say that it seems entirely appropriate to the position of Service
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voters and to the necessity that they should be enabled to vote at each and every General Election.
One word, frequently mentioned by several speakers in the Second Reading debate in another place, was the " turbulence " of Service life. Your Lordships will be aware that the exigencies of Service in the Armed Forces takes Servicemen and women all over the United Kingdom and Western Europe as well as to Malaysia, Singapore and Belize, as we have heard this afternoon from the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers. Often, there is not the time to arrange for adequate or reasonable proxy votes, and the often scattered units overseas may have more urgent messages to transmit from any desert, swamp or jungle than one which is somewhat administrative to us. Of course it is important, because it ensures that each and every member of that unit has been duly registered as a voter on a particular day. Naturally, we accept that civilians have a continuing legal obligation to see that they and their dependants are duly registered, but I am sure that the House will agree with me that the Servicemen and their dependants, by the nature of their duties and obligations, cannot be regarded for these purposes as mere citizens, nor, indeed, as servants of the Crown.
We have only to consider the problems of soldiers performing their four-month tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Quite possibly the soldier who is going to Northern Ireland will have his wife and his place of residence in BAOR. There are also the United Kingdom Mobile Reserve Forces who are ready to move to any part of the world within 24 hours. Noble Lords will admit that the modern defence Forces indeed are well able to carry out all the essential documentation. But it seems to me that all this Bill seeks to do is to enable some of the nonessential documentation to be laid aside, to bring the position of Service voters and their spouses to what it was before 1969. The position of being registered as a Service voter on entering the Armed Forces, and of remaining as such until such time as the voter leaves the Armed Forces, I believe is more important than bringing Servicemen into line with their civilian counterparts.
My Lords, in conclusion, I am glad that the Government have undertaken

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to render this Bill all available assistance. We all look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will have to say. while at the same time thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for bringing this Bill before the House.
7.58 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, the Government welcome this Bill. I would certainly want to take this opportunity of congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and her honourable friend in another place for having sponsored this measure, and for having put it forward with a very substantial degree of vigour. I know that only too well from having had discussions on this Bill with the honourable gentleman. Although the noble Baroness is quite right in saying that our numbers tonight are fairly limited, it is appropriate that she should put forward this measure, given the very distinguished career she has had in another place when she was the Member for a Division which had a very substantial proportion of Service voters. It is also appropriate that we have with us this evening the noble Lord, Lord Alport, who also had a substantial number of Service constituents when he was a Member of another place.
I think there is no doubt that this is a measure which will be of substantial significance to Service voters. As the noble Baroness said at one stage, it is certainly unusual to proceed by way of Private Members' legislation in the area of electoral law. Indeed, for that reason, the Government, I think quite properly, have taken a very close interest in this Bill in order to ensure that it is technically sound.
As the noble Baroness has said, the aims of the Bill are straightforward. Members of the forces have a Service qualification. This entitles them to make a declaration as a result of which they may be put on the register for elections. Under existing legislation, Service declarations are only valid for the lifetime of the register and so a fresh declaration is required each year. This Bill allows members of the Forces, and their wives or husbands who make a Service declaration, to remain registered for the duration of their
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Service qualification. Servicemen generally are compelled to move house far more frequently than the remainder of the population. It was because of the disruption this causes that the Speakers Conference of 1972–74 recommended that the system of annual registration be abandoned in favour of the system of once-for-all registration which had already operated between 1949 and 1969.
The Speaker's Conference also recommended that this system of Service registration be applied to the wives of members of the Forces. At present the wives and husbands of members of the Forces have a Service qualification only if they are residing abroad to be with their spouse. The Bill seeks to confer on wives and husbands of members of the Forces a Service qualification wherever they may be, that is to say, whether they are in the United Kingdom or abroad. There has also been full consultation about this proposal with the Services, and it seems clear that the change will be to the advantage of the majority of Service wives in this country. As I have indicated, there is nothing new in once for-all registration for members of the Forces. The system was criticised when it was last used because the register became out of date from the inclusion of names of those who no longer had a Service qualification. It will clearly be important to do what we can to avoid this happening again. The Ministry of Defence intend to make arrangements which should ensure that registration officers are informed as soon as a person leaves the Forces. The precise nature of these arrangements is still under discussion.
I know that some of your Lordships will he disappointed that this Bill cannot be brought into force this year. But there are, I think, reasonable grounds for this. A new system of registration for members of the Forces, their wives and husbands, will necessitate some amendments to the existing Representation of the People Regulations. More importantly, amendments to and reprints of the relevant forms of Service declaration will be required. I am afraid that this cannot be done in time for the next register because the Service authorities have already distributed the existing forms in preparation for this year's registration programme.

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A more serious problem arises on the registration of the wives and husbands of members of the Forces. To implement the Bill it will be necessary to amend the prescribed electoral canvass form (Form A) and its Welsh counterpart; but the forms for this autumn's canvass have already been printed and distributed to registration officers. There is no statutory authority for the withdrawal or replacement of these forms. The Government have considered a suggestion that the Bill should contain a transitional provision that a Service declaration made this year by a member of the Forces should be deemed to have a continuing effect as if made under the Bill. We are convinced, however, that this proposal is more likely to cause confusion than to achieve its purpose. In our view, the safer and more effective course is to avoid adding complexity, by waiting until the whole Bill can be brought into force at once. We intend to try to achieve this in time for the register after next. I would emphasise that no disfranchisement will occur from the delayed implementation of the Bill. All those eligible to be registered can be registered this autumn under the present arrangements. The beneficial effects of once-for-all registration are cumulative and long term, and a year's delay will not, I hope, make much difference.
In conclusion, I would simply say that I hope this Bill achieves its purpose of greatly increasing the proportion of members of the Forces who are able to exercise the franchise. This is at present very low—most estimates put it at about 20–25 per cent. as opposed to the 60–70 per cent. before 1969. I am sure we should do all we can to remedy this situation and it is for this reason above all that I commend the Bill to your Lordships' House.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his gracious and generous reply. and I am grateful to know that this Bill will be implemented as soon as possible. May I also thank the civil servants for the aid they have given me in preparation of these rather difficult details in some cases.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LEGAL AID AND LEGAL SERVICES
8.6 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD rose to call attention to the future provision of legal aid and legal services in the light of current restraints on public expenditure; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. This is in no way a disguised formula for launching a critical attack, but is genuinely aimed at eliciting information on a subject of some public concern. As we have had intimations from my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that he is intending to afford us such information, we are all looking forward to hearing from him, and I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few brief moments. Perhaps, however, I might be permitted, very briefly, to sketch in the background and add one or two comments which seem to me deserving of consideration.
Before the Legal Aid Act 1949, the provision of legal services for those without means, or without adequate means, was a mockery which fully justified the jibe of a well-known Victorian judge, who said that, " The law, like the Ritz Hotel, is open to rich and poor alike ". The Act which introduced the structure of a comprehensive system of legal aid was an immense step forward. It was, I think, basically sound in principle and was capable of developing into the finest system of legal aid in any country. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, it started on a very limited basis, though it has been gradually extended over the years, all too slowly as some may think, as more money has become available. It is fair to say that in this structure there is nothing that money cannot put right. But, on the other hand, it needs no emphasis that this is hardly the time when we can reasonably expect my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to extract additional funds from his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
There are, I would suggest, two areas in particular which represent grave gaps in the functioning of the present system. First, the financial limits up to which legal aid is made available are absurdly low, and here inflation has, of course, inflicted

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its familiar toll. The result is that legal aid is available at present to much too narrow a section of the community, and thereby the purpose of a comprehensive service has been defeated. Secondly, in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that legal services are not being made available to the poor and deprived sections of the public in those fields such as housing and welfare where help is most needed. On this, it is well known that the Lord Chancellor instituted some time ago a review of the extent of such needs. Perhaps he will now be able to tell us something of what has resulted from that inquiry. Most valuable attempts have been made by voluntary effort to meet these needs, by the setting up of law centres in areas where the deficiency is particularly felt. I know that this is a cause which is particularly dear to the heart of our present Lord Chancellor, and one to which he has given his most energetic and warm support. The fact remains, however, as I think he would be the first to acknowledge, that so far only the fringe of the problem has been touched.
Without more money, is there nothing to be done but to express pious hopes for a better future when economic pressures are eventually relaxed? I would suggest that even under present conditions Her Majesty's Government are not powerless to effect some improvements. At a time of financial stringency, what does every Department, body or organisation, public or private, have to do? Surely to apply a keen and critical mind to every aspect of its affairs and attempt to construct an order of priorities within which the best possible use can be made of its existing resources.
So I will conclude by asking whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has carried out such a review, and whether he is satisfied that present resources, inadequate as they are, are being put to the best possible use. Are there, for instance, economies which could be effected that could make additional funds available to improve deficiencies in the two areas to which I have just referred? Is he satisfied, just to take one example, that the large proportion of legal aid which is now deployed in matrimonial causes could not be put to better use in a world of intensely competing priorities? I will not take up time by
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attempting a catalogue of possible adjustments or retrenchments, as we are all eager to hear the Lord Chancellor's own assessment and the statement of his policy in these matters. In these circumstances, I shall not detain your Lordships' House a moment longer. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
8.12 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, on this particular occasion I have thought it right to intervene at this stage as I have certain proposals to announce which I think noble Lords may think are important, and which those taking part in the debate might like to hear about at this stage. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead for moving his Motion and for his valuable speech, which has pointed out some of the areas where progress, in spite of economic difficulty, can still be made, and asking me some questions which I shall endeavour to answer in the course of my observations.
Your Lordships may recall that in my first speech in this House in March 1974 ventured to express the view that the part of the field of provision of legal services where advance was most urgently needed was in the extension and improvement of legal services for the deprived sections of our community. Shortly afterwards we had a full and useful debate in the House on a Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. Then in July 1974 I informed the House that I was proposing to ask my office to undertake an urgent examination of the nature and extent of the need for legal services for those sections of the community who most need legal help and are not getting it.
Before I tell your Lordships of the principal findings and recommendations in the report I have now received from my officials, I should like to set the whole problem against its wider background. It is important to remember that, in spite of the deficiencies in the arrangements for the provision of legal services to which the Legal Aid Advisory Committee drew attention more than two years ago—and I am delighted to see that its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, has his name on the list of speakers—the legal aid scheme, which celebrated its first 25 years last summer has, in general,

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I believe been an outstanding success. Indeed, legal aid both in the civil and in the criminal courts is now one of our essential social services.
But we have to recognise, I fear, that expenditure on legal aid has risen steadily and substantially over the years. So far as civil cases are concerned—and these are the ones for which, as Lord Chancellor, I am responsible; criminal legal aid is the responsibility of the Home Secretary—there has been an immense increase, as my noble friend has just indicated, in the divorce rate, and accordingly in expenditure in the divorce field. The increase in the divorce rate we deplore and no doubt it is, in part, a reflection of the strains and stresses to which the institution of marriage is subjected in the far from easy times in which we are living—and we may well hear some discussion of these matters tomorrow. Matrimonial cases now represent the large majority of the civil cases in which legal aid is granted, and account for the greater part of the cost of it. Expenditure on civil legal aid has increased from £11·5 million in 1971/72 to an estimated £34·5 million in the current year 1976/77. Although the total cost of civil legal aid is relatively small by comparison with the cost of our other social services, it is unfortunately unavoidable that steps will have to be taken to endeavour to contain it in the years immediately ahead.
The White Paper on Public Expenditure published last February explained the nature of the steps which the Government are being constrained to take to hold hack public expenditure if we are to stop living on borrowed money and if we are to reduce the public sector deficit and defeat the menace of inflation, as we are determined to do. In this battle for economic survival, which is what it is, every Department will have to play its part, and mine unhappily can be no exception. I have already had to accept a radical postponement of my plans for providing the new court accommodation which is so badly needed at many places throughout the country, as two of my predecessors who are in the House will so well know. The House will remember that the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions emphasised the need to build new courts to replace many of the existing buildings whose inadequacies
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they described so vividly—indeed, they said they were a disgrace. But I am afraid that here too we are having to cut our coat according to the amount of cloth that is available and I have had to slash my building programme.
I should now like to tell the House briefly of the nature of the advice I have received in regard to the present need for the expansion of legal services. The survey I commissioned just over 18 months ago confirms that the Legal Aid Advisory Committee was broadly correct in what it said in its Twenty-Third Report. It found that there were many people whose legal rights were, for a variety of reasons, at present going by default, that there was an overall shortage of solicitors throughout the country, and that their geographical distribution was ill-suited to serve many of the poorer sections of the community, and that there were considerable areas of the law, notably those relating to housing, landlord and tenant matters, and welfare benefits, where advice and assistance was urgently needed but often hard to come by.
The report I have received identifies the areas of greatest need. These include, in the North-East a number of places on Tyneside; in the North-West, Liverpool, Salford and several other places; in Yorkshire and Humberside, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull; in the Midlands, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Nottingham. In London the report identifies, in particular, Hammersmith and Southwark and would have listed other areas too but for the fact that their needs are now met, to a greater or lesser degree, by the law centres which have sprung up in recent years. The report confirms the Legal Aid Advisory Committee's view that the geographical distribution of solicitors is very uneven and that there are many parts of the country with virtually no solicitors available to do legal aid work. In parenthesis, I may add here that the position is made worse than it ought to be by reason of inflation to which my noble friend referred, so that the financial conditions governing entitlement to legal aid are now seriously out of date.
The advice I have received is that there is an urgent need for the setting-up of more law centres and for doing whatever is possible to put the finances of some of the existing centres on a less precarious

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footing, and this I have sought to do in the last year or two. There is no doubt that the law centres are playing a vital part in making legal advice available in the areas of greatest need and on matters on which the poorer sections of the community most strongly feel the need for legal assistance. Even in areas where there are sufficient solicitors available to undertake legal aid work, they tend to confine themselves to matrimonial and criminal matters.
There is plainly a case for one central authority being entrusted with the responsibility for co-ordinating the arrangements for the provision of legal services throughout England and Wales. The advice I have received is to the effect that the Lord Chancellor should be that authority and that he should operate through a revivified and strengthened legal aid and advice administration under the superintendence of the Law Society. I should like here to pay my tribute to the immense value of the work which the Law Society has done over the past 25 years in the organisation and administration of the legal aid scheme. I have no doubt at all that the scheme, which has been so effective, in spite of certain shortcomings, in making legal aid and advice available to the poor and to people of moderate means, owes a great deal to the Law Society and to the many members of both branches of the legal profession up and down the country who have served on, the local and area committees which have to decide on applications for legal aid. It is true, none the less, that the present legal aid administration is criticised as being too much in the hands of the lawyers and I think there is indeed room for the injection of a strong lay element into it.
I have come to the conclusion, however, that now is not the time to seek to reorganise the administrative structure of the legal aid system. This would in any event need legislation and frankly I do not know how we would find time for that; and I do not believe that it would be in any event appropriate to introduce such legislation at a time when we are setting up a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Benson to look into the provision for legal services and indeed to review the whole basis of the legal profession. I believe that we should be far better served and perform a far better service at this juncture by using the admittedly scarce resources that are
1216
available, to strengthen the law centres and to extend the coverage of the statutory legal aid scheme by raising the financial limits for legal aid as soon as we can properly do so. Then, again, we need as soon as we can to consider the extension of legal aid to certain of the administrative tribunals which now play such a very important part in the administration of J justice in this country. I am aware of course that there is a powerful school of thought which believes that people appearing before these tribunals are no worse off without legal assistance and that in the absence of lawyers, it is claimed, the proceedings are dealt with more quickly, more informally and more effectively. This is something which we shall no doubt have to consider when sufficient financial resources are available, but I fear that this is not yet the case.
At the present time, as I indicated earlier, the financial stringency is such that we have no option but, I fear, to limit the rate at which expenditure on legal aid is growing. I have therefore had to consider in what ways the money can he saved and found and I have conic to the conclusion that in my sphere of responsibility this can be done only by withdrawing legal aid from undefended divorce cases. Certainly, unless this is done, there will be no money available for assistance on even the most modest scale for law centres and for the improvement of the financial limits for legal aid. The withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce may at first sight strike your Lordships as a somewhat draconian proposal and I hope that the House will bear with me while I explain why venture to think that this will not be so.
The state of the divorce law was transformed by the Divorce Reform Act which Parliament passed in 1969. It is now possible for an undefended divorce petition based on the respondent's adultery or desertion, or the fact that the parties have been separated for five years, or for no more than two years if the respondent consents to a decree, to be disposed of without the need for the petitioner to appear in court at all, provided always that there are no children of the family under the age of 16. All that the petitioner needs to do is to file affidavit evidence in support of the petition and if the registrar is satisfied, on the papers that he sees and studies that the case is made out, he will

1217
refer it to a judge who will pronounce a decree nisi in open court as a matter of course.
This is the effect of the so-called " special procedure " which was first introduced by the Matrimonial Causes Rule Committee at the instance of my predecessor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. It is only when there are children under 16 or where the petition is based on the respondent's unreasonable behaviour that the petitioner has to appear and prove his or her case in court. There is no doubt that this simplified procedure has been of considerable benefit. It has saved many thousands of people from what they regard as the useless and sometimes humiliating experience of having to appear in court to obtain the decree to which the law entitles them once the marriage can be shown irretrievably to have broken down. It has helped to reduce the costs falling on the legal aid fund because, even where the petitioner is legally aided, the procedure is much simpler than it otherwise would have been and the costs are proportionately less. The fact is, however, that the procedure is so straightforward that, provided a petitioner can obtain the necessary preliminary help and legal advice which is available from a solicitor under the so-called £25 scheme, and will continue to be available if what I have in mind takes effect, there is really no reason why, nor is there any necessity that, in the normal case the petitioner should receive legal aid in the presentation of the petition.
My Lords, I think the time has come to take the further steps which, I fear, are required. First of all, I should like to see the special procedure extended to all cases, including those based on unreasonable behaviour and including also those where there are children under 16, although I would leave to the judge the consideration of the arrangements for the children.
Your Lordships may well think that it is the latter class of case which provides the greatest cause for concern and the real difficulty and if I thought that there would be anything in my proposal which detracted from such protection as the law already gives to children in this unhappy situation I should not be putting it forward today.
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Under the law as it stands at present, it is the duty of the court—which in this context means the Judge—to satisfy itself before a decree is made absolute that the arrangements for the welfare of the children are satisfactory or the best that can be devised in the circumstances. Inevitably, it is very difficult for the Judge to do more than approve whatever arrangements the petitioner proposes, but I attach considerable importance to the duty of the Judges in this respect and to their ability to discuss, as they will of course do, the proposed arrangements with petitioners. They do this at present at the hearing of the petition. Under the new procedure which I envisage, it will be done by the Judge in his private room on a subsequent occasion and not in open court, and it may well be that most petitioners will welcome this change, but in the normal case I see no reason why it should call for representation by counsel or a solicitor, although, clearly, the responsibility placed upon the Judges and the task which they will have to carry out may become the heavier.
What I propose therefore, my Lords, is to invite the Rule Committee to approve the extension of the special procedure I have described to all undefended cases. The Registrar would continue to have the right, as he does at present, to require the case to be dealt with in open court by the Judge in the ordinary way if he is not satisfied on the papers that the petitioner has sufficiently proved the contents of the petition.
My Lords, I do not believe that in present conditions we can justify the continued expenditure of the very large sum of money I have mentioned on legal aid in undefended cases to which the special procedure applies. I have it in mind, therefore, once the procedure has been extended to all classes of undefended cases in the way I have described, to ask Parliament to approve orders withdrawing legal aid from these cases. I would propose, however, that it should continue to be possible to grant legal aid in exceptional cases if the certifying committee were satisfied that the petitioner would suffer hardship if this were not done, though I should expect the number of cases to which this dispensation applied to be comparatively small. I should also emphasise that the withdrawal of legal aid would apply only to the proceedings

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for the granting of a decree: it would continue to be available—and I emphasise this—when necessary in the so-called ancillary proceedings in chambers, where questions relating to the custody of children and the financial provision to be made for the petitioner are decided. These are the areas of real contest between the parties to divorce proceedings today, not the question whether the petitioner should get a decree.
The withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce cases in this way would enable a substantial saving to be made. Not all of this saving will be realised immediately, for inevitably there will continue for some time to be a large number of bills coming forward for payment. Nevertheless, I hope that within two years or so after the withdrawal of legal aid the money so saved will enable me to make a significant contribution towards the cost of new law centres and also to raise the financial limits for eligibility for legal aid in the cases in which it will still be available.
I must also make it clear to your Lordships that the withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce cases will not mean any reduction in the overall expenditure on civil and criminal legal aid, which will in fact, on present expectations, continue to increase because of the rising volume of business, and the inevitable increase in costs which are a feature of our times. I recognise however that what I am proposing will be unwelcome to, and may create serious problems for, many of those in both branches of the legal profession who have become accustomed to relying on legal aid work in matrimonial cases as an important part of their practices. Nevertheless, I believe the legal profession will accept these changes as necessary, and indeed reasonable, if the procedure is made sufficiently simple, with the safeguards I have mentioned, for the ordinary individual to conduct his or her case without the intervention of a lawyer.
My Lords, I recognise that the progress report which I have given the House will be thought by many people to be disappointing and possibly even be regarded as something of a backward step. I cannot pretend that I myself view with pleasure the withdrawal of any existing facilities for legal aid, but we have got
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to face for at any rate some years ahead the painful realities of the present economic situation. However, if the withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce proceedings means, as I hope it will, that money w ill be released to raise the financial limits for civil legal aid and to extend legal services in those areas in which an extension is most urgently required, then I believe that we shall be seen to be making real progress in this field and building on the foundations which were laid by the Labour Government when they passed the first Legal Aid and Advice Act in 1949.
8.38 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords: the very late hour compels me to cut short a great number of the agreeable things which f should have liked to say about the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, and about my successor, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I shall therefore be acquitted of discourtesy either to the House or to them if I go to what I think to be the heart of this difficult matter. What the noble and learned Lord is proposing to do is to take away legal aid in the field in which it is most commonly used—that is, in matrimonial troubles where the case is undefended. I gather, although the speech of the noble and learned Lord seemed to me to include two ambiguous passages which were slightly contradictory of one another, that this will be done even where the financial provision particularly for the the wife may be in question and even where arrangements may have to be made for the custody, care and education of children.
The noble and learned Lord wishes in addition to remove legal aid from the granting of the decree in cases where the allegation is that the respondent spouse has been guilty of unreasonable behaviour. The noble and learned Lord proposes to transfer the money which he saves by these proposals to the creation, inter alia, of a number of law centres in various parts of the country and, in addition, to enlarge the financial limitations on the grant of civil legal aid generally. I must tell the noble and learned Lord that, unless he reassures me, I regard this central decision with something like dismay and that I do so not in the least in the interest of the legal profession.

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I have some familiarity with the family courts. It was my ill fortune earlier in life to have to go through them myself and so I. know what a traumatic experience this is to the parties. Of course, I recognise that since that unhappy day both the law and the practice relating to divorce are vastly different, as a result partly of changes in procedure (to one of which the noble and learned Lord referred) and partly to the substantive change in the law created by the Act of 1969. None the less, if there is an occasion in one's life when one wants the helping hand of an experienced profession it is when one's whole future prospect as regards matrimonial status and the status of one's children—particularly if one is a wife, concerned with financial arrangements—are at stake. That is what, as I understand it, the noble and learned Lord has decided to put into jeopardy—and to do so for the sake of priorities which I do not believe to be as great as others.
I shall not say very much on the question of decrees based on unreasonable behaviour, except to say that they are the equivalent (although by no means an exact equivalent) of the old cruelty petitions. The task of identifying and specifying the unreasonable behaviour, and of establishing the relevant facts, is not easy, and I do not myself believe that it can be done by making use of the £25 scheme in advance and leaving the unfortunate petitioner to struggle, as best he or she may, in front of the registrar or the judge, as the case may be. I simply do not believe that it can be done without an inordinate waste of time and a considerable measure of injustice.
The noble and learned Lord, in the first of the two ambiguous passages to which I have referred, seems to think that the judge by himself, unaided by counsel or solicitors, will be able to spot the correct financial provision to be made, usually for the wife, as well as the correct arrangement with regard to the children. I believe that this is a perfectly appalling suggestion. I believe that expert professional aid is required in order to go into the financial relations between the parties in great depth and with great care, particularly when the parties belong to the working class and are somewhat inarticulate in
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their approach to difficult and complicated facts.
I consider that it is quite incorrect for the noble and learned Lord to say—as I thought I heard him do—that it was very difficult for the judge to do more than approve whatever arrangements the petitioner proposes. I must tell the noble and learned Lord that when one considers the arrangements which the petitioner proposes are to be proposed under the £25 scheme or put forward by some other means by the petitioner himself or herself, and without being presented in chambers either by a solicitor or a barrister, I simply shudder to think of the mess which will be made of it. I find this a wholly unacceptable suggestion, no matter how good and experienced our county court or High Court judges may he. I recognise that the noble and learned Lord says that in exceptional cases legal aid may still be available. But that does not comfort me, because the purpose of professional help in these cases is precisely to identify what are the real problems and which are the difficult cases and to exclude the irrelevant, and sometimes the mere matrimonial polemics with which they are confused.
The purpose is precisely to guarantee the honesty of the proposals as they are presented: it is precisely to propose responsible, not irresponsible, solutions. Any one of us with experience of matrimonial differences unhappily knows that sometimes even the most otherwise responsible and respectable citizens put forward irresponsible solutions when it comes to the management of their children or their financial affairs after a marriage has broken down. I regard this proposal of the noble and learned Lord with the utmost disquiet, and I hope that instead of simply appealing to the profession to regard it as necessary he will take careful consultation with the registrars and with judges of the circuit courts, the county courts and the High Court and with both the Bar Council and the Law Society as to the wisdom of the very radical step he is now proposing. If the noble and learned Lord finds that the weight of professional opinion is against him, I beg him—from me he will get no reproaches—to think again before he imposes this proposal upon society, because he is taking away a substantial part of legal aid in the very field where it is most commonly used and

1223
where it is most sincerely and deeply required by the litigant, and giving it to something else.
What he is giving it to has to be spread not merely between the proposed law centres but also in extending the financial limits. I should like to say a word about both these matters. As regards the financial limits, the noble and learned Lord cannot he thinking of any more than a purely trivial increase—I wish he were thinking of more than that. I say this because it seems to me, and it has always seemed to me—I said this to the noble and learned Lord once before and although he differed from me he saw the force of what I was saying—that the main thing which is wrong with our legal aid scheme at bottom, apart from a structural point to which I shall advert in a moment, is precisely that it has bumped along with the financial regulations tied inextricably to the level of supplementary benefit. Therefore practically nobody can get free legal aid apart from those who are entitled to supplementary benefit, and only those who are somewhat within range of supplementary benefit will even get assistance. So this can be only a very small matter which the noble and learned Lord is thinking of.
With regard to law centres, the noble and learned Lord and" I have discussed this matter before in your Lordships' House and therefore I shall not take up a great deal of time in dealing with it. I certainly do not want to appear to be hostile to the idea of law centres: nor would I wish to say a word in depreciation of those who have given a considerable number of ideas and much effort to their promotion. But 1 should like to say two or three things about law centres to the noble Lord. In the first place I have always thought that the priority for them stood a good deal lower than the improvement of the citizens' advice bureaux which are a kind of first aid service and which are, I think, inadequate at present. Secondly, as the noble and learned Lord rightly said, the fundamental problem in this context is the inadequate numbers in this case, particularly of the solicitors' profession, but also to a lesser extent of the barristers' profession. One does not of course add a single solicitor to the profession by introducing a law centre. One may produce some legal services in a place where no, or inadequate, legal services were available
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previously. This is possible. But in doing so one then ensures that there are two types of legal services available to the members of the public: those which one pays for, which are provided by solicitors and counsel in normal practice, and those which one does not pay for, or which one pays less for, which are given at a law centre.
Hitherto, the whole philosophy of our legal aid system has been that the client who is entitled gets the same service as if he was a paying client. In this proposal one goes back on that fundamental principle, and apparently, if all the names mentioned in the speech of the noble and learned Lord are to be the pattern for the future, one will do so right across the country and precisely in those areas where further manning of the legal profession is most required.
It would not he appropriate at this late hour for me to talk about the under-manning of the legal profession or to suggest concrete remedies. Partly, of course, it is due to circumstances which would take us widely outside the ambit of this debate altogether: namely, the difficulty of causing people, in the present social climate, to undergo the long training and the preliminary hardship necessary to enter a learned profession at all. But whatever else may he true, you are not going to cure that by introducing a number of salaried lawyers into the places which are most at risk. On the contrary, you are going to have a two-tier system with discrimination against the poor, and this, I am sure, is not what the noble and learned Lord is really trying to achieve.
My Lords, I am sorry to have been so harsh, and it may be that I shall not be on reconsideration. As the noble Lord knows, I have had only about 24 hours to consider what he said, and I promise him that I will consider it again, and will consider it again most carefully, as I hope he will consider also the first reaction which I have been compelled to give to this proposal. But at the moment I tell the noble and learned Lord frankly that it fills me with dismay.
There is only one thing I want to add, and that has nothing whatever to do with the proposals which the noble Lord has made. I must add, of course, in parenthesis, that I absolutely agree with both

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speakers that the present financial climate constricts the noble Lord almost intolerably. I myself, in a far less severe situation, was grotesquely restricted, and he has my entire sympathy, and no reproach, for being conscious of those restrictions at present. But there is one reform which can be carried out without the cost of any money at all and which might even save a lot of money, and that concerns the, to my mind, grotesque situation by which legal aid is divided into two halves, criminal and civil, one being presided over genially by the Lord Chancellor and the other being sponsored, less genially, by the Home Office. The determination of the Home Office to cling, irrespective of reason, to anything connected remotely with criminal law is one of the great obstacles to law reform at the present time.
I had hoped that in this financial stringency the noble and learned Lord would have taken his courage in both hands and bashed the Home Office on the head, and persuaded them that the legal aid system in criminal affairs is a rich field for reform in one way or another. In saying that, of course, I am perfectly well aware that we had the Widgery Committee some years ago, and I do not want to say a word of disrespect to the Lord Chief Justice, as he now is, whose service to the profession and to the country is beyond praise; but I believe that the findings of that Committee are now obsolescent, and I believe that a visitor from Mars, if he saw our legal aid system, the smallest of all our social services, presided over by two separate senior Ministers, so that the Jews of the Home Office never spoke to the Samaritans of the Lord Chancellor's Department, would be astonished at the irrationality of the human race.
8.54 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I must declare an interest as a practising member of the Bar, although I am happy to say that it is some years since I was instructed in an undefended divorce case. The statement made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will he received with gloom at the Bar as being yet another of the many blows which the profession has sustained in recent years. Indeed, my Lords, the legal profession is, of
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course, an easy target for cheap sneers and for gross misrepresentation, and I am only sorry that this Government should have decided to bow before a wholly artificially contrived storm and appoint a totally unnecessary and extremely expensive Royal Commission.
My Lords, may I, just for one moment, set this matter against the wider background of which the noble and learned Lord spoke? It is beyond argument, is it not, that since the last war the power of the Executive in this country has increased vastly? It is beyond argument, is it not, that nowadays the real protection for the liberty of the individual lies in a free, fearless, independent Judiciary? And it is beyond argument, is it not, that one will get a Judiciary of that nature only if there is a free, fearless and independent legal profession? That means that there must be a profession where the rewards are sufficient—not excessive, but sufficient —to attract and to retain people of real ability; and f am led to the conclusion that, as a result of the developments in recent years, that situation may not survive indefinitely into the future. I know that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, after his, if I may say so, long and distinguished career at the Bar, would not want to be the occupant of his distinguished position who found himself presiding over the disintegration of the profession.
My Lords, I hope that I am not exaggerating. I believe that the figures will indicate quite clearly that what I have just said is a possibility. I can take in one sentence both criminal and civil legal aid together. The fact is that the current scales, the scales now in operation, with one small exception, for both criminal and civil legal aid, were fixed in January 1972. Since that date, the average earnings of the rest of the community have risen by 104 per cent. Since that date, the retail price index has gone up by 85 per cent. Since that date, the expenses of the profession have soared immeasurably; and yet the income of the profession has gone up by precisely nought per cent. When the noble and learned Lord comes to reply to this debate, perhaps he could indicate whether he knows of any other section of the community whose incomes have remained fixed for the last four years. I said, to be precise, " with one small exception ". The small exception is that

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in 1975 the Price Commission permitted a negligible increase in the fees paid for interlocutory work, so that a statement of claim in what might be an important case can now be paid at the rate of £10 instead of £7.
My Lords, that is the position so far as civil and criminal legal aid is concerned. Those of my friends who have had the misfortune to practise in matrimonial work in the county courts, and who are the ones who o will suffer if the proposals put forward today are carried into effect, have received perhaps even more of a raw deal. Their fees, the fees that they at present receive, were fixed in 1967—nine years ago. There has not been one single increase at any time in that period of nine years. There has been proposal after proposal made to the Lord Chancellor's Department. There has been one pathetic and dreary excuse after another over that period denying any sort of compensation for the rapid increases in the cost of living.
My Lords, now this proposal is being put forward today. It will come, I may say, as no surprise to my friends who carry out that sort of work that, once again, they should be made the targets for the cuts that are proposed. May I say only this as to those cuts and to the series of excuses that has been tolerated by the Bar for ten years. I wonder, again, whether the noble and learned Lord could suggest the name of any other professional organisation, or any trade union, which would have endured a situation like that for ten months, let alone a longer period.
One can appreciate in some ways the logic of what is put forward by the noble and learned Lord this evening. At the same time one is bound to say there is force in what is said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and perhaps particular force in the determination to ensure that where children are concerned it should be made abundantly clear that legal aid will be available in order to ensure that their interests are not adversely affected.
Perhaps I could add this. Let us put this into perspective. The sum of money that we are talking about is, frankly, peanuts. If my information is correct, of the total legal aid bill of something over
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£40 million, the total saving that is now envisaged is about £13 million. As against the national expenditure, it is a sum of no consequence. One cannot seriously suppose that foreign speculators are going to rush to buy and hold sterling on hearing the good news that undefended divorces are now to be taken out of the legal aid scheme.
Having indicated, I hope accurately statistically, the position so far as fees are concerned at the Bar over the last four years, may I add one further matter which concerns us? That is the fact that not only have the fees fallen far behind fees in the rest of the community, but we suffer from one complaint which is almost unique; that is, grotesque delays in payment. It is not unusual in criminal legal aid cases for fees to he paid one, two or three years after a case is completed —although I accept that the situation has recently improved as a result of the provisions made for interim payments.
As far as civil cases are concerned, the situation is far worse because in civil cases, where the case, by its nature, might take several years from the time of its inception to the time of disposal, the fees cannot be paid (and are not paid, in the ordinary way) for another nine months to fifteen months after the termination of the case. That means that counsel may not be paid for four, five, six or seven years after they have done the necessary work. Again, might I ask the noble and learned Lord —and I say this in no sense in a personal way—what would be the reaction of Ministers of the Crown, for example, if they were to find their salaries being paid four or five years in arrears and that during that period they were obliged, for financial reasons, to borrow money from the banks at penal interest rates: and that when they were, in due course, paid, the money with which they were paid was worth perhaps half of what it was worth at the time they did the work?
My Lords, I raise this matter on this Motion; and it is clearly relevant, I think, for this reason. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is aware, the Law Society, with the agreement of the Bar Council, have put forward proposals recently for interim payments on account of civil legal aid work. That would relieve considerably the burden on the Bar. Obviously, it would not increase the

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total amount that was to he paid, but I accept, of course, that in the present period of financial stringency it might lead, M the short run, to a comparatively small amount having to be paid out which might otherwise not be paid out for several years. I hope that when the noble and learned Lord comes to reply he might be able to indicate that he sympathises with the position. I do not expect him to say that he would adopt the proposals of the Law Society at this stage in the state of the country's economy, but I hope that he might indicate whether he would be prepared to look sympathetically at those proposals at the earliest practicable moment in the future.
My Lords, because I have spoken in a sense in a trade union capacity in this debate, I am bound to add that not only have members of the Bar had to suffer in this way over the last few years but we have seen all around us a totally different picture. We have seen those of our colleagues in other professions, those of our colleagues in Government, those of our colleagues in the Civil Service, receive increase after increase in their salaries, year after year. I have the figures; I do not propose to go into them. Those who have a legal function to perform in the Civil Service have received increases in the last three years of 50 per cent. in almost every single case; circuit judges and magistrates have received increases of nearly 100 per cent; those in the medical profession under the Health Service have received increases, again of over 50 per cent. And, not only have those increases been achieved by those people, but they have achieved this situation and managed to obtain for themselves built-in, handsome pensions at a level that no member of the Bar could ever hope to achieve for himself.
My Lords, I would not want to be regarded as being purely destructive on this occasion. Let me say at once—the noble and learned Lord asked what the reaction of the Bar will be to the proposals—that I have no doubt that most members of the Bar will accept, as most noble Lords accepted last week in the debate on the economic situation, that urgent and stringent financial cuts are drastically necessary in the interests of the community as a whole. I have no doubt that the Bar would be prepared to
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accept those in relation to themselves. I would only add this: they would accept them, first, provided that it was made clear that the cuts were not being imposed simply because it was thought perchance that here was a section of the community not organised for industrial action. I hope that the Government would not want to acquire the reputation of always retreating before the strong and always being prepared to strike against the weak. Secondly, the Bar would, of course, be prepared to accept the sort of reduction in its standards which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has indicated today, if it were made clear that this was part of a general scheme of equality of sacrifice by the community as a whole.
My Lords, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will indicate when he conies to reply that there are imminent proposals emanating from the Government for reductions in salary for Ministers of the Crown, for senior civil servants and for many other people who hold positions comparable to those of the Bar. Finally, may I say that I am sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will accept that it is desperately necessary in the interests of our society that we should maintain our standards of the administration of justice. For the reasons I have indicated, I venture to think that if there are further cuts of this nature the very independence and existence of the legal profession will be in danger. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to indicate that for some considerable time to come this is going to be the last of such statements that we shall hear from him.
9.8 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, may I first of all thank my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead for having enabled us to discuss tonight a subject which has always been very dear to my heart. I do not disagree with anything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, said about the Home Office; but, on the whole, I had better confine myself to civil legal aid, for it is that alone for which, at the moment at any rate, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is responsible. All my life I have thought and said, particularly to

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the Labour Party, that it is absolutely useless going on and on passing Acts of Parliament giving rights to poor people if, because of their poverty, they are not able to enforce or defend their rights. If that is the position, they may just as well throw their rights into the wastepaper basket for all the good they are to them.
If I may remind the House, when I was called to the Bar the only form of legal aid was the poor person's action. If you had an income of no more than £2 a week or, in exceptional cases, £4 a week, and if your capital, which included your furniture, was not worth more than £50 or, in exceptional circumstances, £100, then the action would be undertaken for nothing, otherwise there was no help at all. I well remember these poor person's actions. For a young barrister who was finding it difficult to live on the fees he was getting, as a point of honour these actions were always undertaken by young barristers and solicitors. It was not just a matter that you did not get any fee; if you had a two-day poor person case at Derby Assizes, you had to pay your own train fare and your own hotel bill. We all did it because it was the thing to do. This went on until the middle of the war, when the whole thing broke down because young barristers and solicitors were away and there were not the lawyers to go round.
I remember that before I left practice myself during the war the last thing I did when I got to the door of my chambers was to remember something. I went back, sat down and wrote a long letter to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simon, explaining to him how legal aid had broken down. I called a conference. I do not know why I called it because I was only a junior barrister. However, I called a conference of all the poor person's lawyers' societies in London to try and cope with this problem. We all had different views as to what the perfect legal aid system should be. I begged the Lord Chancellor to do something about this. While I was away, he appointed the Rushcliffe Committee, whose report in 1949 the then Government accepted and enacted in the Bill of that year.
This without doubt was the best legal aid system in the world. It swept away the poor person's action; it provided no help to those who could afford to conduct
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litigation themselves; but everybody had to pay what he could afford, and the State was to make up the difference. This was to apply in the High Court, the county court, domestic- proceedings before magistrates and in every tribunal before which there was a right to representation. In all the local legal aid centres there were to be salaried solicitors giving advice, however difficult the question, for what the people could afford—half a crown, I remember, for old-age pensioners.
The Act received the Royal Assent in July 1949. Being not impartial in these matters, I thought what a splendid Government this was; they had the wisdom and courage to give independence to India, Burma and Ceylon; gone was the great fear of most of our people: what was to happen about paying fees if they were ill? Gone, for that matter, was the worry of the doctors in dunning their patients to try to squeeze out the money which the patients could not really afford. There was the National Health Service. There was this legal aid scheme.
Then came September, devaluation, crisis, cuts all round. The Lord Chancellor was told, " You cannot do any of this now ". It was a year before he was able to bring this scheme into force in the High Court. Then there was a General Election and a change of Government. We then had to battle against Conservative Governments for seven years before it was introduced in the county court; and another three years before it was introduced in domestic proceedings before the magistrates. When 1970 came it had never been applied to any tribunal and none of the salaried solicitors in the local legal aid centres had ever appeared. The real strength of those of us who have been battling for years for legal aid is that we are only trying to get what Parliament agreed to and passed in an Act of Parliament a quarter of a century ago.
After considerable opposition, I managed to get legal aid applied to one tribunal. The opposition was largely because the powers-that-be realised that if it was once applied to one tribunal it was only a question of time before it would be applied to others. It has managed to keep up with the increases necessary in the scale. The fact is that civil legal aid has always been the Cinderella of the social services. I entirely agree with what my

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noble and learned friend on the Woolsack said as to the admirable way in which the Law Society have administered the legal aid service such as it is. I am sure he would agree that all Lord Chancellors also owe a great debt of gratitude to the Legal Aid Advisory Committee for their excellent reports.
Nobody appreciates better than I do the difficulties of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack in the present economic climate. It is the fact, I think, that without his doing anything a good deal will he saved, as compared with what would have been considered necessary, by the changes in our divorce law. It must have been saved already in fact, because so long as you had to prove a matrimonial offence it was very difficult for anyone to argue that this could be done without legal assistance. But now that has gone, and the question is not whether or not a matrimonial offence has been committed, but whether or not a marriage has irretrievably broken down, and where there is no dispute between the parties there is in substance already no hearing, so I should have thought that must already have saved a good deal of money.
How far this should be extended, I am not sure. I should respectfully desire to read and consider what my noble and learned friend has said about those cases where there are still serious disputes at the hearing of the petition about custody of the children or financial provision. I thought it rather sounded —though I may have got it wrong—as though you would still be entitled to legal aid when these matters are considered and a determination made by the registrar, but if one of the parties is not satisfied with that and wants to bring it up at the hearing of the petition, then you would not be. I am not sure that that would be right, but I agree that if there are serious disputes about the custody of the children or financial provision it may not raise any legal point at all, but some people are very bad at putting their case and the mere fact that they are appearing before a judge in his private room does not necessarily enable them to do so. But, as my noble and learned friend has said, to remove legal aid which exists at the moment would require legislation, and therefore we shall all
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have a great deal of time to consider the matter before he is able to bring this into effect. So I apprehend that there will be some saving, though we do not know quite how much. If there is, and if this means that further funds are available, the question arises—and it is a difficult one—with so many unmet needs in this field, which should have priority?
I should have thought that priority should be given to the scales first and I have in my head—though I am not sure where I got it from but my noble and learned friend may be able to tell me in reply—the fact that not long ago 50 per cent. of the families in this country were entitled to legal aid. Of course, that does not mean that if you get legal aid you get the thing done for nothing. That is a silly system: they have to pay what they can afford. To the extent that people could not afford to pay the whole amount themselves, they were entitled to legal aid. Owing to inflation, the people who are now entitled to legal aid at ail represent about 20 per cent. If that is so, there seems to have been a serious reduction in the proportion of our people entitled to legal aid, and I should have thought that the scales ought to come first.
Secondly, there is the question of law centres, of which I gather the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, did not think very much—
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: My Lords, I did not say that. I said that I was particularly anxious not to depreciate them, but that there were certain disadvantages inherent in the scheme, especially when the difficulty arises from the shortage of solicitors overall.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, I appreciate that, but I think there can be no doubt that the law centres have made a great contribution at a difficult time—
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: Yes, I said that.
Lord GARDINER: —and while I would uphold as strongly as anyone an independent legal profession—" free, fearless and independent " as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, has said—I am afraid it is the fact that they very much neglected a field of law which is of

1235
enormous importance to a large number of people who do not have any money. The lawyers, I am afraid, did not interest themselves because there was not any money to be made out of it. When I was at the Bar, there was not even a single textbook on the Whole field of what pensions people were entitled to or what supplementary benefits were available, and so on. There were insurance appeal tribunals. I had myself to work entirely on an admirable publication called Cans, published by the National Council for Social Service. There was a loose-leaf book which I made up. A very distinguished Lord Justice told me that his cook once asked him at what age she would be entitled to a pension. He did not like to tell her that he did not know, but lie told me that it took him three days and nights, doing nothing else at all, to find Out, because social security law is a little complicated and for the ordinary lawyer it formed no part of the Bar examinations.
I must not start talking about Bar examinations now, but they have never contained any paper on penology or even elementary psychology, and there was also no paper on pensions, supplementary benefits and so on, which mattered to so many people. It is into this gap that the law centres have come and they have been an immense boon to poor people who, otherwise, would have received no legal advice at all. The £25 scheme, so far as it has gone, has also been helpful. But when I heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, say that £13 million was chicken feed, and thought of the numbers of new law centres which could he started for about one-tenth of that amount, I applauded the intention of my noble and learned friend, among the beneficiaries of such savings as can be made, to increase the number of law centres.
Thirdly, there is the question of tribunals. It may be right to say, and probably is, that if there is money to spare scales may come first and law centres may come second, but I hope that the claims of tribunals will not be forgotten. Here, again, one is asking only for what Parliament agreed to and enacted in 1949. It allowed representation for tribunals to be brought in by order. The only reason it was not in the Act itself, as one can see from reading the reports of the debates, and put on a
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footing with legal aid in the High Court, the county court and before magistrates, was because it was said, " All these will require additional work for lawyers, and until we see how far they have been taxed by legal aid in the High Court, in the county court and in domestic proceedings before magistrates, we had better not apply it to tribunals to start with." But power was given to make an order applying to all tribunals before which there was a right to representation.
My noble and learned friend has mentioned the view that people are no worse off before tribunals if they are not represented. I respectfully suggest that all research work which has been done in this field shows that that is not so. I take as an example what I am afraid I have referred to earlier as the dregs of the tribunals, and which I ventured to criticise in a discussion in your Lordships' House a little time ago on the working of the cohabitation rule: namely, the supplementary benefits appeal tribunal. Since then—in fact, since September last year—Professor Bell's report has been available, upon which she spent some years at the request of the Department of Health and Social Security. I think all the criticisms which many of us then made of the supplementary benefits appeal tribunal have been fully borne out by her report.
One of the things she says is that the overall success rate before that tribunal was 20.6 per cent., but where the appellant attended with a representative it was 42.4 per cent. This is not the only piece of research work which tends to show that where there is representation the success rate is likely to be higher. That does not necessarily mean representation by lawyers; again, research shows that that is not so. In many cases before tribunals there is perfectly successful representation by trade union representatives, by social workers or even by relatives and friends. But there is a great difference according to whether or not there is some representation, and she says in her report that resources should be made available to develop facilities for advice, assistance and representation—and particularly as to representation—so that it would be in only a few cases where there were real legal questions to be decided that the representation of a lawyer would be necessary. As a whole, therefore, I

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welcome what my noble and learned friend has said.
I admired very much the " plug " which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, got in for the remuneration of the Bar—whether or not directly relevant. sympathise with him because when I was chairman of the Bar Council I spent nearly all my time raising fees for the Bar. It was a time—1950—when the Bar had fallen far behindhand as against the inflation which had taken place during the war. To take divorce as an example, I remember well that the fee for settling a divorce petition was then £2 4s. 6d., because it had been £2 4s. 6d. since 1939, and that the fee for settling an indictment was £1 3s. 6d. because it had been £1 3s. 6d. in 1939. Undoubtedly there are times when the Bar suffers from the fact that it is not a very militant trade union, that unless anybody does anything fees remain the same and that in a time of inflation the Bar may well suffer worse than most people—but not from anything which my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has proposed.
Therefore I welcome this debate. Legal aid is the Cinderella of the social services and we must appreciate my noble and learned friend's difficulties in not being able to obtain more money from his colleagues. Subject to consideration of what he has said about disputes between children or as to financial provisions, I very much welcome what my noble and learned friend has said about the economies which can properly and inevitably, I think, be made in relation to divorce and the uses to which he would propose to apply such savings as can be made.
9.27 p.m.
Lord HAMILTON of DALZELL: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the statement he has made and for the outline he has given us of the report which he has received. As chairman of his Advisory Committee on Legal Aid I was pleased to note that the report confirms what we said in our Twenty-Third Report about the present inadequacy of the legal services available to those in need. What we then said was based on the best information which we could obtain. While the state of affairs
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which we described is, of course, deplorable, it is gratifying to be proved right by what I understand to have been an extremely thorough survey that was carried out by officials of the Lord Chancellor's Office, who were detailed especially for that purpose.
My Committee will, of course, want to consider in detail the noble and learned Lord's statement, but I have little doubt that we shall find ourselves in broad agreement with the proposals in that report and with the priorities that the noble and learned Lord has allotted to carrying them out. The implementation of any of these proposals will inevitably cost money, and this is always a powerful argument against doing anything. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, indicated, a perusal of the reports of my Committee over the past 25 years would reveal a continuing story of the failure of the scheme to keep up with rising costs and of missed opportunities for improvements. But no-one can deny that as economic crises go, this one is a special case. As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, said, we are all well aware of the particular interest taken by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in this field and his urgent desire to make progress, so it is very sad that he should be constrained by the total denial, which is now in force, of new funds.
The difficulty of controlling the cost of legal aid lies in the fact that it is open ended, in the sense that what it costs depends on the number of people who use it. That number increases year by year, even though, as we have pointed out, not so many people are taking advantage of it as properly should. So the only ways in which the cost of the scheme can be curbed are either to make the financial conditions even more stringent than they are already, or to find an area where legal aid can be withdrawn altogether.
The former alternative is clearly out of the question, so the noble and learned Lord has turned to the latter and proposes to withdraw legal aid from undefended divorce cases. This is something which at first sight must cause concern, and indeed we have already seen this evening that it has done so. It is in fact the first time in the 25-year history of the scheme that its scope has been reduced, and it marks a retreat

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from the aspirations for universal coverage which were implicit in the 1949 Act. But one must face facts and I am willing to agree that money saved here could be more usefully spent in other ways. As a layman I hesitate to express views on the intricacies of divorce law, but there are two points about the proposal which I should like to make.
First, I was pleased to hear the noble and learned Lord lay stress on the fact, as I understood it, that legal aid would be withdrawn only for the more or less mechanical proceedings for the granting of a divorce in undefended cases. I did not understand, and it would be most unfortunate if people got the impression, that legal aid was to be withdrawn from the area which continues to be of the greatest importance to the parties and their children—the ancillary proceedings which determine the arrangements for their future. I hope that emphasis will be laid on this when the time comes to give publicity to the new rules, so that no one will be deterred from seeking legal advice on those important aspects of a divorce.
My other point is that it will also be important to ensure that procedure is simplified and court facilities are improved, so as to make matters easy and un-forbidding even for those for whom any contact with the courts is likely to be rather alarming. There will be minor anomalies to take care of, too; for example, under the existing Rules court fees are waived for an assisted person, but anyone not on legal aid has to pay them. This would be a poor reward for someone saving the country money by doing the job himself.
Subject to those points, I believe that this is the best way to achieve economies and to make possible some advance in other directions. I noted the priorities which the noble and learned Lord gave to this: in the first rank, strengthening the law centres, which I hope means encouraging and facilitating the setting tip of some in those areas of greatest need which have been identified in the Report, and also by raising the financial limits. I entirely agree that these are the two areas in which any money available will be best spent, and 1 hope that my committee may be called on to give advice about the most effective way to do it.
Next comes the extension of legal aid to tribunals—something which we recom-
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mended in our 24th Report. Here again I hope that we may be able to make some useful suggestions about the best way to start when the time comes.
I welcome the proposal in the Report that a new form of authority should be set up under the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the coordination of the provision of legal services under the superintendence of the Law Society, and that this new body should include a substantial lay element. I believe that this would be a sensible and valuable improvement and I was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord accept the idea in principle. I realise that this will probably cost money which in the immediate future could be better used elsewhere and that it should therefore not have a high priority; also that it would involve legislation.
However, my Lords, I was a little disappointed to hear him say that one reason for not proceeding with it was the fact that the Royal Commission had been set up. I do not know how long it will be before the Royal Commission reports, or how long it will be after that before any conclusions are drawn from it, but I hope this will not mean that all progress of this sort will have to be deferred, even if an improvement in the economic situation makes it possible. My Lords, we, the Advisory Committee, have been encouraged by the great interest which the noble and learned Lord takes in our subject and by his keen desire to promote improvements in the legal aid system. I look forward to the opportunities which this statement seems to foreshadow for us to be, I hope, of some service to him.
9.35 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, a number of questions have been addressed to me in this debate, and I ask the leave of the House to speak again. I fully understand the concern expressed in different parts of the House about the proposals that I have made, and I at once give an assurance to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, that of course I will engage in further consultations over the range of people he has mentioned before final action is taken. But there is one thing I want to make clear, which obviously I did not in my speech.

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Frankly, the main purpose of what I propose is to save public money, to save public expenditure. The bulk of the savings that will derive from what is proposed will go towards the reduction of the adverse balance of public expenditure. I have little doubt that this will be the first of a series of debates we shall have in relation to the efforts the Government will make to reduce public expenditure.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, may I make this point to the noble and learned Lord. I understood him to say—and perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—that so far from saving public expenditure, what he is doing is to transfer the savings to some other form of expenditure, so that the net expenditure will not he less; it is going to be more.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, what I have sought to say is that unless the continuing increase in legal aid expenditure is checked—and it is proposed to check it in this way—then the burden upon the Exchequer will continue to grow in a way which will be unacceptable. By preventing that growth—and it will not take effect for two or three years—we shall make our contribution in my Department to the avoidance of building up mounting public expenditure at a level that we cannot pay for without borrowing more money.
My Lords, when it comes to giving effect to the demands for immediate cuts in public expenditure, which the Opposition make so stridently; when one conies down to measuring where the cuts are felt, if I may say so—and I do not want to be Party political on this—one gets very little support. Some poet has said:
"Though I think all men are brothers
Let the fall out fall on others
That is the tendency, both Departmentally and politically, in considering where this painful medicine is to be taken. It gives me no pleasure to have to make these proposals, but with very great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for whom, of course, I have the greatest respect, if I may say so I think he has painted a grossly over-coloured picture of what is contemplated. The noble
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Lord seemed to think that the proposals I have made would lead to an absolute cut in expenditure in legal aid; that is to say, the overall remuneration of the legal profession from public funds. As I have said, this is not the case. It will merely keep the rise, which will continue, within acceptable limits.
As to the remuneration of the profession from the Legal Aid Fund, I think it ought to be known, and I think the noble Lord ought to make it known if he does not, that the remuneration of the profession from the Legal Aid Fund has more than doubled in real terms over the last five years. That is a fact which hope that the legal profession will bear in mind. In fact, there has been an increase in the remuneration of the profession for the last four years.
My Lords, if I may say so, in my life at the Bar the financial basis of the legal profession has been transformed: all those years of struggle that one did in the early days are rightly transformed. But in regard to more recent increases, in the last four years. last year solicitors' costs in the High Court for non-discretionary items were increased by 35 per cent.; the discretionary items. and these include counsel's brief fees, have gone up in the exercise of the discretion of the taxing master. In the county court, the scales of costs are related to the size of the claim. This has gone up with the fall in the value of money. In addition, registrars are more free in the exercise of their discretion than they used to be. So it is the case that we have not been idle in doing what could be done within the limits of financial restraint. We have not been indifferent to this profession, to which, if I may say so, I owe such a very great deal in my whole life and which has contributed so much to the happiness of my existence.
We have endeavoured within the limits of availability to help where we can. With very great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, it is not only the legal profession that is going to be asked to make sacrifices now, because the community as a whole, working people, men at work, are agreeing to submit to reductions in their standard of living. This is what is going to happen, in that wages will not rise at the same level, I fear, as prices. The community has got

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to face the fact that for the next two or three years we must suffer a reduction in the standard of living of all of us, and let it he faced that there are poorer working people with a lower standard of living, and for them a reduction in the standard of living is far more painful than it is for those of us in the professions, because it hits most hard, and it may well hit children. That is the reality we are in and that, unfortunately, is the reality we must face.
Of course, now the Royal Commission is going to examine the matters that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has raised. What he has said is certainly a corrective to the commonly held view that the legal profession is these days living the life of Riley, and indeed the great demand for the Royal Commission has gone in the confident expectation in some quarters that the Bar has feathered its nest, and the solicitors', too well in recent years. We shall await, I with impatience and excitement, the outcome of the examination in depth that the Royal Commission will make into these matters and for the recommendations they may make. Although the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, denounced the very coming into being of the Royal Commission, he was out of step with both the Bar, the legal profession, and the solicitors branch of the profession. which went, at any rate on public record, as welcoming it. So we shall see what emerges.
Coming to the matters of concern as to the area within which legal aid in the matrimonial field will continue to be granted. The withdrawal will only cover the decree proceedings and will not extend to ancillary proceedings if any matter of dispute or difference arises in that field, either in the matter of care and custody of children or in the matter of financial provision. If the registrar or the Judge was to be in the presence of a feeling that there ought to be legal aid in a given case, I have no doubt whatsoever that an indication to that effect communicated to the certifying committee would immediately result in the granting of a legal aid certificate. Then, as I have said, the proposals which will come forward will provide for legal aid in any event in the hardship cases. But I emphasise the fact that the worried, harassed spouse will not be presented with a hopeless position. If I thought that, I would not have anything
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to do with what I am proposing. The £25 legal advice scheme will continue in existence.
It is very interesting, in relation to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, said about the Bell Report, in the matter of legal aid before tribunals (I read from page 23) that:
"The research indicates that priority should be given to development of broadly based and accessible advisory facilities including the services of lawyers but not restricted to them. People on the whole wanted general advice and explanation rather than legal opinion on a precise legal issue. In a small minority of appeals and references legal advice would have been valuable."
This, in the matrimonial field at any rate, will continue and we shall indeed be budgeting for increased expenditure under the green form scheme. I anticipate and intend that in the critically important field of provision for the children, and arrangements for the children, absence of legal aid and advice and representation, if necessary, should not take place where there is any matter in dispute.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, thought that it would be impossible for a petitioner in person to present to the registrar a behaviour case, a total breakdown of the marriage case. What we contemplate is a pro forma affidavit to be provided which will enable a petitioner to set out his or her allegations in a way which will satisfy the requirements of the Act. I ought to say that, so far as children are concerned, it is very unusual for a judge now to decline to accept a petititioner's proposals unless some dissent on the part of the respondent is indicated. The respondent's acknowledgement of service will indicate whether he disagrees. If he does not, the matter can, and will, be dealt with by the judge hearing the petitioner in person. Under the scheme I propose that will be held in the more informal atmosphere of chambers, and indeed that hearing of the petitioner in person by the judge could well he better than the somewhat perfunctory consideration of the arrangements for the children which tends to take place after the hearing of the petition. However, these are matters upon which I shall take further advice and to which I shall give further consideration, but that is the position as I see it.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, put to me the suggestion of the Law Society

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with regard to payment in civil cases on account of fees due in legal aid. My information is that the implementation of the Law Society's proposals would involve a once-for-all increase in expenditure on legal aid of several million pounds in a year. I of course regard the proposal with sympathy, and I suffered myself in waiting, certainly at an earlier time in my career, for the payment of fees. It is always a pleasure three years later to get an unexpected bonus, but it is not something on which one can carry on a living. So I regard the proposals sympathetically, and when we get over this economic hump, as we will—if we work together as a people we will get over it—we shall he able to return to ordinary, reasonable and progressive expectations. But at the present moment of time I cannot give more than express my sympathy, and hope that the time will come when the sympathy will he translated into action.
I have endeavoured to cover the ground. My noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner asked if I had information as to the impact of the decline in the proportion of the population eligible for legal aid since 1960. I am afraid that I do not have the precise figures. There is no doubt that the proportion has fallen very considerably. This, I understand, is, in part at any rate, due to the rise in earnings and it is also due of course to the rise in legal costs since then, and, as I have said, in so far as we can save anything over and above the contribution which I must make from my Department in savings—that is to say, in the reduction in increased expenditure, which is really the accurate way of putting it—then, as I have indicated, my preference at any rate would be in the two directions I have indicated. I was very comforted indeed to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, for that ordering of the priorities. I apologise for detaining your Lordships so late but the matters which were raised were of great importance, and I repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, for having made this debate possible.
9.52 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I wish to thank all noble Lords, and particularly my noble and learned
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friend the Lord Chancellor, for participating in this debate, which I venture to think has been most interesting and informative. That is hardly surprising when three of the participants were the present Lord Chancellor and two of his noble and learned predecessors.
Your Lordships will be gratified to know that I do not intend to make another speech at this stage. I should, however, like to say that I opened my earlier remarks by referring to priorities and my view is that, on the whole, the Lord Chancellor has got his priorities right and that they deserve support. Of course, if I shared the view of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, that this proposal involved an attack in some way on the independence either of the Judiciary or the Bar, I should be the first to support his view, but it seems to me that there is nothing in this proposal which makes such a threat, and I confess that I was a little surprised to hear him cast aside the prospect of saving £13 million. After all, it is this very situation which has created our present economic problems; nobody can see why any economy should ever he introduced in his own particular field, hut when one adds up all these different sums of £13 million and so on one finds that this is exactly the problem which we face.
I should have thought that my noble and learned friend has shown considerable wisdom and courage in making a proposal of this kind. Of course, if vital safeguards are to be set aside in providing representation in matrimonial causes where representation is really needed, then again one would have hesitations, but it seems to me—though I confess that I have not precisely followed the details, because I have not had time adequately to study the Lord Chancellor's statement—that he has shown his usual and characteristic vigilance in seeking to find all possible safeguards where they are required, and I am glad to note, as one would anticipate, that he is very ready to carry out full consultation with the Judiciary and the profession and with others concerned to ensure that these safeguards are retained. I do not propose—it would he most inappropriate if I were to do so—to detain your Lordships further at this late hour and I conclude by begging leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL RIVER MEDWAY (FLOOD RELIEF) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and referred to the Examiners.
AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

OVERSEAS PENSIONS
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the present position regarding their undertaking to take over responsibility for the payment of overseas pensions.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government remain as firmly committed as ever to their undertaking to assume responsibility for the payment of overseas pensions. Of the 37 countries concerned, transfer arrangements have now been completed for 17. As the list is rather long I will, with the leave of the House, circulate it in the Official Report. In view of this progress, Her Majesty's Government are optimistic that the takeover programme will be substantially complete by the end of this year.
The countries referred to are as follows:

Sudan

St. Lucia

Gambia

St. Vincent

Burma

Malawi

Lesotho

St. Kitts

Dominica

Fiji

Mauritius

Malta

Swaziland

Ghana

Grenada

Seychelles

Botswana

the last two having been finalised only two weeks ago.
Formal agreements have been concluded with five more countries and the detailed transfer arrangements are being completed as soon as possible.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that reply, may I ask her whether she is aware that her statement this afternoon will give great satisfaction and comfort to overseas pensioners, former servants of the Crown?
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Is the noble Baroness further aware that, as an overseas pensioner myself, and a member of the executive committee of the Overseas Pensioners' Association, I am aware of the hard work of the present Government in this connection to bring these matters to a satisfactory conclusion? Is the noble Baroness aware that we are grateful to the Ministry of Overseas Development and its officers, who at this moment in overseas territories are trying to iron out some of the difficulties which arise? I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. May I receive an assurance from her that the work will be completed with all despatch?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, for what he has said, in particular about the hard work of the officials. I think the whole House knows of the concern and hard work which the noble Lord himself puts in on these matters. I can assure him that we are proceeding as fast as we possibly can.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether these pensions are to be indexed? May I further ask her whether she is aware that indexed pensions were first paid to civil servants 700 years ago by Edward I, the great law-giver, and that Mr. Heath, in following that example, did so much more belatedly than he knew?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am afraid I do not remember 700 years ago, but on the question of indexing, I will write to my noble friend Lord Bowden.
3.8 p.m.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, since it got a little garbled in the pipeline, I do not wish to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper; namely:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a person who unknowingly receives a dose of heroin at a hospital as treatment for a heart attack and who subsequently feels better and discharges himself, may in the event of an accident be properly charged with driving under the influence of drugs.

SOVIET RESTRICTIONS ON NAVIGATION
Lord KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what protest, if any, they have made to the Soviet Government against their having closed some 300 square miles of the high seas (in the Barents Sea) to shipping and fishing for six weeks while they carry out weapons testing there.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): None, my Lords.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, are the Government aware that when the Russians close their seas to navigation and shipping on the other side of the earth, in the North Pacific, the Japanese have no inhibitions about protesting, and very often induce the Russians to change their minds about it? If Her Majesty's Government do not intend to protest about this, how close do the Russians have to come to our own shores before the Government will protest?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kennet is referring to the Barents Sea. The country immediately concerned is Norway, and I am not aware that the Norwegians, so far at least, have protested formally this year or, indeed, last year, when a similar exercise was announced by the Soviets.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, did I understand my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts to say that no protest has been made? Are not our trawlermen being placed in jeopardy because of that? Do they not sometimes fish in the Barents Sea?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shinwell understood me correctly. So far as I am aware, the Norwegians, who are directly concerned with this area, have not this year, or last year in similar circumstances, made a formal protest. Norway is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty
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Organisation, and that Organisation has neither collectively, individually or bilaterally made a formal protest.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he has received any official representations from the Chamber of Shipping, or any other body which is very concerned with anything which relates to the shipping industry?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we are in close touch with that body and other bodies concerned with the shipping and fishing industries. But, to my knowledge, we have not received representations on this specific point.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister make it clear why the Government, who are so strongly and rightly concerned about freedom of navigation on the high seas, should let an episode of this nature, where about 300 square miles of the high seas are closed, go by without so much as a squeak of protest?
Lord GORONWAY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is not unusual for States, including this country, to carry out exercises of this kind on the high seas so long as, as in this present case, the implementation of such an exercise is derived from the 1958 High Seas Convention and the custom, usage and experience which since then has proved that these exercises can be engaged in with due notification and warning. On the whole, the view of Her Majesty's Government, and that of practically every other Government who have looked at this, is that the present system works well, is generally acceptable and, until experience shows otherwise, it would be well to leave the position as it is.

TYNE AND WEAR BILL [H.L.]
3.12 p.m.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, on behalf of the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, may I say how glad I am

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to hear that this Bill has now got as far as being put to the House for a Third Reading, particularly in view of the fact that the whole area is of tremendous interest, naturally, to me and to those associated with my part of the world. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Committee who examined the Bill and who have returned it with certain Amendments and certain alterations. We are all very grateful to them for the trouble they have taken. I should also like to put on the record the fact that there are many people in the Tyne and Wear area who believe in private enterprise and there are many people in the area who believe in local authority responsibility. I would say once more that I think the Committee have produced a balanced Bill and I am very grateful to them for it. As we have had to wait a very long time, I am delighted to know that the Bill is now before your Lordships for Third Reading.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, in moving the Third Reading of this Bill, I should like to express my gratitude to the Scottish Law Commission for the help which they have consistently given in its preparation. It has meant a considerable amount of work for them, and I think it is fair to say that they have performed a very valuable service indeed for their fellow countrymen. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, before this Bill passes I think the whole House, and particularly Scotland, owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, for the splendid work he has put in on this valuable Bill.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

POLICE BILL
3.16 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, on this Motion, may I say that I am in favour of the Bill being read a third time, but as since the Report stage we have all read in the papers that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has now referred the Luton murder case to the Court of Appeal for the third time—which I think is a record—I wonder whether on this Motion, or on the Motion that the Bill do now pass, my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich will be able to tell us how his negotiations with chief constables are proceeding.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, for rising to speak, because it enables me to do so without those inhibitions which normally confront me. I had thought of asking the House whether this was the appropriate time for me to speak, if ever, and if there were any unknown Rules of the House which precluded this or made it undesirable—whether they would now forbid the bans or forever hold their peace. However, in view of the fact that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has spoken, with rather more than my usual brevity and certainly with all his normal clarity, there are one or two things I should like to say and will try to say as briefly as I can.
On Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, made a speech which showed not only his normal great interest and ability but also a prophetic appreciation. He said that after the torrent of words that had poured over this Bill, without much effect, in view of the position the House was in, this odd little patch on the body politic, which of course, deals with a matter in isolation which ought to be dealt with under a collective system—
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend

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for giving way. I wonder whether we could discuss both these issues on the Motion, That the Bill do now pass, which I understand is the appropriate time. My noble friend will have the opportunity of making the point he is endeavouring to make on that Motion if he will allow the present Motion to be carried.
Lord HALE: My Lords, certainly. I said that if noble Lords wanted to forbid the bans they could rise and do so.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
3.18 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 10, line 21, leave out subsection (1) and insert:
("(1) Where a member of a police force has been acquitted or convicted of a criminal offence he shall not be liable to be charged with any offence against discipline which is in substance the same as the offence of which he has been acquitted or convicted.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Amendment I should like now to propose to the House is one which arose as a result of the debate at the Committee stage when the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, raised a question on Clause 11 of this Bill. Clause 11(1) is designed to guard against a particular form of double jeopardy; namely, that an officer having been tried for a criminal offence should not then be charged with a disciplinary offence which is in subtance the same as the criminal offence.
During the Committee stage objections were raised to the present form of words, and the purpose of this Amendment is to meet those objections while retaining the original purpose of the subsection. In moving an Amendment to this clause in Committee, the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, expressed his concern that Clause 11(1) perhaps went too far in guarding against double jeopardy, by preventing a chief officer, in a case which had involved criminal proceedings against the officer concerned, from taking action in respect of the disciplinary aspects of the same case, although without prejudice to the principle of no double jeopardy. The noble Viscount gave as an example an officer who, although acquitted on a charge of bribery and corruption, might
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nevertheless have handled money or property by methods which contravened the discipline code.
The noble Viscount's concern was that Clause 11(1) appeared to prevent the chief officer from very properly preferring the disciplinary charge of failing properly to account for, or to make a prompt and true return of, any money or property received by him in the course of his duty. We have no intention of preventing the bringing of a disciplinary charge in the circumstances described, and we have therefore put down this amended form of words to remove any doubt which may have arisen. The main purpose of the Amendment remains the same; namely, to avoid double jeopardy. I would close by thanking the noble Viscount, and indeed the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for having raised this question.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for taking so much trouble over this matter and probing into it so deeply, and for producing something which, quite frankly (and I shall not keep him hanging on any longer) is satisfactory, at any rate to me. I think it is probably satisfactory to my noble friend Lord Colville. I thank him very much indeed, and, in order to remove any anxiety, may I say that I shall not be moving my Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.22 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HALE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for indicating that before he speaks I may be permitted to say a few words. I was almost tempted to say "a few more". One is confronted by a situation in which this Bill has gone through without any adequate discussion on one matter. I think the noble Lord is very honest, very able, and realises, and we realise, that there is a dilemma, in that there is an absence of Home Office responsibility at the

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moment. Most of the discussion has gone on on the basis of chief constables—the distinction and the honesty of chief constables. The Royal Commission went round the country trying to suppress the facts about chief constables as far as we could. We not only knew that two were under serious prosecutions at the time, and one or two were under report, but had difficulty in tracing some who had given themselves three months' leave on the Riviera and whose watch committee said, "We didn't know we could stop them".
There was an apocryphal story (not quite apocryphal, but perhaps sufficiently so to permit me to say there is perhaps a touch of doubt about the precise presentation) of the borough in which every Sunday morning the chief constable and most of the senior officers of the police force occupied the first row in the church, and a gang of skilled safebreakers, who contributed lavishly to church charities but always undertook never to break any safes within the borough, occupied the second row. This raised some questions which were in a sense rather outside our terms of reference in detail.
What I am concerned about—and I will try to put it as briefly as I can—is, how is all this now going to be handled? I am told that the noble Lord on the Front Bench will be making regulations. It may be that the Home Office will then be in different hands. But the things we do not know are what are the duties of the police, and what is a breach of duty. We are told that anyone who cares to read Docherty will find in point of fact, in typical English fashion, that everybody who touched Docherty muffed it. Everyone, young and inexperienced police officers, did not apply the rules of examination. A gifted policewoman, who really did make a good job, failed to obey the instructions contained in Home Office Circular No. "What's its name", and when asked why she had not she said she had never heard of it; and nor have I. The solicitor certainly failed to care for his client with that zeal which a solicitor should; the learned counsel admitted that he had to take difficult decisions, and possibly took the wrong ones, and most people agreed with him; the judicial officer refused legal aid—indeed even to the point that the Court of Appeal who did not grant a new trial,
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though not attacked quite so clearly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Devlin, in his brilliant and able report, occasioned some regrets in the minds of the investigating committee that they had remained so closely bound by the procedure adopted soon after the passing of the Act of 1909. I understand that, in spite of the provisions, there is no obligation on the police to investigate an alibi. It is a matter for their judgment. The only obligation is that if they do decide to do it they have to notify the defending solicitor.
May I just give one single case to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to try to explain this, and I put it from memory. If you get a case in which a number of people are arrested for creating a disturbance and finally charged with carrying an offensive weapon on the strength of the fact that they have each got almost mathematically proportioned pieces of brick-ends in their pockets, most of them pacifists; and if they say they never carried brick-ends and these were planted on them by the police at the station; if they are convicted, and if there is then an independent investigation, and finally some of the police officers admit that they planted the pieces of brick-end but say they did it on the instructions of a gifted detective inspector, who is well known, well publicised, a man of dominant, powerful personality with a considerable amount of successful achievements to his credit, what is the procedure for a young policeman when he is told to plant something? To whom does he report it? If it happens to be the detective chief constable who told him to plant it, what does he do then?
When he is brought up before the disciplinary tribunal and is told that he is entirely responsible because it has now been found that this detective inspector is suffering from schizophrenia and has been retired on a full pension in view of his previous distinguished record, what is the procedure for the young police constable then?
In view of the possibility of situations like that happening, will the noble Lord at least give an assurance that when he considers making all the regulations on this he will give very considerable attention to these problems—who is at fault when a policewoman fails to read a document she

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has never heard of and which is necessary for the performance of her duty; and whether it is the person who is in charge of the force or the constable who, in very difficult circumstances today, is called upon from day to day to make decisions. Finally, my Lords, if information comes forward which makes possible the arrest of a suspected very dangerous criminal who is about to board a ship or climb into an aeroplane, who is the officer who takes the decision to arrest without warrant and who is the officer who is normally caned upon to "carry the can"?
3.30 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I am not at all sure that I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that we should send this Bill further on its way. I cannot recall ever having seen a Bill with so few friends that has got so far as this one; it has no real admirers so far as I am aware, and those who are not against it appear to be supporting it on the well-known principle of preference for the devil they know. That is not a very great recommendation for it. There is no Party difference here, and I think there is agreement in all parts of the House and in the country that if we can find a good way of introducing an independent element into the procedure of dealing with complaints against the police, we should go forward and in the end legislation will be necessary. But in my view it is hardly responsible for the Government at this time to press on with this Bill, bearing in mind its background. To do so would not be responsible at any time, but least of all at times like today when Parliament is so clogged up. Noble Lords will remember the strictures of my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone on Second Reading, and I hope that we will hear from him today. I should like to think that he would feel it proper to lead us into the Lobby against the Motion which is before the House.
I suppose that this is part of the passion for legislation which all Governments tend to share, and this one the worst I have known. Noble Lords will remember that in the debate yesterday the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough mentioned this excess of legislation from which we have suffered recently and from
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which we are still suffering—I think he meant to show how self-defeating it frequently is.
If we reject the Bill we are not, I believe, making it impossible for some form of independent element to be introduced. Here the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, disagrees with my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley, who is a former Home Secretary. They have different views. I admit that when in another place Lord Carr spoke three years ago of introducing some first steps administratively, he had more in mind an Ombudsman-type of procedure than the Board that is written into this Bill. However, I cannot believe that if we could do the one, we could not go some way towards doing the other. In this sort of field, where there is a will there is a way; sadly, it is always possible too to find arguments, both at the start and at the last minute, why things should not be done.
I cannot believe that some such plan for an independent element could not be substituted for the Bill. Lord Harris was kind enough to send me a letter about this, and he will agree that it arrived very late in the day and that I had only nine hours—or nine hours of daylight, anyway—to study it, and that that was not long enough to follow up the various points he made. I still feel that it would not be irresponsible for us this afternoon to reject the Bill, and I base that statement on words used by Lord Carr in another place on a similar Bill in 1973 when, speaking against the desirability of overhasty legislation in this field, he said:
"I am satisfied that I can begin the arrangement on an experimental basis without legislation. The time for legislation will be when we have had the experiment in being for a reasonable time and have learned by experience, but until then we want flexibility."—[0fficial Report, Commons, 23/2/73; col. 1003.]
That is, surely, a more responsible line and I should like to feel that it is not too late to follow it today.
3.35 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, in view of the invitation which has been almost extended to me by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, I will make a few short and impromptu comments. I agreed with a

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very great deal of what he said, and I do not withdraw a word of what I said on Second Reading. I believe that this approaches the problem in a muddled and ill-thought-out way and that it is an unnecessary and undesirable piece of legislation, and even at this stage the Government would be well advised, for the reasons which I gave, to take it away and think through the problem afresh.
However, I could not adhere to my noble friend's conclusion that it would be wise at this stage to reject the Bill. I think that that would be very widely misunderstood; it would he supposed, rightly or wrongly, that we were opposing the principle of an independent element in investigating complaints. Even if one got over that, or did not care about it—and either would be a relevant possibility—I believe that the House should reject a Bill in toto only if important considerations of a very fundamental kind are at stake, and I cannot believe that this Bill comes into that category. We have spent a lot of time on the Bill, though I do not think we have improved it very much. I expressed the view on Second Reading that given the framework which the Government, rightly or wrongly, have adopted, it is almost impossible to improve it. However, I would deprecate an attempt to reject it at this late stage of the Bill, for the reasons I have given, although I thoroughly agree with the strictures on its wisdom which my noble friend pronounced. I certainly take that view and I hope that on reflection my noble friend will not find it necessary independently to press the matter to a Division.
3.37 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will begin by dealing with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and then I will come to the points of detail which have been made. In Committee, Lord Inglewood, speaking on the Motion, "Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?" proposed an alternative scheme. I suggested to him that, even at that very late stage, if he wished to table an Amendment we should of course consider it, but—and I hope I made it clear at the time—I recognised the very real difficulties of trying to create another, alternative scheme. We have had perhaps dozens of alternative schemes in this matter of dealing with complaints
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against the police, and I was not at all surprised that the noble Lord did not put his Amendment down, although I replied to his letter to me by explaining why I thought the proposals he made in Committee were not appropriate for a Bill of this sort and why the idea which he put forward was objectionable in principle, not only so far as the Government were concerned but from the point of view of a very substantial section of public opinion.
Lord Inglewood said that the Bill had been brought in as a result of some passion for legislation and he described it as one of the worst examples he had ever known. Considering that the noble Lord has been in politics substantially longer than I have, I am surprised that he should take the view that it is the worst example he has ever known. This matter has been debated in Parliament year after year in the last decade. Growing public anxiety has been expressed in both Houses about a system of dealing with complaints against the police where the police are seen to be judges in their own cause. It is appropriate today for us to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, because when he was Home Secretary he grasped this nettle, albeit as the result of a Private Member's Bill in another place, and set up a Working Party to consider what sort of complaints machinery should be created.
The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said that the real difficulty was that the Bill had very few friends. The trouble is that there are very few friends for any of the alternative groups of schemes that have been assembled by one interested party or another. What I have tried to make clear in our debates is that we have attempted to strike a fair balance between the interests of the public and those of the Police Service—the chief constables, the Superintendents' Association and the Police Federation—and to create a scheme which was just to all concerned. I believe that we have created a scheme which is just to all concerned.
As I pointed out, one of the most important single things—and I must make this quite clear, as I said at Report stage, having dealt with this matter for two years now and having dealt with the Police Service for that time—is that we should bring this debate to a conclusion. It is in nobody's interest that there should be

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continued public unease about the machinery of complaints against the police. As I have said repeatedly and as, I am sure, is the view of the entire House, we have the best Police Service in the world: I want to make quite sure that that reputation is underpinned by a complaints machinery which ends this debate and creates greater public confidence than exists at the moment. I believe that this scheme achieves that.
I should like to make one other point to the noble Lord. This Bill received a Second Reading in the other place without a Division. It achieved a Third Reading by a majority of 74, and the noble Lord will be aware, as are we all, that that is rather larger than the Government's present majority in another place.
So much for the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. I should like to come now to the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner and by my noble friend Lord Hale. I cannot now recall whether I said in Committee or at Report stage, though I believe that it was at Report stage, that I realised that my noble and learned friend would come back to the charge on the matter of the consultations that we undertook to have on this matter. Certainly, they have not been concluded. It is the intention of my right honourable friend and the Home Office to push on with this matter as rapidly as possible. However, it raises fundamental issues. My noble and learned friend has rightly pointed out that there is a major difference in police practice in this matter between London and many areas outside. It will take some time to resolve these difficulties and, frankly, it has been impossible to do so in the limited time we have had since the Report stage of the Bill. However, we will push on with this as soon as we can.
So far as my noble friend Lord Hale is concerned, he asked what would be the situation following the passage of this scheme. I do not want to go through some of the more fundamental parts of the proposals in the Bill, but the situation once the Bill is on the Statute Book will be the following: if an allegation of criminal conduct is made against a police officer, it will, as now, be considered by an independent authority outside the
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Police Service; namely, the Director of Public Prosecutions. In the case of an allegation that an officer has committed an offence against the disciplinary regulations of the force, the matter will go to an independent board appointed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
I believe that a scheme of this sort will settle some of the anxieties, though there will undoubtedly be serious problems which will remain. To deal with the specific point raised by my noble friend Lord Hale, if a police officer is invited by a superior to commit an act which is an offence against the criminal law, it seems to me that his way through that particular difficulty is straightforward. He must report the matter to a senior officer. Although I am certain that it is necessary to change the complaints procedure as we are doing, I believe that it would be wrong to allow it to be believed that the Police Service would ignore an allegation of the kind made by my noble friend and would sweep an issue of that sort under the carpet. Of course, there is always a risk of an abuse of power in any disciplined organisation. But I repeat that, though we cannot ignore the fact that there are risks of such abuses of power in the Police Service as in any other aspect of our public life, we have reason to be proud of our Police Service. I am sure that that is the overwhelming view of the entire House and I believe that this Bill will buttress that reputation.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

ARMED FORCES BILL
3.45 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 ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Establishment of Standing Civilian Courts.]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 en bloc:
Page 3, line 40, at end insert ("under subsection (12) below").
Page 4 line 4, leave out ("in") and insert ("for").
Page 4 line 29, leave out ("any") and insert ("the person, or every").
page 4 line 30, leave out ("an") and insert ("the").
The noble Lord said: With the agreement of the House, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 en bloc. In introducing the first Amendments to this Bill, I should like to mention that they and all the other Government Amendments which I shall move during this debate are of a technical and drafting nature, and are designed to clarify and make explicit the way in which the necessary machinery will work in order to give effect to the proposals.
Nearly all the Amendments arise in that area of the Bill which is the most complex and most novel for the Services—that concerning the incorporation into their Discipline Acts of the provisions in Clauses 6 to 9 and Schedules 3, 4 and 9, which introduce powers to deal with Servicemen's families and other civilians overseas in a way which is, as far as possible, similar to that used in the United Kingdom. Fitting such wide-ranging provisions into the complicated and interlocking structure of the Acts is not easy, and work on this, and on the subordinate legislation which will be needed, has been proceeding since the Bill was considered in another place. A number of further such technical points have thus emerged where improvements should be made, but they are all, I believe, uncontentious.
This first group of Amendments is typical of all those that I shall move, being small but useful refinements to the drafting. They concern the jurisdiction in the Standing Civilian Courts of assessors and lay members. Those to Clause 6 are mainly designed to make it clear that an assessor or lay member may sit only in juvenile cases, thus broadly aligning practice for these courts with that of civil courts in the United Kingdom. Amendments Nos. 20, 29 and 30 to pages 16 and 17 give clearer effect to the intentions behind the provisions relating
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to the decision processes of the Standing Civilian Court when it is composed of assessors or lay members (as the case may be) in addition to the magistrate. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: I thank the noble Lord for explaining in outline the four Amendments en bloc but if he can, there is a point concerning Amendment No. 2 which I should like him to explain. It is a fairly simple Amendment, leaving out the word "in" and inserting the word "for". I assume that this refers to Standing Civilian Courts which might take place outside the United Kingdom, possibly in BAOR, or, it might be, elsewhere overseas. Can the noble Lord be more forthcoming on this very technical point upon which I have not been able to brief myself? Has the noble Lord any further information?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: If I am wrong I shall inform the noble Lord and the Committee. The subsection, as amended, says,
"subsection (13) below shall have effect in relation to trials before Standing Civilian Courts for that area."
The court for that area may be sitting outside that area, not in it; hence the Amendment.
Lord LEATHERLAND: Can my noble friend clear my mind a little with regard to this new Civilian Court? Let us assume that I am the wife of a soldier serving in Germany, that I am an irresponsible kind of person and that I have lost the housekeeping money by playing bingo at the local cinema. Then I do one of two things. First, I might go to the regimental orderly room and steal some money from there. I can quite understand that that might render me liable to prosecution in one of these Civilian Courts which are really part of the Army establishment. Alternatively, I might go along to the local supermarket and steal some goods off the shelves. In that case would I not be brought before a German civilian court? There are two kinds of offence. Perhaps my noble friend can clear up the matter for me?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: This is the situation. If a British civilian commits an offence within the German jurisdiction, obviously he is subject to disciplinary

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action, to trial within the German legal system. But in principle the situation is usually resolved by the police transferring to British jurisdiction responsibility for cases involving civilian dependants of members of the Armed Forces. Up to now we have had the unfortunate position of having to court-martial the wives of serving soldiers or civilians in the employ of the Armed Forces in Germany. This is a proposal to introduce Standing Civilian Courts into the disciplinary structure of the Armed Forces when stationed overseas.
To reply to a point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, I should say that at the moment this position applies only to Germany. In cases of the type described by the two noble Lords, where the court-martial procedure itself is inappropriate, we believe that trying to set up the equivalent of magistrates' courts in the area of Germany as at present enables us to deal with cases of this type in a manner more acceptable to British public opinion, and indeed more acceptable to the Armed Forces themselves.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Jurisdiction of Standing Civilian Courts]:
3.56 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 5, line 19, leave out from ("he") to end of line 23 and insert ("or any person jointly charged with him elects to be tried by court-martial in accordance with the provisions of this Act or of any Order made under this Act").
The noble Lord said: In dealing now with Amendment No. 5 I should like now to speak to, but to move at a later stage in the Schedules, Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 32. These Amendments are to make explicit that an accused has a right to elect trial by court-martial, which is to be conferred by order of the Secretary of State under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Bill, and which if exercised by an accused, or a co-accused jointly charged with him, will require steps to be taken for disposal of the case by court-martial. This effect was previously implicit, but is now set out with greater precision and clarity for the
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benefit of users. It is purely a drafting refinement and no change of policy is involved. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: Perhaps the noble Lord can explain a point which is troubling me. He said that this was merely a drafting matter, but I am not entirely convinced, and I hope that he will he able to explain the position to me. The noble Lord spoke about a court-martial before which more than one person is brought. Can the noble Lord explain to me what will be the result if one of the accused wishes to go on trial before a court-martial but one or more of the other accused do not? It seems to me that some of the soldiers, sailors, or perhaps airmen, might have their rights clipped by what is proposed in the Amendment.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: I thought that what I said was fairly clear. I should like to re-state it. If these powers are exercised by an accused or a co-accused jointly charged with him, steps will be required to be taken for disposal of the case by court-martial; that is to say, any single individual in a group of individuals charged with committing a single offence can bring the whole affair before a court-martial. That is how I read the Bill as it stands.
Lord LYELL: That is not the point which was entirely in my mind. My mind was troubled by the fact that one of the accused could decide, if he wished, to be brought before a court-martial and this might prejudice the others. What rights do they have?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: The final say in a matter of this kind must lie with the court-martial because this is much closer, I suppose, to a county court trial rather than to a hearing in a magistrates' court. So, if any single individual involved in an incident wishes to be tried at a court at a higher level than that of, say, his commanding officer—summary judgment—then he must, in my view, commit all other members who are charged with committing the same offence. That is how I read this brief, but again, if I am wrong, I shall tell the House at Third Reading.
Lord LYELL: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation.

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I think that I understand that to he the position, but possibly we may consult on this matter later.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Powers of courts in relation to civilians]:
3.58 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 5, line 39, leave out ("pass consecutive sentences") and insert ("award consecutive terms").
The nobe Lord said: This Amendment once again helps to clarify the drafting. As I understand it, these words are used in service judicial proceedings and the word "sentence" is a wider term which can include several punishments or orders. The new wording meets more precisely the intention behind this provision. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Constitution of courts-martial for civilians]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 7 and 8:
Page 6, line 23, leave out ("paragraph") and insert ("paragraphs").
Page 6, line 37, at end insert:
("" (fff) the reference to an officer under instruction in section 93(1) above shall include a reference to a person under instruction who is qualified for membership of courts-martial under paragraph (ff) above;"").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together. These Amendments are designed to clairfy procedures at courts-martial where Crown servants are sitting under instruction. They introduce no changes of policy, but help to effect more fully the intentions behind the clause. Under Rule 24 of Rules of Procedure (Army) 1972, an officer may remain with a court-martial throughout the proceedings as an officer under instruction. Section 93(1) provides that an oath shall be administered to such officers. Since references to such officers shall now include references to appropriate Crown servants, the latter will now be required to take an oath as well
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Citation etc.]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 12, line 36, leave out subsection (7) and insert:
"(7) The following provisions of this Act shall come into force on the day this Act is passed, namely—

section 1;

section 10;

section 17(1);

section 20(a);

section 21;

subsections (1) to (4) and (7) to (8) of this section;
subsection (5) of this section so far as it relates to paragraphs 5, 12 and 21(2), (4) and (5) of Schedule 9; and
subsection (6) of this section so far as it relates to the repeal
of the following, namely—

the Naval Knights of Windsor (Dissolution) Act 1892,

section 1 of the Armed Forces Act 1971,

section 10(4) of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, and

section 5(3) of the Northern Ireland Assembly Disqualification Act 1975.

() Subject to subsection (7) above, this Act shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument appoint."
The noble Lord said: I may have to speak at some greater length on this particular Amendment. As with previous Amendments, it involves no alteration in policy but offers some refinement to details of it. As your Lordships may have observed—my brief says "will have observed", but I am finding it a little difficult to observe even the niceties—it deals with the. commencement of the various provisions in the Bill. Some of the proposals, albeit important ones concerning summary powers and civilians, cannot come into effect immediately upon Royal Assent. A number of time-consuming but essential tasks remain to be completed, among them the laying of subordinate legislation, the consequential amendments to Service Manuals and the training of the personnel concerned with the new procedures. Arrangements for all these matters are under way in the Services, the Ministry of Defence and the other Departments concerned, but they will not be fully resolved until well into 1977. This sort of timetable accords entirely with the usual practices on the

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Service Discipline Acts. The new subsection (7A) therefore provides with the present subsection (8) that most of these provisions shall come into force on such date or dates as the Secretary of State may by order made by Statutory Instrument appoint.
However, there are a few matters which, it is considered, can and should be effected without delay. The new subsection (7) therefore provides for their coming into force on Royal Assent. Apart from the continuation and renewal provisions, these are mainly those proposals which bear particularly on individuals—the new powers in relation to the graver sentences that may be imposed on juveniles, and the application to civilians found guilty under the Service Discipline Acts or the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Your Lordships, I am certain, will agree that it is right that any individuals concerned should benefit from these provisions as soon as possible. I do not believe the coming into force of the various proposals in the Bill is a contentious matter, but these are important details to which I thought it advisable to draw your Lordships' attention. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [QARNNS and WRNS]:
On Question, Whether Schedule 2 shall he the second Schedule to the Bill?
Lord LEATHERLAND: Schedule 2 renders eligible as members of courts-martial the officers of Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service and the Women's Royal Naval Service. It is clear, therefore, that an officer of either of those two services will be eligible to sit as a member of a court-martial. The point to which I should like an answer is this. If a woman serving in either of those two services were court-martialled, would it be obligatory, in constituting the court-martial, to have a woman officer sitting as a member of the court, or would the woman charged appear before a bench composed of men alone?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this point.
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I think it is an entirely valid one. I will, if I may, give an answer at a later stage of the Bill; hut, on the other hand, I would have thought natural justice would have demanded that a woman officer would be a member of the court-martial in circumstances such as my noble friend describes. That is, of course, one of the advantages of bringing the WRNS into line with its two sister services and bringing them under the various Armed Forces Discipline Acts, because it enables an officer of the WRNS to play her full part in the court-martial procedure of that armed force.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Standing Civilian Courts]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 10 to 17:
Page 15, line 8, leave out (""higher authority"") and insert ("" the directing officer"").
Page 15, line 9, at end insert ("or any officer for the time being discharging the functions of that authority").
Page 15, line 19, leave out ("higher authority"), and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 22, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 25, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 26, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("he may").
Page 15, line 27, leave out ("may").
Page 15, line 29, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("he").
The noble Lord said: This is an appalling dog's breakfast which, with the permission of the Committee, I shall move in various blocks. It is not a question of moving them en bloc but of moving them in blocks. With the permission of the Committee I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 10 to 17, 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 36 and 47 together, but in accordance with procedure we can move only some of these en bloc. They all cover a single point; they can all be grouped together; and, of course, many of them are identical. Their background is that, in the subordinate order drafted under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3, the higher authority who sends a case for trial by the Standing Civilian Court is termed, "the directing officer". These Amendments therefore align the terms that appear in Schedule 3 with the more distinctive label used in the subordinate legislation. With the permission of the Committee, therefore, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 10 to 17 en bloc.
Baroness VICKERS: I hope I am not being tiresome about this, but I should

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like to ask about this term "higher authority", because I should like some explanation. On page 15 it says:
"…'higher authority' means, in relation to a civilian sent for trial by the court, the higher authority who sent him".
Is this God, or who is the higher authority? I really should like to have some explanation, because it says,
"leave out 'higher authority' and insert 'the directing officer'".
Perhaps the noble Lord would be kind enough to give me an explanation.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I rather gather that we are leaving Out "higher authority" and substituting "the directing officer", thus producing greater clarity.
Baroness VICKERS: I am sorry; it does not produce greater clarity to me. I want to know what is the difference between "the directing officer" and "higher authority". They are obviously two different persons, are they? Perhaps the noble Lord could explain to me who they are.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: When I move into legal jargon and the law, I tread with great care. With the permission of the noble Baroness, I will in fact give her an exact definition when we come to a later stage of the Bill. I am afraid I cannot help her more at this moment. I think the point she has made is extremely valid. What is a "higher authority"? I suppose the highest authority is God himself, but I do not think we involve Him in petty pilfering.
Lord LYELL: I was worried about the same point as my noble friend Lady Vickers. It concerns Amendment No. 11. In this case it is not, I think, quite as straightforward as it might appear. It does not substitute "the directing officer" for "higher authority" because, as noble Lords will see, in this particular definition clause the "higher authority" for which we are going to substitute "the directing officer" means,
"… in relation to a civilian sent for trial by the court, the higher authority …",
and then Amendment No. 11 inserts something totally different from, "the directing officer".
It is more wordy. I wonder whether this particular Amendment means some-
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thing different from all the other Amendments which the noble Lord moved en bloc, or in blocks, with which I agree. It seems that they were fairly simple; but Amendment No. 11 requires, if the noble Lord could give it now or later, a little explanation or definition.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: It would have to be later; but it is any officer for the time being acting as a higher authority; say, an acting unpaid higher authority at the time of the situation. But I will clarify these points, which are valid. It is part of the jungle which I mentioned. I will produce light at Third Reading.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.10 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 16, line 6, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 13 and insert:
("4.—(1) An accused person has a right to elect, before the court commences his trial, that the charges on which he is to be tried shall be tried by court-martial instead of by the court.
(2) Before the court commences a trial, it shall inform the accused in the prescribed manner of the right conferred by sub-paragraph (1) above, whether or not he has already been informed of it.
(3) The court shall proceed with the case unless the accused or, if more than one person is jointly charged, any of the accused, exercises the right so conferred.
(4) If the accused, or any of the accused, exercises that right, the court shall adjourn, and report to the directing officer in the prescribed manner the fact that the election for trial by court-martial has been made.
(5) The directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 18 I mentioned when speaking to Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 16, line 16, leave out from beginning to ("being") in line 17 and insert:
("(b) take the prescribed steps with a view to the accused ").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 16, line 21, after ("matters") insert: (",other than questions of law.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is connected with Amendments Nos. 1to4. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 21 and 22:
Page 16, line 29, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 16, line 30, leave out ("Higher authority shall thereupon") and insert ("The directing officer shall").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 were discussed with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments No 23 and 24:
Page 16, line 33, leave out from beginning to ("with") in line 34 and insert:
("(b) take the prescribed steps").
Page 16, line 37, leave out ("the accused is no longer unfit") and insert ("it appears to the directing officer that the person in question is fit").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 together. These Amendments are designed to deal more adequately with instances where an accused may be unfit to stand trial. The wording dealing with the option to direct trial by court-martial is simplified and the practice in this matter is brought generally into line with that for courts-martial. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments No. 25 and 26:
Page 16, line 43, at end insert:
("Re-trial in interests of administration of Justice
6A. The directing officer may direct a re-trial before a Standing Civilian Court in any case where, after the commencement of a trial before such a court, it appears to him necessary or expedient in the interests of the administration of justice.")
Page 17, line 2, leave out ("Higher authority") and insert:
("Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph 6A above, the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 together. I ought briefly to explain to your Lordships the effect of Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 as it introduces a new paragraph into Schedule 3.
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I should first assure your Lordships that despite the weightiness of the sub-heading, there are no changes of substance here.
The Amendment provides for retrial in the interests of the administration of justice: for example, where a court becomes aware—perhaps through the indiscretion of a witness—of any matter (like a previous conviction) prejudicial to the accused. A similar provision with respect to courts-martial exists under Section 95 (1) of the 1955 Acts. No change of policy is involved; the initial intention was to make this provision subordinately, but it is now thought more appropriate for principal legislation: just as, for example, paragraph 7 provides for retrial where the court ceases to be properly constituted. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 27 and 28:
Page 17, line 6, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 17, line 13, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 together. I mentioned them earlier in connection with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 29 and 30:
Page 17, line 25, leave out from beginning to ("questions") in line 27 and insert:
("(2) For a trial where section 6(13) above applies, the magistrate shall preside over the court and give rulings on any").
Page 17, line 30, leave out from ("In") to ("casting") in line 31 and insert ("the case of an equality of votes on the sentence, or on any other question before the court, except a question of law or the finding, the magistrate shall have a second or").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 together. I spoke to them when discussing Amendments Nos. 1 to 4.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.16 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 17, line 38, leave out ("The") and insert ("Subject to the provisions of any order made under paragraph 11 below, the").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I should like to move Amendment 31 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 34 and 35. These are technical Amendments concerned with the rules on admissibility of evidence before the Standing Civilian Court. The intention of the first is to prevent any potential ambiguity regarding rules of evidence, and its effect is to emphasise that the provisions of paragraph 10 of Schedule 3 are subject to any relevant modifications introduced by Statutory Instrument under paragraph 11 of that Schedule. The second and third Amendments are designed to give effect more adequately to the intentions concerning the Secretary of State's power to make provisions regarding the procedures of the Standing Civilian Court in this matter, by means of an order made by Statutory Instrument. These Amendments do not in any way, however, affect the intention to model the practices of the Standing Civilian Court so far as possible on the comparable practices of the civil courts in the United Kingdom, consistent with the need to take the Services' practices into account. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 18, line 16, at end insert:
("() An order under this paragraph shall confer a right on a person charged to elect to be tried by court-martial instead of by a standing Civilian Court").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 32 was mentioned when I spoke to Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 18, line 37, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment 33 is linked with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 34 and 35:
Page 19, line 4, leave out from ("section") to ("subject") in line 5 and insert ("99A of the Army Act 1955 (proof at courts-martial by written statement), section 1AAA of the Perjury Act
460
(Northern Ireland) 1946 (false written statements at courts-martial) and sections 10 and 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 (formal admission and notice of alibi)").
Page 19, line 7, leave out ("that section") and insert ("those sections").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 are linked with Amendment No. 31. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 19, line 14, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 36 was linked with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 19, line 26, leave out ("are amendable by a court-martial") and insert ("which are being tried by court-martial may be amended").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 37 is connected with Amendment No. 48 and, with permission, I should like to speak to both. These Amendments also refine the drafting in relation to definition of charges and offences. The first reflects more accurately the power of amending court-martial charges which exist under the 1955 Acts and which does not lie merely with the court-martial itself but also with higher authority. The second applies the appropriate definitions and concept of an offence under those Acts to the offence in question under this Schedule. I beg to move Amendment No. 37.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 38 to 45:
Page 20, line 36, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the prescribed person")
page 20, line 37, after ("form") insert ("and addressed to the directing officer")
Page 20, line 39, leave out ("Where a notice of appeal is lodged, higher authority") and insert ("When the directing officer receives a notice of appeal lodged under sub-paragraph (3) above, he")
Page 20, line 40, leave out ("prescribed steps") and insert ("steps specified in Rules of Procedure under section 103 of the Army Act 1955")
Page 20, line 43, leave out ("but an") and insert—
("(5A) An")
Page 20, line 45, at end insert—

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("(5B) The term of any sentence passed by a court-martial on such an appeal shall, unless the court otherwise directs, begin to run from the time from which it would have begun to run if it had been passed in the proceedings from which the appeal was brought and section 118 of the Army Act 1955 (commencement of sentences) shall accordingly not apply to any such sentence.
(5C) Subject to sub-paragraph (5B) above, a sentence passed on such an appeal shall be treated for the purposes of any enactment as if it had been a sentence passed on a trial by court-martial.")
Page 21, line 10, leave out from ("may") to end of line 11 and insert ("present to the prescribed person a petition against finding or sentence or both in the prescribed form and addressed to a reviewing authority.")
Page 21, line 28, after ("officer") insert ("in relation to the findings and sentences of courts-martial").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 38 to 45 en bloc. In view of the proposed framework of the subordinate legislation contemplated, this group of Amendments serves to specify with greater precision and more aptly than before the procedures for initiating an appeal from the Standing Civilian Court or a petition against its finding or sentence. There is also clearer provision for the time from which a term of imprisonment passed by a court-martial on appeal shall be taken to run and the status of such a sentence. No change of policy is involved.
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask the noble Lord for an explanation. We have had the "higher authority" and the "directing officer". Now we have the "higher authority" and the "prescribed person". I should like to know what is the difference between all these individuals.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: I agree that the noble Baroness's search for precision is absolutely correct and desirable. May I try and give a precise answer at a later stage of the Bill?
Lord LYELL: I was worried about Amendment No. 41 which leaves out a fairly simple term, "prescribed steps" and inserts some other words which seem to me to be just fuzzing the issue. Could the noble Lord explain?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I thought this was clear. "Prescribed steps" means steps specified in the Rules of Procedure
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under Section 103 of the Army Act 1955. The reason for these Amendments is that parallel with the drafting and passage of the main Bill, the drafting of subordinate legislation has been going on. This has thrown up certain imprecisions in the main Bill. This is an Amendment designed to remove an imprecision.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.22 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 21, line 41, at end insert—
("(5A) Where, while any sentence is so suspended the person sentenced is sentenced by a Standing Civilian Court or a court-martial under the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 or the Naval Discipline Act 1957 for a fresh offence, the suspension of the earlier sentence may be determined—

(a) by order of any such court on awarding the later sentence, or

(b) by order of the appropriate authority on the review of that sentence.

(5b) In sub-paragraph (5A) above, "the appropriate authority" means—

(a) where the later sentence was awarded by a Standing Civilian Court, the reviewing authority, or

(b) where the later sentence was awarded by a court-martial, the authority conducting its review").

The noble Lord said: This Amendment makes explicit what previously was implicit, by providing precisely both who it is who has power to determine the suspension of a sentence imposed by Standing Civilian Court, and the occasion on which that power may be exercised. It involves no change of policy. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 21, line 47, leave out from ("be") to ("and") in line 49 and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 47 was referred to in connection with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Orders that may be made on trial of civilians]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 24, line 25, at end insert—
("triable by court-martial.
() Any such offence shall be treated as if it were an offence against a provision of Part II of this Act.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 48 was linked with Amendment No. 37. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 26, line 8, at end insert—
("( ) Before making a reception order, the court shall consider any report made in respect of the offender by or on behalf of the Secretary of State.
( ) The court shall give a copy of any such report to the offender or any person representing him.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 49 reflects no change of policy. It serves to align the arrangements concerning reception orders with those provided in respect of custodial orders. I refer noble Lords to subparagraphs 10(2) and (3) of the Schedule. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 26, line 9, leave out ("such an authorisation") and insert ("an authorisation under this paragraph").
The noble Lord said: This is merely a drafting refinement of a provision relating to reception orders. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM Lord WINTER BOTTOM moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 30, line 3, leave out ("by a court-martial").
The noble Lord said: Again this Amendment reflects no change of policy. Subparagraph 12(3) of the Schedule is designed to apply to compensation orders made by court-martial or by Standing Civilian Court; the removal of these words effects this. I beg to move.
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask who is going to take action if we leave out "court-martial"?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I am not a lawyer and I have to consider this. With the benevolence of the noble Baroness, I should like to clarify this at a later stage
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of the Bill. I thought that by removing "court-martial" it placed the responsibility clearly on the Standing Civilian Court, but this may not be the case.
Lord LYELL: It does not say this in the Act. I should like to support my noble friend in this point because it concerned me as well. The Committee will be grateful to know who will make these orders for compensation.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.25 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 30, line 24, leave out ("prescribed manner") and insert ("manner prescribed by Rules of Procedure under section 103 above or, as the case may be, by an order under paragraph 11 of Schedule to the Armed Forces Act 1976")
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 56. The effect of these Amendments is to specify more precisely the manner in which a parent or guardian, in certain circumstances, shall be required to attend the Standing Civilian Court. This is done by reference to Rules of Procedure in the case of the Army and the Royal Air Force and the equivalent General Orders for the Royal Navy, and to the relevant provisions in the Bill. I beg to move Amendment No. 52.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 53:
Page 31, line 34, leave out ("prescribed manner") and insert ("manner prescribed by Rules of Procedure under section 103 above or, as the case may be, by an order under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976")
On Question, Amendment agred to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 33, line 37, at end insert—
("Indemnity for persons carrying out orders under Schedule
No action shall lie in respect of anything done by any person in pursuance of an order under this Schedule if the doing thereof would have been lawful but for a defect in any instrument made for the purposes of that order.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 54 is designed to give the same indemnity in relation to orders under

465
Schedule 4 that Section 142 of the 1955 Act gives in relation to a military sentence of imprisonment or detention. No change of substance is involved. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 55:
Page 33, leave out lines 41 to 42 and insert ("provisions supplementary or incidental to the provisions of this Schedule.
( ) The power to make regulations conferred by this paragraph includes power to make provision for specified cases or classes of cases, and for the purpose of any such orders classes of cases may be defined by reference to any circumstances specified in the regulations.")
The noble Lord said: Perhaps I might briefly comment to your Lordships on this Amendment. It is designed to allow regulations to be made in relation to specified cases or classes of cases. Examples of these might well occur in the context of the Community Supervision Order scheme, which, as a simplified amalgam of the Supervision Order, the Community Supervision Order and the Probation Order in the United Kingdom, covers a fairly wide range of ages. We therefore envisage that it will be desirable to be able to make separate provision in regulations to meet the different needs of the different ages and perhaps types of offender. This will enable the Community Supervision Order to be used in a flexible fashion so as to reflect, so far as possible in the circumstances, the practices in dealing with such offenders in the United Kingdom. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 34, line 42, at end insert—
("( ) In paragraphs 13(1)(a) and 14(6)(a), for the words from "Rules" to "1976" there shall be substituted the words "General Orders under section 58 above ".")
The noble Lord said: I spoke to Amendment No. 56 in connection with Amendments Nos. 52 and 53. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Schedule 4, as amended, shall be the Fourth Schedule to the Bill?
Lord LEATHERLAND: This Schedule deals with the sentences that may be imposed by the new civilian courts that are to be set up by the Army. A few minutes ago, when dealing with another aspect of this matter, I asked my noble friend to assume for the moment that I was the wife of a British soldier serving in Germany and we discussed the circumstances under which I might be brought before one of these new civilian courts. Let us assume that I have been a very wicked woman and have been sentenced by one of these courts.
Your Lordships will see from page 32 that a very wide range of sentences is available to these courts, ranging from an absolute discharge to a fine or imprisonment. If I had been convicted before an ordinary civilian court in this country and fined or sentenced to imprisonment, in due course the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act would have come into operation; that is the Act introduced by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, which enables certain sentences to be expunged from the records of offenders after the passage of varying periods of years. The question I want to ask is this: if, in those circumstances, I had been convicted in Germany, would the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act apply to me, just as it would had I been convicted by a civilian court in this country?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: That is an excellent question and I should like to answer it precisely. The intention behind this Standing Civilian Court is that the procedure in Germany, in the circumstances envisaged by my noble friend, should be as close as possible to the treatment of offenders in this country. I assume that this Act would apply, but I will give him a firm answer on Third Reading.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Schedules 5, 6 and 7 agreed to.
Schedule 8 [Financial penalty enforcement orders]:
4.33 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 40, line 8, leave out ("by or on behalf of the Defence Council") and insert ("on behalf of the Defence Council or by an officer authorised by them")
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment to tie in with the phrase used in the Schedule at page 39, line 21, and page 40, line 32. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 9 [Miscellaneous amendments]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 58 and 59:
Page 44, line 10, leave out paragraph 4.
Page 44, line 1, leave out from ("following") to end of paragraph 7 and insert ("subsection shall be inserted after subsection (3) of each of those sections:—
"(3A) In their application to any area for which Standing Civilian Courts are established under the Armed Forces Act 1976—

(a) section 75(2) above shall have effect as if references to the assembling of a court-martial for a person's trial included references to his being brought before a Standing Civilian Court;

(b) section 103(1) above shall have effect—

(i) as if the words "with respect to the hearing by courts-martial of appeals pursuant to paragraph 17 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976 against findings and sentences of Standing Civilian Courts established under that Act" were inserted after the word "authorities"; and

(ii) as if the words "and may prescribe modifications of sections 76, 77, 79 and 80 above in relation to charges which may be tried by Standing Civilian Courts and which are brought against persons whom such courts may try" were added at the end; and

(c) subsection (3) above shall have effect in relation to charges which may he tried by Standing Civilian Courts and which are brought against persons whom such courts may try, but without prejudice to its effect in relation to other charges, as if the following paragraph were substituted for paragraph (e):—

"(e) sections 76, 77, 79 and 80 above shall apply as they apply to officers and warrant officers subject to such modifications consequential on the establishment of Standing Civilian Courts as may be prescribed by Rules of Procedure and by any order under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976.""")
The noble Lord said: with the permission of the Committee, I will move Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 together. They are, of course, of a technical or drafting nature. They concern the way in which it is to be provided that a civilian shall be brought to trial before the Standing Civilian Court. This, apparently, is a most complicated drafting exercise: first, because of the elaborate structure of the 1955 Acts and,
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secondly, because these new peocedures have to be introduced in a way which does not disturb the provisions concerning the other existing ways of dealing with civilians under these Acts, by court-martial or appropriate superior authority.
No change in policy is involved in these Amendments, which will much more simply and effectively embody the intentions concerning procedures for trial by the new courts by allowing for them to be prescribed within the existing Rules of Procedure and the proposed new order, both of which are Statutory Instruments. This conforms to the general approach elsewhere in the Bill of setting out detailed procedural matters in such instruments, as, for example, in paragraph 11 of Schedule 3. With the permission of your Lordships, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 together.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 45, line 48, at end insert—
("(4B) Section 199 above shall apply to persons such as are mentioned in subsection (1) or (2) above, as it applies to persons subject to military law."")
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 60, 62 and 63 together. The effect of these Amendments is to provide that the sections of the Services Acts which concern the proof of the outcome of a civil trial (Section 199 of the 1955 Act and Section 129B of the 1957 Act) shall apply to civilians liable to trial under those Acts, as they apply to other persons subject to Service law. I beg to move Amendment No. 60.
Lord LYELL: May I ask whether it is in order to raise a matter concerning Amendment No. 62 at this stage? If it is, I should like to say that, as drafted, it did not make a great deal of sense to me when I read it. I should have thought it could have been far better drafted. As I understand the proposed Amendment, it suggests that the word "it" should be inserted after "(a) in paragraph 1". I do not understand why the insertion could not be made in Schedule 4, at line 45. This seems to me to be far simpler, and to make sense, because as this Amendment is at present drafted it does not seem to make sense to me. Perhaps the noble Lord could explain.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: This again is something to which I should like to reply with precision at a later stage. These various drafting Amendments have been put down between the end of Business in another place and the beginning of Business here today. I have not been privy to the whole of the discussions and the negotiations, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for studying the Bill with such care and I shall give him a precise answer on Third Reading.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 46, line 4, after ("(7)") insert ("for the words "Minister of Home Affairs" there shall be substituted the words "Department of Health and Social Services "and")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 61 is, again, a minor drafting Amendment to paragraph 9 of Schedule 9. It brings up to date another reference to Northern Ireland in the 1955 Acts, and simply makes clear the allocation of Departmental responsibilities in that Province. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM Lord WINTER BOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 62 and 63:
Page 46, line 46, after ("it") insert—
("(a) in paragraph 1").
line 3, at end insert (" and
(b) the following paragraph shall be added after paragraph 4:—
"5. Section 129B above shall apply to a person to whom this Act applies by virtue of section 118 above, as it applies to a person subject to this Act."").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like formally to move Amendments Nos. 62 and 63, which I mentioned in connection with Amendment No. 60. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 9, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

LIMITATION (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
4.40 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge) rose to move, That the draft Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 24th June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this order is to amend the Limitation Acts (Northern Ireland) 1958 and 1964. It extends from 12 months to three years the limitation period within which an injured person may institute proceedings for personal injury. The period starts from the plaintiff's "date of knowledge" of the facts on which his action is based. The most likely application of this change is in relation to insidious industrial diseases which may not be easily identifiable at the outset. It places the dependants of an injured person, who sue after his death under Section 14 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1937 or the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, in the same position as the injured person himself would have been; that is, it enables them to sue within three years of their own "date of knowledge".
To resolve the difference of view in the decided cases on what determines the plaintiff's "date of knowledge", it redefines the test for ascertaining the "date of knowledge" so that it applies only to knowledge of facts, not of law. It confers on the court a discretion, exercisable in accordance with guidelines given in the order, to extend the limitation period in any case where it would be fair as between plaintiff and defendant to do so, and removes the existing obligation to make a separate preliminary application to the court for leave to bring the action outside the limitation period. It further abolishes the rule under which time runs against a person under disability while he is in the custody of a parent.
These Amendments will bring the law in Northern Ireland on limitation of actions in personal injury cases into line with that in England and Wales. The order will bring into one place the limitation codes applying to personal

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injury and fatal accident cases by repealing the relevant provisions of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 and the Limitation Act (Northern Ireland) 1964, and replacing them with four new sections inserted into the Statute of Limitations (Northern Ireland) 1958.
Before being laid before Parliament, the draft order was published and comment invited. In particular, the explanatory document was widely circulated to interested parties, including the Incorporated Law Society of Northern Ireland. No adverse comments were received. I shall, of course, be glad to give further details on particular points which noble Lords may wish to raise. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 24th June, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HORSE RACING AND BETTING (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
4.44 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE rose to move, That the draft Horse Racing and Betting (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 22nd June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will know that in all, or almost all, of the countries renowned for an interest in horseracing this sport has been unable to survive and prosper without some form of outside support. In Great Britain, this support has been based on the principle of contribution by bookmakers, and this order proposes to extend this principle to Northern Ireland. To this end, the order seeks to establish a fund to be used for the maintenance and development of horseracing in Northern Ireland. The fund will be supported by charges imposed on all bookmakers operating in the Province, and the proceeds will be devoted to one racecourse at Down Royal.
There are, at the moment, two race-courses in Northern Ireland, Down Royal and Downpatrick, and both have received
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a small amount of Government assistance for some time. Although this assistance has been sufficient to keep them open, it has not enabled either of them to develop. In 1972, a Working Party made up of representatives of bookmakers and racecourse managers recommended that a fund should be set up to improve the standard of racing. Your Lordships will realise why it was not possible for the Government to increase this assistance in these times of financial stringency. Therefore, the Government had to make a difficult choice: we had to decide how to raise more money and whether this money was to be spent on one or both racecourses. In 1973, officials of the Jockey Club were asked to inspect both courses and they advised that all available resources should be concentrated at Down Royal, which had much greater potential than Downpatrick.
I should explain that Down Royal, also known as the Maze, is situated about 15 miles South-West of Belfast and was incorporated by Royal Charter of James II in 1685. The course consists of 187 acres of good quality land. It has two tracks, one for steeplechase racing and the other a combined flat and hurdle track. Both are about two miles in length. Although its amenities are much in need of improvement, its potential is considerable and, for these reasons, we agreed with the Jockey Club officials that we should concentrate our efforts and resources on improving Down Royal.
It was for this apparent discrimination in favour of Down Royal that the order was deemed to be hybrid. Your Lordships will be glad to know that no Petitions have been lodged against this order. I can assure this House that these measures have been the subject of lengthy discussions over the past 10 years with bookmakers and the management of both racecourses, and there is general agreement to our proposals.
The order will establish a fund for the purpose of assisting racing at Down Royal, and it will be financed by imposing annual charges of £75 on each bookmaking office and £5 on each on-course bookmaker. This will initially raise about £22,000 per year. The order also permits the Department of Agriculture to alter these charges by subordinate legislation after it has fully consulted the bookmakers.

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Since only one racecourse is involved, the administrative burden will be light and will not warrant the setting up of a statutory board as in Great Britain. This order therefore authorises the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture to administer the fund and to ensure that it will be used only for the authorised purposes.
At the moment, excise duties payable in Northern Ireland by bookmakers on their bookmaking and bookmaking office licences are £5 and £50 per year respectively. In Great Britain, where off-course bookmakers already contribute to racing, both cost £1 per year with an "entrance fee" of £100 for new bookmakers. The order will reduce the duties payable in Northern Ireland to the levels paid in Great Britain. The loss to the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund income will be offset, because the Government will cease to pay the assistance grants to both racecourses.
As a result of this order, bookmakers in Northern Ireland will contribute a substantial sum towards the administration and upkeep of racing at Down Royal. Therefore, the order also gives Northern Ireland bookmakers representation on the management committee of Down Royal so that they will have some influence on how the money is spent. I believe that by placing Down Royal on a sound financial footing, this order will stimulate an already growing interest in horses and horse breeding in Northern Ireland and will, at the same time, facilitate the development of a valuable and sociable amenity. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Horse Racing and Betting (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 22nd June be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge.)
4.49 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this order is of some importance because, as the noble Lord reminded us in his closing words, Northern Ireland has been a source of first-class bloodstock for horses for many years. I should just like to ask some questions and, if the noble Lord cannot answer them—because I did not give him notice of them—perhaps he will write to me afterwards. That does not
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alter the fact that I shall certainly support the passage of the order. Article 6 refers to the powers to enter on to land, and it occurred to me that I would listen to the noble Lord to hear whether there had been any discussions with the Northern Ireland National Farmers' Union. I wonder whether the noble Lord could give me an answer to that question. He said that there had been lengthy discussions with the bookmakers with regard to the charges to be made on them for the fund, but he did not say whether the bookmakers were in agreement with the introduction of this order.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I think that I did.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I did not hear the noble Lord say whether agreement had been reached with the bookmakers and I should be interested to know whether their agreement has been obtained. I understood from the noble Lord's speech that when the Jockey Club visited Northern Ireland the discussions were with the Government—presumably with—the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland. May I ask whether there were any other discussions? Presumably there were discussions with the Downpatrick racecourse authorities. Finally, the noble Lord referred to the assistance grant which will now cease to be paid so far as both Down Royal and Downpatrick are concerned. Does that mean that the Downpatrick racecourse now receives no outside assistance, and are we to infer that the future of the Downpatrick racecourse is now uncertain?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, if I may take the noble Lord's last point first, the answer is, Yes. We had very long discussions which I myself conducted about 18 months ago. We decided that it was best to concentrate upon having one racecourse which was effective and, very reluctantly, the people at Downpatrick accepted this decision. I do not think that they will necessarily accept the decision for ever. It has been made clear to me that they are not anxious to hold up the legislation we are putting through now on those grounds, although I do not know that they necessarily abandon all

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hope of making Downpatrick viable once more. However, the answer to the noble Lord's question is that by removing the small subsidy which was paid we do not see how Downpatrick can be viable.
With regard to entering upon land, I am not aware that there have been discussions with the Ulster Farmers' Union. All the discussions have been handled by the Department of Agriculture who are very close to the Ulster Farmers' Union, and I do not think any point has arisen which they have thought necessary to discuss with the farmers. If any such point had arisen, certainly they would have done so; there are no inhibitions on that account that I am aware of. The Jockey Club discussions were set up with the agreement of the racecourse owners and took place with all interested parties, including the bookmakers and the Government.
I think that those are the only points which the noble Lord asked me to deal with. I should like to say that I am very happy to see that something has emerged in the form of legislation. Discussions have gone on, and on, and on. For a long time the bookmakers were not prepared to agree, but finally they did so. Let us get through the legislation while the bookmakers still agree.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE: POLICING
4.54 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what naval equipment will be made available for policing the proposed 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Unstarred Question introduces a small debate which I think may range rather wider than might at first appear. All the indications are that within six months we shall have what is called an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles around the shores of these islands where we have the longest coastline in Europe. In addition to fishing activities there, we have other activities like oil extraction and the possibility of searching for nodules. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord
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Ritchie-Calder, will refer to nodules, but I suspect that he might. Also, we have the possibility of fish farming. With an Exclusive Economic Zone—which is an extremely difficult term to keep on referring to, so perhaps I may call it the EEZ from now on—we shall have a number of economic opportunities which we may need to defend. With these opportunities there will go certain responsibilities—above all the protection of our activities, the enforcement of the rules and dealing with any emergencies which take place in these areas.
Today I shall not concern myself with what the policies in the EEZ are going to be. For example, there is the question of our rights under the EEC regulations which are to be debated later in this House. However, this raises the question of who is going to make the regulations, and possibly the noble Lord will be able to say a word or two about that. My point is simply that whatever regulations are made they will have to be enforced in some way, and the purpose of this Unstarred Question is to probe the Government's thoughts on the equipment and the organisation which they envisage setting up to carry out this task.
The difficulties were well illustrated by the humiliations which we suffered in the unhappy cod war. We had the sad sight of expensive and sophisticated but thin-skinned frigates being cast in a role for which they were never designed. Though they were handled with great devotion and brilliance under very arduous conditions, this could not compensate for the fundamental unsuitability of the vessels when they found themselves being, frankly, trounced by the tough Icelandic gunboats in the hands of specialists. I hope that we do not need to envisage a repetition of this type of confrontation, but I think that we have to face the possibility of incursions from some of the more predatory fishing nations, notably Russia and Japan.
It is worth saying in passing that fishery protection in the three-mile limit around these coasts has been a standing joke among fishermen for years. We all know that they come up on the radio the moment the fishery protection vessel appears and that by the time the vessel gets there they are all behaving as they ought. I may add that this has not stopped the fishermen from complaining about the inefficiency

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with which the regulations are being enforced against the vessels which come in from Holland, Belgium and France.
In the face of the probing by critics of some of the vessels which are known to have been ordered, the Government so far have maintained what one can only call an Olympian silence. I hope that this afternoon we shall be able to induce them to draw aside the veil which cloaks their rather sphinx-like inscrutability on these issues. I shall be coming later to the diversity of interests which are involved in the multiplicity of tasks to which I have already alluded, but I should be interested to know from the noble Lord what contribution the Government think can be made by maritime reconnaissance aircraft, such as the Nimrod. Obviously, they could engage in spotting and reporting, but any true enforcement would obviously have to be carried out by surface vessels. This is the equivalent of the argument about bombers and infantry: whether or not these surface vessels should be equipped with helicopters to work with them. This brings us to the ships which the Government have told us that they are ordering. Knowledgeable opinion that I have sounded seems to be unanimous that the ships are unsuitable, late in delivery, and represent poor value for money.
With regard to the matter of costs, frankly the Government only have themselves to blame if wild rumours are rife about the cost of these vessels. In spite of the much discussed open government policy the Ministry of Defence, in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, have resolutely refused to disclose either the budget or the actual costs in the case of either the Island class trawlers or the Bird class patrol boats. In the case of the Bird class, in a letter which the noble Lord wrote to me he said that the price was still being negotiated although the vessel was taken into service last year. If there is still an argument on more than a marginal element of the cost, this suggests to me that something is very seriously amiss in the relations between the Navy and the builders.
But, more generally, the Department say that it is not their policy to publish costs, for security reasons. Yet within the Ministry of Defence we find the RAF announcing both the budgeted cost and
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the actual costs of aeroplanes like the multi-role combat aircraft—the Tornado—where we are in the same general region of cost, and I should like to suggest to the noble Lord that perhaps it is about time the Navy pursued the same policy as the RAF.
The vessels most frequently talked about are the five Island or Jura class armed trawlers which are alleged to be costing altogether something in the region of £15 million. These are single-screw ships of 1,250 tons with a design speed—and I emphasise "a design speed"—of 16 knots. But their most glaring deficiency is that they were certainly not originally designed to carry a helicopter. Some of the reference books say that they are being modified to carry a helicopter. This question was asked in another place, but unfortunately the Minister was stopped in his tracks before he was able to answer it. I should be interested to know from the noble Lord whether it is intended to modify them and, if it is, what these modifications will cost, because I suspect that these vessels cannot be adapted for the carrying of helicopters.
The other worry about these boats is the question of their speed and manoeuvre-ability as a single-screw ship. For example, they will look rather silly trying to chase some of the Soviet trawlers, which I believe are capable of something like two knots more than ours are. Their sea-keeping ability is not in question. They have been likened to the policeman on the beat, but without a helicopter I suggest we are talking about a somewhat blind policeman, or certainly a policeman who has not got his bicycle available.
Do we imagine that these few ships scattered about on the ocean will act as a serious deterrent to trespassers? Certainly their range of visual acquisition of information will be very limited by the lack of helicopter equipment, and I think it is fair to say that these shortcomings were well illustrated last year when there was a fire on the Norwegian oil rig. On that occasion the tug HMS "Reward", which had approximately the same performance as the Jura class boats, took 32 hours to get to the rig, and of course what it could do was limited again by not having a helicopter.
Indeed if we wanted armed trawlers, might we not have obtained both quicker

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and cheaper results by converting some of the trawlers which regrettably are being made redundant because of what is happening to our fishing fleet? Then we come to the four Kingfisher or Bird class patrol boats about which I have had correspondence with the noble Lord through the columns of Hansard. These are described in the letter he wrote to me as,
"general purpose vessels designed for patrol and fishery protection tasks in coastal and inshore waters".
From what I hear, I suspect that the less we say about these boats, the better. They are 190 ton vessels with a speed in the region of 18 to 20 knots and they are reputed to be costing £1 million each.
We may continue to be unenlightened on the actualities of this situation, but what is admitted is that the first boat was delivered 18 months late and the remainder will be two years behind schedule. So during the time that we have ordered five armed trawlers, of which we have had one delivered for a sum of £15 million, the Mexicans, who for some time have had a 200 mile EEZ, have taken delivery from yards in the Clyde of 21 Azteca class boats which cost them about the same amount as we are paying for our armed trawlers.
Now we must be careful. These are 130 ton boats, capable of something in the region of 20 to 24 knots, which were originally envisaged for use in the Gulf of Mexico, but I understand that the Mexicans have been so pleased with the performance of these boats and their sea-keeping qualities that they are considering (if they have not already done so) ordering another 40 which they intend to use on the Pacific Coast, where the conditions are rather more severe.
If I may introduce a personal note in the presence of my old colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, I spent many miserable hours some 30-odd years ago in the hard-chined MTBs which were available to us at that time and I would therefore have shared doubts about the sea-keeping qualities of this sort of vessel. However, I have now had two years' experience of operating a 35-ft. pilot boat designed by the designer of the Azteca class boats, and I am bound to say that this experience has very much revised my opinion of what the sea-keeping qualities of a very much bigger version of that sort of boat might be.
But there is a much more exciting possibility; that is, the intention to scale up these 112 ft. boats to 165 ft. in a design which is to be known as the Osprey, which will be capable of carrying a helicopter. It has been confidently predicted that boats of this kind could be delivered within two years from these yards on the Clyde, at the rate of one a month, if required, and at a cost in the region of £2 million each, although of course the cost very much depends upon the amount of equipment which is loaded into the boats.
These would be enormously versatile boats which would not only be suitable for patrol work; they could obviously deal with a number of the emergencies that we are trying to cope with, or indeed they could be armed with missiles which, combined with their helicopters, would enable these boats in numbers to challenge the very much larger and more expensive frigate type of boat.
That there is international recognition of the possibilities of this design is borne out by the fact that the Lurssens yard in Germany—who built the E-boats which were generally conceded to be the best vessels available at the time—I understand are interested in building these vessels under licence because they recognise the enormous appeal that boats of this kind would have to many international customers. It is a truism of the defence sales business that it is much more difficult to sell something which has not been ordered by the home Forces.
I want just in passing to ask the noble Lord whether the report recently in the newspaper that a hydrofoil was being ordered for experimental purposes is indeed, true. I am very glad to hear that we are keeping abreast of both hydrofoil and hovercraft development. But I would suggest it would be at least 10 years before we could expect to see a contribution made from either of these kinds of boats, whereas the Osprey type of vessel represents a wholly manageable and predictable development of vessels which have already been proved in practice. So much for the matter of the equipment.
May I briefly refer now to the matter of organisation, and I do so in a genuine spirit of inquiry, because I think this is a difficult matter, to which I hope the

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Government have given some thought. I think a considerable case could be deployed for not, at least without question, simply assigning a whole host of new jobs to the Navy. The policing role is essentially a very different one from the war role for which the Navy is properly trained and equipped. This point was emphasised to me last night by the commanding officer of a frigate, who said quite simply, "When I am fighting my boat in a war situation, I am tucked away in the bowels of the ship in the operation centre. When I am manoeuvring my vessel in a cod war-type situation, I am doing so from the bridge. The whole situation is fundamentally different".
It is a fact that the United States of American and Norway have chosen what one might call the coastguard pattern for their organisation, clearly because of some of the advantages that they see in terms of easier liaison with the many other civilian organisations which are involved, such as Trinity House, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution the Scottish Office, the Department of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I believe there is something in the region of 20 civilian organisations involved in the issues of controlling the Exclusive Economic Zone. Of course, it may be said that if you set up a sophisticated coastguard, you are duplicating many of the other facilities which you already have for the naval work. This is the kind of issue on which it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of the Government.
There is one other point. I believe one of the considerations in the Norwegian case was that they were anxious to have an intermediate stage in, for example, a possible confrontation between a Soviet trawler and a patrolling vessel before prematurely playing their last card, and having to call in the full, warlike panoply, in our case, the White Ensign. I think there is political advantage, certainly in the present climate in this country in so far as the export of non-warship designated patrol boats would perhaps be rather easier than if they were designated as war vessels. This is quite a serious issue.
The question of the organisation is really a subject worthy of a complete
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debate to itself; it is quite a large subject. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, whether there is any possibility of producing a discussion paper which rehearses the issues and indicates Government thinking, and which might possibly be the subject of a debate in this House. Again emphasising that it will not be very long before the Exclusive Economic Zone is liable to burst upon an astonished public in this country, I hope he will be able to dispel any suspicion that we may harbour that Government policies on issues of this kind have not been fully thought through.
I hope the noble Lord will be able to dispel all suspicion that the Admiralty still hankers after the days when Lord Cornwallis floated about for two years at a time off the port of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars, because I do seriously hope we have outgrown what we might call, "the battleship mentality". If I am suggesting that mistakes have been made, it is simply to remind the House that it was no less a person than Winston Churchill who said that the great purpose of examining the lessons of history is to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
5.16 p.m.
Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords in this House are grateful to the noble Lord Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, for bringing up this Unstarred Question this evening. If one goes back to a Question asked in October 1975, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, stated in answer that by 1977 we should have 20 ships and four aircraft to police the Exclusive Economic Zone. Perhaps the noble Lord can enlighten us on that a little later. At the same time, the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, suggested that possibly the airship or the dirigible might be contemplated as being of use from the point of view of reconnaissance. I believe that the airship industry in this country is making some slow progress. I would have thought that, in the end, a Blimp might do equally as good a job as a Nimrod, and be more economical to run.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, raised the question of hydrofoils from the United States of America. I also read about it in the newspaper with great interest. I realise that in

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this country we do not have a British hydrofoil at present, but there is a firm in Cowes which is very interested in going into the hydrofoil business, or so I have been given to understand. The firm, which the Minister may know, is called Groves and Guttridge Limited. I have been given to understand that they are very keen on producing a hydrofoil which, rightly or wrongly, they think may be very suitable for the type of operation which is envisaged in the 200-mile limit.
One of the points they raise is that they have a hydrofoil which has what is known as "mechanical incidence control foils" which would be infinitely preferable to the more expensive and highly sophisticated sonic system foil. Would the noble Lord consider going into this in the future? If it was possible for us to build in this country a hydrofoil suitable for this task, it would, I hope, not take 10 years as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, said. But it would be a very good piece of equipment to export and would bring substantial trade back to the maritime tradesmen of Cowes.
No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, remembers that I have asked before, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has also raised the matter, about the possibility of having a Coastguard defence force on the lines of that in America and Canada; and the proverbial policeman on the beat came up again. But it is not just a question of having a policeman on a bicycle on a beat. Is he to be in a fast patrol car?
Since I raised this, not all that long ago, I wonder whether the Minister, like myself; reads the Daily Express, where they have had a cartoon for the last few months called "Ocean Interpol". Ocean Interpol, to my mind, even if it is a figment of somebody's imagination, seems very much the sort of force that we should have in Europe. It would be a multinational force, and it would be composed, one would hope, of Member countries of the EEC, and maybe we could talk Norway into it. I think it would take possibly quite a long time to set this up, but I feel that it is a matter that might be worth the Government pursuing with our friends.
In fact, in October 1975 the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, did say that the Government were working on a regional
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conference involving Holland, Norway, West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France and Britain; perhaps the Minister could give us any information that may have arisen out of the conference which I believe was held as a result. If we did have an Ocean Interpol force, which would have a variety of ships and aircraft, I am sure it would be a great deterrent to all pirates, illegal fishermen and not least any anarchists who might try not only to hold us to ransom but also the Western World, through the oil rigs in the North Sea and the pipelines, which to this day are still very much our Achilles Heel.
5.22 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I do not want to divert your Lordships' attention from the hardware, but 1 want to come back to what we are talking about, which is the 200-mile EEZ limit. All I have heard, including the explanation by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, of what the Mexicans are ordering in the way of boats and so forth, and what we have failed to do in our own case, only confirms what I have said before in your Lordships' House. Yesterday we had a discussion on the state of the nation, and my noble friend Lord Longford introduced the word "greed" as part of the basic trouble of our time. I can tell your Lordships that there is no greater demonstration of greed that we are seeing demonstrated now in the 200-mile economic zone. Lord Longford said:
"I do not think anyone can avoid the conclusion that a very large proportion of our economic troubles spring from greed, wherever one happens to locate it. I am not saying that we are, as individuals, any more greedy than we used to be before the war. I am submitting, however, that this greed is proving much more dangerous now and is likely to prove fatal unless it is corrected."—[Official Report, 14/7/76, col. 380.]
It seems to me that what we were discussing in the terms of individuals, the greed of people in this country, in the discussion of the state of the nation, is manifestly much more serious and much more aggravated in the case of the international grab. I wonder how many have ever tried to look at the map which demonstrates what 200-mile limits mean. We have the longest coastline in Europe and we are extending that seawards by 200 miles. Taking into consideration the kind of things we are talking about here, a coastline of that length would mean setting up a command such as we had

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during the war to look after the Western Approaches. This is enormous in terms of the world. We have something over 100 less-developed coastal countries, all of whom have claimed 200 miles and all of whom have got to police those 200 miles in the same terms as we are now debating. If we are greedy enough perhaps we can say: "If we can sell ships to the Mexicans we can sell ships to the Gabonese and any others concerned with their EEZ." This is not the issue.
What are we trying to do? I am told that there is still just a hope that the "exclusive" may be removed from the EEZ; that we will have to accept the 200-mile limit but that somehow or other we will get rid of this obsession of the "exclusive", which means that not only do you have to take on all the responsibility we are talking about now, but you have to attempt to develop the resources which are yours exclusively, and, above all, to the exclusion of world concern for what is happening in that economic zone. We are talking now about the problems of the fishing and so forth, not in terms of what you can catch, but in terms of the whole marine biology, the destruction of which would be disastrous. We are talking here about something which has got out of hand because people have not looked at the map; they have not looked to see what a 200-mile commitment really is. They are simply looking at it as something they can grab; an extension of their own property interests. This is frightening.
I am just about to join forces with the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley. This is an international problem. It is not a question of how far you can go on multiplying the constabulary forces of the coastal States, but how far you can multiply ours. How are we going to do it? We are talking about Nimrods, about Blimps. There is only one country in the world at the moment which can look at this adequately, as a 200-mile economic zone, and that is the United States if they use their satellites for that purpose—that is to say, excluding others from taking part. Unless you accept that this is the situation you are going to be faced with areas of a magnitude which have not been contemplated in any constabulary zone at any time in history. It must be an international body.
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We must come back to the point where we all started, where I hope we all started, accepting something which is called "the common heritage of mankind". In the early days, before we all got greedy, the common heritage was the seven-tenths of the earth's surface which is covered by water. We tried to think how this resource might give us the opportunity of doing what we so singularly failed to do on land; so to organise ourselves that we can be collectively responsible and not simply try to exploit it at other people's expense. We have lost that common purpose in the 200-miles EEZ. Everybody is grabbing now. I was asked a question about manganese nodules. I think you will find that there will be very little manganese nodules in the 200-mile zone, but there will be a great deal beyond that which will have to be policed by somebody. If we ever get an effective international seabed authority, we will have to provide them with resources to protect the common interest and the exploitation.
I have been frightened of this from the word "go", because if we do not get an international force we are going to have the most fantastic picture; we are going to have a reversion to the middle ages, to the war lords and the private armies. In many cases, the people who are going out to do the exploitation will be big international corporations—that is, when we are talking about development of mineral resources—and they will in fact be providing their own oceanic marine Securicor. We are going to see a fantastic multiplication of potentially dangerous forces in the world. The answer is not just to have an Interpol operating between ourselves and the EEC countries. In this instance it is the EEC I am talking about, the Common Market, and not the EEZ. It is beyond even NATO commitments.
We have to think of how we can organise—and I mean this very seriously—the collective security system for the entire ocean régime. We need a system on which you can ultimately rely so that you are not competing and not sneaking. The people who are the aberrants will be dealt with, we hope, by the world at large. But in the meantime just to go on multiplying the EEZ Corps of the world is just plumb crazy. I do not see that you can do it by adding little ships; I do not see that you can do it by adding on your Nimrods, and I do not see that

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you can do it by having dirigibles. You might see it as a result of a massive effort like putting up the barrage balloons round the 200-miles zone as we had round London during the war. Perhaps that might represent something which would define the limits which are not limits at all. The 200-miles limits are purely imaginary lines which you have to try to enforce by compulsory measures, by police measures.
Those of us who are concerned about the sea are not only asking for the policeman on the beat; we are asking for genuine inspection, so that people will be constrained not to abuse the sea. If we follow through on the Single Negotiating Text of the Law of the Sea Conference and apply the 200-miles limit, I do not see people carrying out these obligations. The obligations that they would have to accept if they get a 200-miles limit would be: the provision of hydrographic facilities; they have to protect the navigational aids and other installations: protect the cables and pipelines. They have to conserve living resources and permit the free passage of migrant fishes and not just the ones they are catching, or intruders are trying to catch. They have to prevent pollution. They have to prevent the transport of slaves; they have to prevent piracy; they have to prevent the illicit traffic of drugs and psycho-tropic substances, and prevent un-authorised broadcasts. That is a big job, whatever transport you provide them with.
This is the commitment. Is it not manifestly much more satisfactory that we should be looking at this as a collective effort, and not as an attempt just to defeat and reproduce everywhere in the world this kind of thing which we realise is inadequate? We are talking as a naval Power as was, a naval Power which cannot, in terms of your Lordships' House, find even the vessels to start doing the job. We are not even on the job. We have not even started.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question? He advocates having an international organisation to control all the oceans of the world so as to have peace and fair play on the oceans. Does the noble
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Lord realise that if you look at the record of the United Nations they have not exactly operated, as they were originally intended to operate, for the peace of the world? Does the noble Lord really think that on the oceans, which are, after all, three times as great in area as the land, an international organisation can ensure fair play, no squabbles and peace?
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord is, "Yes". The fact is that what we are looking at is our failures; at the failure of the nation States who have looked at their problems in terms of the historical land situation. We hoped that the oceans would provide a second chance. We are losing ground, and the noble Viscount may be right; we have lost the ground by now. Maybe there is no hope; there is no way in which you can construct a genuine international body. But the international body we hoped to see, and I shall hope to see, was something which would come de novo from the challenge of the situation. We were dealing with almost a tabula rasa situation in terms of international law, in which you could start to create the real instruments of international co-operation, and, hopefully, we might have done so.
5.35 p.m.
The Earl of GLASGOW: My Lords, it is a rare privilege to follow, if I may say it plainly, my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder. As a simple sailor I shall not try and follow his extremely interesting argument. In fact, it was only last night that was persuaded to speak today. Therefore, if I have not had time to do all the homework I should have wished, I crave your Lordships' indulgence. Nevertheless, I believe that the Question posed by my noble friend Lord Strathcona is of major importance to our defences, and I also have a personal interest.
It must be ten years ago now, during the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation, that in a defence debate in this House I implored Her Majesty's Government to consider laying down a small, tough, unsophisticated and comparatively cheap class of ship for the Royal Navy. The idea was reinforced by the spectacle of half-a-dozen pirates in a motor launch, or even a sampan, being pursued up an extremely

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tricky river in Borneo by a very expensive modern frigate. By that time we had already had one cod war and we have had two more since. We are now faced with the possibility of policing a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone, the protection of our fishing fleets, and the defence of oil and gas rigs around our coasts. All too late the Government have decided to act.
As has been shown in the recent cod war, modern frigates are quite unsuitable for these tasks except in the support role. The modern frigate is not much smaller than the light cruiser of another era, but it is immensely more powerful and enormously more expensive. It is thin skinned and designed, quite rightly, for a conventional war at sea should such ever occur again. I should like to add to my noble friend's tribute to the captains of the frigates in the cod war. It was an impossible task they were asked to do, and they did it extremely well and with great skill. It was very difficult indeed. The peacetime role which I have described requires something smaller and tougher and cheaper, so that we can have plenty of them.
My own assessment of the most important requirements for these new ships should be a strong hull, good sea-keeping qualities, and a long endurance. Their armament I would leave to the experts. It would appear that the new Island class fulfil some of these requirements, but I would ask the noble Lord who is replying whether he considers 16 knots maximum to be enough. I should prefer 25. In addition, I think these ships should be capable of carrying a helicopter, which would be able to land on oil rigs as well as on the parent ship and provide reconnaissance as well as possibly an offensive capability. I think also that these ships should be so designed that they could be incorporated with anti-submarine equipment in war, and he used as a supplement to convoy escorts.
I am very unhappy about the new Kingfisher or Bird class, but I will not comment on them at this time except to say that it gives me pleasure to see the names of some of the old Yangtse gunboats, with which I served for two years in the middle 1930s, coming back into service. I think it is most important that, before we go firm on whatever ship we decide to build
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for this purpose, all the possibilities we have heard today should be looked at: the larger version of the Azteca, the hydrofoil, and many others.
As regards the question of control and organisation which has briefly been touched upon, I should naturally prefer to see it left in the hands of the Royal Navy, but I see political advantages in some other arrangement. To sum up, it seems to me essential that we should get this new class of ship right, even if we have to make do with second best for a period. I await with interest the noble Lord's reply.
5.41 p.m.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, if ever there was something which was not a Party matter, I assume that it is this. Therefore, I feel quite happy about associating myself with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, in raising it. Let us consider for a moment whether it is enough to think of the 200-mile EEZ as that which we have to defend. I believe that we shall have to look wider. I have seen it maintained that there are 23 different jurisdictions for different purposes which we shall have to defend, either now or in the future, as well as the EEZ. I should like briefly to enumerate them to the House.
First, there are the inshore waters, which we all know. Then, there are the territorial waters of 12 miles, which are slightly different in international law. Beyond those, there are the exclusive British fishing limits which we expect will exist within the EEZ. Mr. Hattersley has claimed 50 miles for those and that is another frontier. Beyond that, there will be the European Community fishing limits. They are now asking for 200 miles in the Commission. There will be a report from one of your Lordships' Committees in a couple of weeks' time. That is already four or five. Then there will be whatever is left of the North-East Atlantic Fishery Commission limits. I do not know whether that organisation will continue after the EEC has taken its official fishery zone. Then there is the British Exclusive Economic Zone limit itself, which is the subject of Lord Strathcona's Question.
Then there will probably be the British Continental Shelf limits which, in some cases, will be rather further out than 200 miles at the edge of the Shelf, or maybe

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at the edge of the slope or even of the rise. That has not been settled. There may be a British pollution control frontier. That probably already exists under the Act of 1972 taken through this House by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. There may be a British-based anadromous fish control zone. Salmon which spawn in British rivers are to be found thousands of miles out at sea, and some people maintain that there should be a British responsibility wherever they may be. Alternatively, it might be Canadian, according to which side of the Atlantic the fish start from.
Then there is a kind of disorganised, ink-blot pattern of security zones drawn at 500 metres radius round each of the oil installations in the North Sea and that will come to the Celtic Sea and the Western Approaches. There will be artificial islands springing up which will generate no territorial waters but which will presumably require another ink-blot pattern of security zones around them. They will carry waste disposal facilities, for instance, and nuclear generating plants. The Dutch are already building these. That is another type of frontier for defence. There is already the pipeline protection scheme such as it is, the existence of which I take leave to doubt. There will be dredging areas where particular dredging techniques are permitted and others are not: somebody will have to police that. There will be no-trawling zones under the fisheries control protection scheme of the Community, if we get one; and there will be different zones in which types of gear, catch and vessel are or are not permitted to operate at different times. All these will be part of the fisheries control and each will look a little different on the map of control duties.
There will be dumping grounds for waste materials, each with its own permitted list and prohibited list of materials which may be dumped and each of which will have to be policed. There will be compulsory pilotage areas. I believe that there is no doubt that in no time at all the present voluntary scheme in the Channel will give way to a compulsory rule of the road. Also, as I was arguing in the House recently, there may be special rules and routes for vessels carrying dangerous cargoes, such as nuclear materials and liquid natural and petroleum gases.
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Within each of these very precise areas or volumes of hydrospace, there will have to be a different set of rules to be administered, if necessary by force, if there is an attempt to break them. What have we before us as a proposal to keep the peace and maintain the law in all these 23 different types of regulated area? We have, as we all know, the five Jura boats and the four aeroplanes which are committed. Before starting on them, I should like to draw the attention of the House and the Government to the absence of any underwater control except for sonar surveillance. There is on the market already a French device called "Moana III", and there are others of American manufacture. These are incredible little things which contain three people and can behave as mini-submarines. They walk about the bottom and have pliers and drills and power tools sticking out of them. They have been built by the oil companies for submarine repair work, but they are also perfect offensive weapons if one happens to want to destroy an oil installation without being detected. Their presence would be hard to detect by sonar. They can get away fairly quickly. It seems to me that there would be a case, given the existence of these potential offensive weapons, for the procurement of the same thing as a defensive weapon. They are, in effect, a kind of new sea-bottom tank which we see growing up around us and I do not believe that the Government have thought about this yet.
I turn now to the ships and the areoplanes. The trouble about the Juras, as has already been said, is of course their speed. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, will remember the bitter paradox of the Short 45-knot motor gunboats in the last war. I served in them and I believe that he did too. There was a great choice before us: if we carried enough armament to hurt the enemy, we could not catch him; if we remained light enough to catch the enemy, we could not hurt him when we did. It was personnel policy to try to keep officers and ratings rotating between the two different types of boat in order that they should get roughly equal shares of the different kinds of demoralisation which ensued. It was my bad luck to spend my whole time in one of the under-armed boats which could catch the enemy. They had a top speed of 48 knots. However, when we had caught

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him there was absolutely nothing we could do except to stay there long enough to satisfy honour and to proclaim our courage and then get the hell out of it as quickly as we could, passing on the way our colleagues in the more heavily armed vessels—they had two-inch guns—who were not going to get anywhere near the enemy at all.
It seems to me that the Juras are condemned to something of the same fate as I put up with during those awful years, with a cruising speed of 12 knots and a maximum speed of 16 knots, when most of the large modern factory trawlers which the Russians, the Poles and the Japanese are likely to deploy have a maximum speed of 20 knots. They are simply not going to get there. As we think we know, though we await confirmation, the Juras will have no helicopter so as to be able to do something about it when they fail to catch the enemy.
Can we compare our effort with the Norwegian effort, and can the Government compare the costs of the two? Here we are, with four aeroplanes and five Jura boats: the Norwegians already have three ships and are commissioning seven, making a total of ten. These ships have a cruising speed of 15 knots and a maximum speed of 25 knots, so they will be able to catch the big trawlers. Moreover, these ships are to carry helicopters, unlike the Juras. The Norwegians are also ordering eight of the appropriate kind of aircraft for air surveillance, compared to our four.
Norway is a very much smaller country than we are, and though I believe that it is right to say that its oil zone in the North Sea is somewhat larger than ours, it is not all that much larger and its population and wealth are smaller. Norway's programme has a capital cost of £115 million, including what they already have. That will be the total from scratch in relation to the ships and the aeroplanes I have mentioned. The annual operating cost of their programme will be £11½ million. Can the Government tell us the comparable figures for ours? It would be of extreme interest to know what a much larger and wealthier country is prepared to spend, and to know the proportion of cost to the number of ships and aeroplanes in each case.
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Lastly, on the question of organisation—the Navy or Coastguard, as one might say—I think I am a partisan of a Coastguard type solution. I say this not only from the well taken point about it being easier to export civilian boats in these days in the current political climate, and it being more defensible, but also because it is less frightening to everybody, especially to trawlers, and it is less of an insult to them to be chased off by a civilian ship than by a warship. This is less likely to give rise to diplomatic tensions. I do not think that the Navy need worry about the personnel implications of this because one could perfectly well have an integrated career structure between the Navy and the new economic protection force (or whatever we like to call it), and people could oscillate in and out at different ranks during their career. The training functions would be very largely the same, only they would wear slightly different cap badges and have the advantage of "civilianity" over the disadvantages of "militality".
5.52 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we have had a very interesting and well-informed debate about a matter of great national importance. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, said that he has set out to probe the Government's thinking on the problem stated in his Question. The Question he asked relates rather specifically to hardware, and therefore perhaps my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder will forgive me if I do not plunge too deeply into the more philosophical aspects of the situation which he has raised.
What I hope to do this evening, in a comparatively short speech, is to set forth the Government's present approach to the issues which have exercised noble Lords today, and I shall attempt to use this as an opportunity to answer some of the points made. I cannot answer all of them. But if the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, will accept this as an undertaking, I would ask him to regard this as the first chapter of a discussion paper which he would like to have, and which quite clearly your Lordships would like to have, in view of the quite significant contribution to what is basically a minor debate. I have found it a most interesting and enlightening one.

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If we are to talk about hardware, I should like to say a few words about fishery protection. The Royal Navy has been engaged on this work since the 16th century, and the Fishery Protection Squadron is the oldest serving squadron in the Royal Navy. Nelson himself served in the squadron in 1781, which puts the matter into perspective. The main task of this squadron is to look after the interests of British fishermen, and whatever circumstances emerge in the future, this will continue to be the object of its existence. I should like to assure the House that the resources not only of the Royal Navy, but of the Royal Air Force, too, will be available to enforce the new fisheries régime.
In order to illuminate my argument at an early stage, I should like to make this one point, and it might to a certain degree answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Kennet. He raised the question of the difference between the Norwegian attitude to the problems we are facing jointly and our own attitude. It is tempting to conclude that the British and Norwegian requirements coincide, but it is important to remember that although they face similar problems offshore they are not able to call on the kind of back-up forces that are available to us. They have neither comparable frigate force nor the numbers of shore-based helicopters that we have. We shall come back to this question of back-up forces later. But since they have not got these back-up forces, it is more sensible for them to invest in a more sophisticated offshore vessel. But we have those backup forces, and they have this important part to play in our strategy of defending our interests throughout this very wide area of the seas around our country.
The Government are determined to secure a satisfactory revision of the European Economic Community's Common Fisheries Policy to ensure that the industry will be in a position to take advantage of the new opportunities which will arise in waters around our coast. We have made our future requirements clear to members of the Community, especially our need for a reserved coastal belt of not less than 12 miles everywhere and extending in certain parts to 50 miles. I should add that this would cover the coastal areas of particular importance to
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the United Kingdom. We shall also make it clear that we attach considerable importance to early agreement on the conditions under which Britain and other Community countries might continue to fish in the Exclusive Economic Zones of third countries, and the arrangements for phasing out fishing by some third countries in the future EEZ of the Community.
However, until the final shape of the revised Common Fisheries Policy starts to emerge, and until the likely outcome of Community negotiations with third countries can be properly assessed, the exact nature and extent of the new protection task cannot be fully defined. Nevertheless, I do not think that the decisions that the Government took as long ago as 1974, to prepare for the eventual introduction of 200-mile fishing limits, will prove to be very far off the mark. I shall describe those preparations in a moment, but they are relevant also to the protection of oil and gas installations on our Continental Shelf, and I must first say a few words about that task.
Noble Lords are well aware of the measures taken by the Government to protect these installations. The measures that have been taken will not, of course, be affected by the introduction of a British 200-mile EEZ. The measures are based on a policy of deterrent patrolling around the installations themselves and the surveillance of the whole area by ships and aircraft. HMS "Reward" and HMS "Jura" undertake deterrent patrols and other ships of the Royal Navy regularly pass through the oil and gas fields. RAF Nimrod, Shackleton, Vulcan and Buccaneer aircraft fly over each installation area at least once a week. The aircraft provide the overall reconnaissance and the ships provide an on the spot presence. Response to any particular incident on or around the installations, including action requiring explosive ordnance disposal teams, or the deployment of further ships and aircraft (including helicopters), or Royal Marines forces can be mounted at short notice. Regular exercises are held to test the arrangements for protecting the installations and dealing with accidental damage.
I now return to the additional forces that the Government are providing for the protection of installations and for fishery

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protection duties. These were announced in another place on 11th February last year. The measures consist of the acquisition during the course of next year of five new Island class ships and the provision from 1st January next year of four Royal Air Force Nimrod surveillance aircraft. The five new ships are of course additional to the Fishery Protection Squadron's present inshore force of 10 ships and the force of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland of five fishery protection vessels. Three of the latter are suitable for distant water patrols, including HMS "Jura", which is currently on loan from that Department to the Royal Navy.
By the end of 1977, therefore, we shall have a force of about 20 ships, and these, together with the Nimrods, should prove to be adequate for the protection of our fisheries under an internationally agreed regime, and for the protection of our offshore installations, and for the other tasks that go to make up the offshore tapestry. The first of the new Island class ships, HMS "Jersey", should be operational on 1st January 1977; the second, HMS "Orkney", was launched on 29th June of this year. There has been criticism from some quarters—and from your Lordships' House—regarding the speed of the Island class ships. which as noble Lords will know are designed on the lines of HMS "Jura". These criticisms have been answered on more than one occasion by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy in another place.
In 1974—and perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, will accept our flash of vision—we foresaw the need for reasonably-priced ships with the accent on sea-keeping qualities and endurance, rather than high-speed and sophisticated weaponry, capable of carrying out sustained patrols in all weathers. A number of arguments have been put forward—and they have been put forward tonight—in support of the use of fast patrol boats, which have proved attractive to some other countries and have indeed proved successful; but noble Lords must be aware that fast patrol boats are not suitable for all-weather patrols, specially in the North Sea in winter, because of the inevitable construction limitations of the type of craft and because after a short
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period of operation crew fatigue becomes a critical factor. We want our ships to be where the action is, not sheltering from rough seas, to take advantage of the situation reports provided by Nimrod all-weather flights.
Let me remind the House that their role is that of identifying and confirming the existence of a threat to our rights and interests, and keeping abreast of what is happening on the spot; and, certainly, so far as the protection of offshore installations is concerned, a very important part of their task is to act as the eyes and ears of the maritime headquarters, who can then determine the appropriate response to a threat. It is not necessarily their role to deal themselves with the threat. That is why we do not allocate such expensive vessels as frigates to the task. Even they cannot be equipped to deal with every possible contingency.
May I go back at this point, my Lords, to a point I made earlier? The difference between ourselves and Norway is that we have a substantial back-up force, and in the Nimrods we have reconnaissance aircraft of the highest sophistication and the highest efficiency. The rather slow ships that are capable of remaining on station throughout the worst weather are indeed, my Lords, the local policemen that we have talked about, but the local policeman has a wireless set. He is not tied to 16 knots; he can communicate with maritime headquarters at the speed of light. That is really the role of these ships. We have these extremely sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft—not only the Nimrod, but all the large number of aircraft that pass over the general area—we have the local policeman on the beat in the form of the rather slow but very seaworthy ships; and we have a major back-up force which can be deployed by maritime headquarters, be it with helicopters, marines borne in helicopters, frigates carrying helicopters and the rest.
My Lords, that is really the answer to the question of the helicopter. If it was felt in a certain situation that a helicopter was required, then a helicopter-carrying ship would be available to take it to that point. It is not necessary for the Island class and the other ships I have mentioned in this particular situation to carry helicopters themselves. A helicopter-carrying ship can always be available to

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assist them if necessary. Having said that, may I assure noble Lords that we have not cast aside new ideas. As my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Defence said as long ago as March last year in another place, if experience demands or circumstances recommend some changes of plan, we shall be willing to consider them. That is the case today. I would add that the type of ships that the Royal Navy may require in the future, including those for offshore protection work, is under continuous review.
At this point, perhaps noble Lords might wish for me to comment on one or two suggestions made in the course of our discussion. First, may I touch upon the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, that, instead of having specialist ships within the Royal Navy, we might in fact have an enlarged coastguard force. May I say that the idea of setting up a maritime authority alone on the lines of the US Coastguard is not attractive to us, not only because it would involve substantial additional resources but largely because it would upset what are considered to be existing satisfactory methods of meeting the country's needs. In any case, close liaison with the Armed Forces will continue to be necessary, and it would be wasteful and not conducive to efficient operations if the Government were to establish a separate command and support structure outside and additional to those already existing in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Besides, the RNLI and the Coastguard are but. two examples of the organisations which mariners world-wide hold in truly high esteem. It would not advance our capabilities offshore if these and other bodies were allowed to be swallowed up.
Turning for a moment to hydrofoils, the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, mentioned hydrofoils and suggested that their application was some years in the future. I agree with that, but the Government are naturally keen to evaluate the potential of hydrofoils to undertake offshore tasks, and for this reason we have been considering the possibility of hiring a hydrofoil next winter. Contrary to newspaper reports, however, no firm arrangements have yet been made. Obviously, if it is to be effective, the hydrofoil has got to operate in the same harsh conditions as the Island type boats; hence the testing
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next winter, if it should take place. I think I have also answered the question on helicopters by saying that helicopters will be available on ships if they are necessary. May I say that I am certain that my honourable friend the Under-Secretary for the Navy will take note of the suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, about Blimps. It is an interesting suggestion.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, may I interupt the noble Lord if he is leaving the subject of helicopters? I have not had the time to look up one of the reference books, but I think it is said there that the Jura class are being fitted with helicopters. Is the noble Lord saying categorically that that is not intended?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as I understand it, it is not intended that the Jura class should be fitted with helicopters, but if I am wrong I will inform the House.
I should like to assure the noble Lord who opened the debate, and other noble Lords who have spoken today, that if and when there is an EEZ to police around British shores, or our fishing limits are extended to 200 miles, we shall have the equipment to carry out the policing task effectively, to ensure that our rights in the zone are properly safeguarded. The Government are confident that they have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that we shall not be caught out, and they have also been at pains to secure this preparedness at modest cost to the taxpayer. What we shall have, my Lords, is a mix of protection vessels and aircraft and ancillary equipment, providing a range of capabilities which, between them, will be adequate to meet all likely demands. Furthermore, we have been keeping this matter under continuous review, and shall continue to do so.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, can the Minister tell us anything about the cost of the programme?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: No, my Lords, not at this stage. If my noble friend wishes to put down a Question, I shall endeavour to answer it.

TEES TUNNEL BILL
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn; the order made on the 16th of June last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn; the order made on the 30th of June last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.