Lords Sitting of 21 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 Manchester.

TRIBUTES TO THE LATE LORD CASEY
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, it is a convention of your Lordships' House that from time to time we pay tribute to those who were Members of this House and who have departed. As part of that convention, we think particularly of those who have been both Governor-Generals and Members of this House, perhaps as recognition of the Commonwealth link and the debt that we in the United Kingdom owe to the Commonwealth. Therefore, I should like to pay tribute to the memory of a most distinguished Member of your Lordships' House, Lord Casey, who died last Thursday. Some Members of the House may have come here too recently to remember the benign and gentlemanly figure who came to sit on the Cross Benches after a lifetime in Australian politics; perhaps a surprise, since Australian politics is not exactly known for both those qualities, particularly the former. But those of us who were Members in the early 1960s
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were charmed and deeply moved by his love of his own country and of the United Kingdom, and we shall mourn his death with very great feeling.
It was Dick Casey's well-deserved honour to be the first Life Peer from Australia, receiving his title in 1960 when he retired after nine years as Minister for External Affairs. In 1965, he became Governor-General of Australia, only the third of his countrymen to hold that office, and at the conclusion of his distinguished career in 1969 he became a Knight of the Garter. I regard it as a matter of regret that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, cannot be here today to pay his own tribute, because he would have been able from personal knowledge and experience to express a judgment on the great role which Lord Casey played in Australian affairs. Nevertheless, we can celebrate his achievements in promoting the close bond between Britain and Australia, and the mutual respect and affection felt by the two countries for each other .
In no way is this more true than in relation to Lord Casey's service in war-time, when he was invited by Churchill to join the War Cabinet as British Minister of State in the Middle East. He was one of those members of the Commonwealth to whom we in this country owe so much. He reached Cairo in May 1942 at a crucial stage of the war, and when this was successfully completed went on to India as Governor of Bengal. He returned to

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Australian politics after the war, but was a regular visitor to this country and, during the period after he took his seat, he contributed regularly to our debates, giving special attention, naturally, to debates on the Commonwealth.
We should have liked to hear him more often but, of course, his home was Australia and his heart was there, and on his visits here I think he conscientiously bided by the maxim—perhaps, also, setting us all an example—that speakers should break their silence only when their knowledge of a subject warranted it. Sadly, we shall not be able to hear his wise words again; but I am sure that I carry the whole House with me in mourning his death and sending our deepest sympathy to his widow and family, and also to the Commonwealth of Australia.
Earl ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House has paid a warm and well-deserved tribute to our late colleague, Lord Casey. I was very glad that he made a special point of mentioning my noble friend Lord Carrington, because of his very close association not only with Lord Casey but with Australia, and I know that nothing other than his enforced absence abroad would have prevented him from paying tribute to Lord Casey today. In his absence, I should like to take this opportunity of associating noble Lords on this side of the House with everything which the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said.
The noble Lord touched generally on Lord Casey's distinguished career, spanning as it did both war and peace, and has spoken of the great love which Lord Casey had for the Commonwealth connection and the value he placed on the close ties between the country of his birth, Australia, and this country where much of his wartime service was spent. I should like to speak briefly, however, about Lord Casey as a Member of your Lordships' House. He became a Life Peer in 1960, following his resignation after nine years as Minister for External Affairs in Australia. He was extremely proud of the honour of being the first, and only, Australian Life Peer.
Within a week of his introduction he made his maiden speech, a fact that will
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be of no surprise to those who knew him well. He was always decisive and wasted no time in achieving his objectives. He was a Member of this House for some 16 years. Until recently he returned to attend the House at least once a year and we looked forward to those visits every summer. During his earlier years as a Member of your Lordships' House he spoke regularly on subjects such as civil aviation and economic affairs, and frequently he introduced debates, many on Commonwealth matters on which, of course, he was a great expert.
His last speech in this House was on the Motion moved by the late Lord Egremont, that speeches in this House should be shorter. In this debate he frankly admitted that lie had been much at fault in making speeches of an average length of over 20 minutes. Characteristically he showed in this debate his awareness of how Parliamentary institutions should change and keep up to date and suggested:
"…if your Lordships' House is to maintain itself as a serious part of the machinery of Government, we must speed up and sharpen up our deliberations ".—[Official Report, 13/7/65; col. 119.]
My Lords, those words are as true today as when he spoke. It was he who in that debate first coined the title " Egremont Rules " which has since from time to time been used to remind this House that our speeches should he shorter; and I cannot resist the opportunity of adding that I wish he were here to repeat it once again.
Although this was his last contribution to our debates, he continued to come back here every summer until 1973, after which he could no longer make the journey from his home in Australia. We shall certainly miss him, and we on these Benches join with the noble Lords opposite in sending our sympathy not only to his wife and family but to the people of Australia as a whole.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, to those of my generation and particularly to those of us who served in that area of operations, Lord Casey was perhaps best known for the services which he rendered to the Allied cause as the Minister of State resident in the Middle East. I always thought of him as Mr. Harold Macmillan's counterpart, the two of them sharing responsibility for political liaison right

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the way along the North coast of Africa. We praise him for the public service he gave in both war and peace as the Minister resident in the Middle East and also as Governor-General of Australia, and we on these Benches certainly wish to be associated with the sentiments of sympathy which will, I know, be conveyed to his widow and family.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I wonder whether I may be allowed to add a very short postscript to the words spoken by the noble Lord the Leader of the House, by my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn and by the noble Lord, Lord Byers. I had the opportunity of working very closely with Lord Casey when for so long he was Foreign Secretary of his country and was able to admire at first hand the skill which he showed on a variety of occasions when dealing with people of all kinds at international conferences. Not only did he serve our country as Governor of Bengal but also he revealed in his own country, as Governor-General, wide human sympathies. He was greatly valued by Australian citizens of every kind.
Perhaps what struck me most about him was how he co-operated in the transition from Empire to Commonwealth. He knew that the Commonwealth was different and he set out, I think, to prove to his own country and to the newer countries of the Commonwealth that there should be active co-operation between them and that no longer should Commonwealth relations be a one-way passage between London and the individual country: that is, that there must he communication between them all if the Commonwealth was to take on real meaning. In particular, it was important that Australia should have new relations with the continent of Asia and to that, from his great knowledge of the country, Lord Casey contributed enormously. In short, I think that he did as much as anybody in Australia, working with Sir Robert Menzies at that time, to make of the modern Australia a country in her own right.

INFLUENZA VACCINE
2.49 p.m.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question
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which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that adequate supplies of anti-flu vaccine will be available this coming winter in the United Kingdom to meet any apprehended threat from swine flu or similar viruses.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Health made a full statement about " swine " influenza in his reply to the honourable Member for South Bedfordshire on 25th May last. As the statement is a long one, I am arranging for it to be included in your Lordships' Official Report.
[Following is the statement referred to:]
"As I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman) on 17th May—[Vol. 911, c. 423–4]—officers of my Department received detailed information about the outbreak of swine ' influenza from the United States Government and from the United States Department of the Army in particular. Many discussions have taken place between experts internationally about this outbreak. Much information has been published and the World Health Organisation has circulated advice in the Weekly Epidemiological Record No. 16 issued on 15th April 1976, a copy of which is in the Library. I do not think it would be helpful to publish separately the substance of individual discussions by officers of my Department.
"As far as the general position in this country is concerned, I am now able to make a further statement to the one I gave to hon. Members on 6th April.—[Vol. 909, c. 147–49.]
"I have received the following advice from the Advisory Group on Vaccination against Influenza, which met on 20th May:
'The Advisory Group on Influenza has again reviewed A/New Jersey (" swine ") influenza, in the light of all available information from the USA and other countries. There has been no evidence of further spread of swine influenza in the USA, nor is there any evidence that it has appeared in any other country. The Group concluded that the extent of prevalence of swine influenza in man in the future was difficult to predict but reaffirmed its previous advice that there was no indication at present for mass immunisation in the UK in preparation for the coming winter.
'The Group endorsed its previous recommendations that a " swine " influenza virus component should be incorporated in inactivated influenza vaccine for the coming season. This vaccine would be used for the categories of persons at special risk as defined in the Chief Medical Officer's letter of 20th November 1975 (CMO 30/75).
'The Group considered the report to the Director-General, World Health Organisation,

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of the meeting in Geneva in April on " swine " influenza and accepted the advice that surveillance at a national level should be extended to detect any spread of the A/New Jersey virus to the human and swine population in the United Kingdom. In accord with the WHO recommendations the Advisory Group also recommended establishing a reserve of monovalent swine influenza vaccine for persons engaged in the maintenance of essential services for use in the event of indications of a serious epidemic. The Group agreed to maintain a close watch on developments in other countries with particular reference to any tendency to unusual virulence in any influenza epidemics which may occur.
' As recommended by the WHO the Group agreed that there was need to secure a supply of relevant antibiotics for treatment of bacterial pneumonia which can arise as a complication of influenza '.
" I have accepted this advice and in the light of it arrangements are being made immediately, for this winter, to establish a reserve which I am initially setting at 1 million doses of vaccine. This will be additional to the 1 million doses mentioned in my statement of 6th April. I am also taking steps to ensure the supply of antibiotics as recommended by the advisory group. My Department will be discussing with those responsible for essential services their requirements for vaccine.
"The advisory group has arranged to meet again if there is any significant change in the position."
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that my Question was down on the Order Paper prior to the Question being asked in the other place, but that in order to meet the convenience of my noble friend it was postponed? Is my noble friend also aware that two considerations arise from the essential time lag between the time of innoculation against influenza and the time when it becomes effective: that it is necessary for the Government to make quite sure that stocks of vaccine are sufficiently decentralised to meet an emergency when it arises and that the general public should be advised in good time of the advantages to be obtained from inoculation?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for putting off his Question for reasons to assist me, and in reply to his supplementary question may I say that my right honourable friend is aware of all that my noble friend has said and is in fact taking steps to carry out the advice given by the World Health Organisation, not only to disseminate information but to prepare contingency plans. We have in
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reserve 1 million doses of vaccine which is of the monovalent type; that is the one strain vaccine which in this particular instance will deal with swine influenza. By the beginning of the autumn we shall have available 2½ to 2¾ million doses of the trivalent; that is the three strain vaccine which deals not only with swine influenza but with the particularly virulent form which comes from Hong Kong, and another strain. From past experience and from the advice which we have been able to obtain from the World Health Organisation we feel that these arrangements will meet any situation that may arise.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE: REGIONAL COMPARISONS
2.52 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will publish official figures on public expenditure per head of population by regions during the years 1969–74 to which a civil servant, Mr. David Clark, is reported to have made reference in a recent address to the Regional Studies Conference at Durham.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the figures referred to by the noble Earl were calculated by the Northern Region Strategy Team using published information supplemented by additional material supplied by Government Departments and public corporations. I understand that in due course the team will publish their estimates in a technical report.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether he can confirm that the figures show that per head of population Scotland enjoys 27 per cent. more public sector expenditure than the rest of the United Kingdom?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I cannot take any responsibility for the figures which were published by the team. The

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team calculated the figures and they must take the responsibility for them. However, I can say that in the year 1974–75 the identifiable public expenditure per head in Scotland was £691, in Wales £601, and in England £582. These figures excluded capital expenditure by the British Steel Corporation, and if that had been included the Welsh figure would have been higher in relation to the other figures than the figure I have given.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that additional information, may I ask whether he would not agree that these figures deserve to be trumpeted the length and breadth of Scotland in support of the Union, and would he not advise his colleagues in the Government to use these figures as vigorously and energetically as possible? Will he also bear in mind that the figures to which my Question alluded suggested that there was no less than 28 per cent. per head of the population more nationalised industry investment in Scotland than in England and Wales, and in the case of Government help for industry no less than 62 per cent. more? Would he not agree that these are figures of which the United Kingdom should be very proud and they should be trumpeted and trumpeted and trumpeted again by the Government ?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Earl, but I would point out that the figures were not given only by the Strategy Team; they were issued by the Government themselves and I would refer him to the House of Commons Hansard of 5th February 1976, at col. 709 onwards, where he will find the figures not for one year but for six years, showing the kind of position which he has in mind.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Will he not agree that figures in Hansard are valuable as far as they go, but trumpeted by the megaphone of Government propaganda they are worth a great deal more? Is not this a very serious issue which the Government could advance? We would support them in it.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, perhaps the English are a little modest.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that nationalism is not, and never has been, a rational emotion?
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, arising out of the Question tabled by my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, if the Minister is going to do a great deal of trumpeting, will he also trumpet how much the United Kingdom Government—not the English—have obtained for Scotland through the European social, regional and other funds, because I understand that Scotland has received an enormous percentage greater than the rest of the United Kingdom ? Perhaps the Minister will also take that on board when he is doing his trumpeting.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I never said that I was going to do any trumpeting, but I would remind the noble Baroness that the figures to which she referred are a small percentage of the expenditure in Scotland.
Lord SELSDON: My Lords, while we are trumpeting about expenditure, can the noble Lord give an indication of how much per capita the Government are currently borrowing?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, that is an entirely different Question.

RABIES: CONTROL MEASURES
2.56 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: 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 in the event of a rabies outbreak, what organisation it is proposed to set up to control the outbreak; who will be responsible for operating the control organisation in the area concerned; and whether the instructions for setting up the organisation have already been issued.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, in the event of a rabies outbreak, an outbreak control centre would be set up in the infected area by the Ministry of Agriculture's Regional Veterinary Officer in

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the region concerned; he would be the overall area controller. Central direction would be given from the Ministry's Exotic Disease Control Room at Animal Health Headquarters, Tolworth, Surrey. The resources of the State Veterinary Service would be available as appropriate and all concerned have received the necessary instructions.
At local level local authorities are now developing their own contingency plans. To assist them in this task the Ministry has now issued guidelines, following consultations with the local authority and police associations.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I assume that this is the arrangement referred to in his document which was to be distributed by June 1976? May I further ask him whether, when referring to local authorities, we are in fact referring to county councils or district councils, and, whichever they are, could the local councils please be asked to give fuller publicity to these matters?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, these arrangements were touched on in the document which, last time I answered a Question on this subject, I said would be placed in the Printed Paper Office, and I may say—giving propaganda to our own publications—that a considerable number of copies still remain. However, the matter is gone into more fully in the other document, which is called Guidelines for Local Authorities: Rabies Outbreak Contingency Plans which, as I said, has been sent to all local authorities. If your Lordships wish, I will place a copy of that document too in the Library. It goes into the emergency plans in considerable detail; in fact, if I may so describe them, they have been set up almost like a military operation.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, my noble friend has explained the involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture and of the Veterinary Service in this matter. Will he give some indication as to the extent to which the Regional Hospital Boards and the medical authorities are likely to be alerted in these matters?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, this is necessary and there will be full coordination at local level between the local authorities, the veterinary authorities, hospital authorities and the police, and efforts have also been made to publicise this. In the event of an outbreak the contingency plans will he brought into operation with full publicity, including leaflets through every door and by means of loudspeaker vans.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, would the noble Lord please take me a little further in this matter? If these plans have been issued to local authorities, would it not be possible, rather on the lines of the Army running a mobilisation exercise, for some local authorities to run an exercise to show that these organisations exist? I am particularly concerned with the problem of stray dogs in urban areas. Would the noble Lord not agree that the Departmental Working Party have produced a report, which the Minister had gone broody on, which specifically covered this point? Would the noble Lord not agree that if we could have such an exercise it would show the public that something is actually ready to be done?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, we will certainly consider that. As I have said, the local authorities have the contingency plan which can be brought into operation. But it is the policy of the Government to keep rabies out of the country. At the moment, we are a rabies-free country, and can remain so if everybody plays the game.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to he printed.
FATAL ACCIDENTS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

EXPLOSIVES (AGE OF PURCHASE, &c.) BILL
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords. I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord

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has indicated a wish to move a Manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment he discharged.—(Lord Aylestone.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
3.3 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE. DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Birk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Earl of Listowel in the Chair.]
Clause 18 [Recreational facilities]:
Lord DE CLIFFORD Lord DE CLIFFORD moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 21, line 6, after (" camp sites ") insert (" nature reserves ").
The noble Lord said: My noble friend Lord Cranbrook is not well and is therefore unable to be with us this afternoon. He has asked me to move on his behalf the Amendments appearing in his name on the Marshalled List. I must therefore apologise to your Lordships if, by any chance, I am not very " clued up ", as it were, with the details of these Amendments, but I will do my best on behalf of my noble friend.
The noble Earl on page 21, line 6, wishes to insert after " camp sites " the words " nature reserves ". To me, this is a very good Amendment to move. The local authorities, particularly in rural areas, but also in some suburban areas, have areas of ground which need only be quite small, where one could have what
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might almost be called an informal nature reserve, which could be protected from interference, where small mammals, insects or wild flowers, and even, on occasions, rare birds could be found. I beg to move.
Lord SANDYS: I should like to support the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, because of course, it will enable a number of local authorities who at present manage nature reserves, or are instruments in so doing, to continue in that regard. I have particular interest in W hat Staffordshire is doing on Cannock Chase. There must be many other local authorities interested in protecting the natural environment, and using a permissive power of this nature. I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is going to refer to the situation so far as sites of scientific interest are concerned, but it occurs to me that there is a situation in which a local authority may wish to look after an area of scientific interest and to promote it as a nature reserve would seem a very sensible thing to do.
Baroness BIRK: There is absolutely nothing wrong with the intention of the Amendment so far as the Government are concerned. The only point about it is that it is really not necessary. Under Section 21 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, local authorities already have powers to provide nature reserves. They have used this power satisfactorily in the past, and for this reason there is no need for any additional powers. Therefore the Amendment is unnecessary, so I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: Before the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, sits down, may I say there is a great movement at present to clear up old ponds and the like, and to encourage wildfowl and duck to use those ponds. When the noble Baroness refers to parks, which may already be the over-riding property of public authorities, would the movement to improve the environment also be covered? If, by their new development, ponds and the like became nature reserves, would they also be covered by the local authority, which would protect them in this manner?
Baroness BIRK: As I understand it, the Act to which I referred covers not

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only National Parks but access to the countryside. Local authorities would have exactly the same powers as they have had before. I have looked into the matter personally, and have raised various questions on it. As I understand it, the matter that the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, has raised is covered in this way, and therefore the Amendment is not necessary. If the matter were not covered by the other Act, it would be covered by the general powers set out in the same clause of the Bill we are now discussing.
Lord LEATHER LAND: Having regard to the fact, as my noble friend has explained, that local authorities have these powers at present, I wonder whether she would consider it desirable to send out a circular to those local authorities giving some general guidance about the way in which these nature centres and reserves should be run ? I know of one not so very far from where I live where, a year or so ago, the officer in charge of the nature centre loosed out a large number of adders into the forest, on the grounds that that was their natural habitat. A few weeks ago, by a coincidence, a boy in the forest was bitten by an adder and seriously injured. It may very well be that some of the officers placed in charge of the nature reserves and centres might interpret the range of their duties in a far wider manner than the general public would desire.
Baroness BIRK: It is the intention of the Government when the Bill finally gets on the Statute Book to consider the terms of a circular which would be sent out, on all the recreational facilities in this clause and the general powers. I am sure this will be borne in mind, and I will draw it to the attention of others in my Department. I will also read carefully in Hansard what my noble friend has said.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: In view of what the noble Baroness has said, and of the fact that the wishes of my noble friend Lord Cranbrook are met, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.10 p.m.
Lord SAN DYS Lord SAN DYS moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 21, line 24, at end insert (" and that the power of provision includes in the case of land power to grant leases upon such terms as the local authority think fit.")
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friends I wish to move this Amendment which at first sight appears to be quite a small and perhaps not very important matter, until we turn to Schedule 2 to the Bill and realise what the Government intend in the course of their repeals. In Schedule 2 we read that Sections 4 and 5 of the 1937 Physical Training and Recreation Act are to be repealed, and Clause 18 is intended to replace, so far as the administration of this Act is concerned, the powers granted under Section 4 of the 1937 Act. How-ever, unfortunately, Clause 18 combined with Sections 123 and 127 of the Local Government Act 1972 do not go far enough.
If your Lordships will bear with me, I should like to quote one sentence from Section 4 of the 1937 Act to explain what it does:
" manage those lands … themselves, either with or without a charge for the use thereof or admission thereto, or may let them, or any portion thereof, at a nominal or other rent to any person, club, society or organisation for use for any of the purposes aforesaid ".
The power provided in Clause 18(1) of this Bill does not include the power of leasing in the 1937 Act, and this, I think, is particularly important. The words I have just read include the word " rent ", and when we look at the Bill nobody would interpret the words " charge " and " charges " in subsection (2) as including rent. Thus the effect of the repeal of Section 4 of the 1937 Act is to repeal the leasing powers in that Act. This will have very wide effect, because, of course, a large number of local authorities either lease, or have arrangements whereby they take on lease from charitable and other bodies halls, grounds and other properties for the purposes of recreation. This is considerably more important than may appear at first sight, because there are literally thousands of leases, usually running between 28 and 40 years. They are either under the 1937 Act or under the predecessor Act, the Public Health Act 1925. Properties are mostly playing fields, open air recreational facilities in country areas, community centres in towns; and our present estimate is that well over 2,000

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village halls and some 700 community centres are concerned with leases of this nature.
What is going to happen if one of these existing leases falls due for renewal? It would be unfortunate if this happened in the immediate future without the Government having made an alteration to Clause 18 of this Bill, because it would generate a great deal of correspondence. Perhaps I may refer to what was said in regard to a similar Amendment to this which was before another place on 10th May 1976. I quote from the Minister, Mr. Guy Barnett, who said:
" Under the clause as drafted, any land held for the purposes of those powers or the 1937 Act will be leased under Sections 123—principal councils—and 127 —parish and community councils—of the Local Government Act 1972. This is more restrictive. It requires the consent of the Secretary of State where land is leased at less than the best consideration. This could result in the Department receiving many thousands of requests for such consents, and most of these would be from parish and community councils."
Then he went on to say, and this is very important:
" It is agreed that local authorities should have the same freedom as they have under the 1937 Act. This can be achieved by a general consent under Section 128(1) of the Local Government Act 1972, and such a consent to the disposal of property held for the purposes of Section 4 and property under this clause for purposes corresponding to those of that section will be given before Section 4 is repealed."—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/76; Col. 121.]
We contend from this side of the Committee that that will not be quite sufficient, because although the sections referred to in the 1972 Act are to some extent satisfactory they are, as the Minister himself admits, considerably more restrictive. They are restrictive as regards area and they are restrictive as regards other matters of particular importance to leases. So, in our view, it would be very much better if the Government would consider the Amendment as set out. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: As the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, has explained the background to this and what it is about so very clearly, I will not take up the Committee's time by going over it again. As he quite rightly said, my honourable friend in another place promised that a general consent would be given to cover such transactions in respect of property held under Section 4 of the 1937 Act in respect
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of property held under this clause. This will be done by way of circular, and it will leave local authorities in the same position as they are at present under the 1937 Act. If leases fall due, it will not matter, because the general consent promised will come into force at exactly the same time as the clause conies into force—in fact when the Bill is enacted. The Amendment is, therefore, unnecessary, and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Lord SANDYS: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for that assurance. I am not entirely satisfied in this regard, because I feel the centre of the argument is that a great deal of correspondence would be generated and uncertainty would occur. I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for her assurance about a Departmental circular, but it is very important that these circulars should reach those particular parish councils or other bodies where leases are due for renewal. On so many occasions they are pigeonholed at some earlier stage in their career, and the body which is anxious to renew its lease may have difficulty in finding out what is happening. There is an area of doubt here which I would wish to pursue before the next stage of the Bill, and, therefore, with your Lordships' permission I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Provision of sanitary appliances at places of entertainment]:
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 22, line 40, after (" so ") insert (" it").
The noble Lord said: This is pure drafting. The interests of good English seem to require the word " it " to be inserted at that point. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I understand that the clause is clear as it stands. Nevertheless, I agree with the noble Lord and I think the Amendment reads rather better and sounds better. Therefore, I happily accept his Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 22, line 45, leave out from (" building ") to end of paragraph (a) and insert (" for which fixed sanitary appliances could be required by virtue of building regulations in force when the notice is served if the building were to be newly constructed then, of fixed sanitary appliances which are of a different kind from, or which as respects a particular kind are more numerous than, those which could be required as aforesaid; ").
The noble Baroness said: The effect of the Amendment is to limit the fixed sanitary appliances a notice may require, provided that building regulations are in force as respects similar new buildings, to those which could be required if the building to which the notice relates were being newly constructed. This is a drafting Amendment designed to correct an error in subsection (3)(a) of Clause 19, which in essence prevents a notice requiring more generous fixed sanitary appliances to be provided than could be required by building regulations.
The fault in subsection (3)(a) arises from the fact that it presupposes that there are in existence building regulations applicable to buildings to which a notice requiring fixed sanitary appliances relates. This is not so, for although building regulations could require the provision of fixed sanitary appliances in buildings if they were to be newly constructed they do not at present do so. A notice served now in relation to a building could therefore not require a person to provide any appliances because he could not be required by building regulations to provide any.
The Amendment overcomes this defect by making it clear that the limitation by reference to building regulations applies only to buildings in relation to which building regulations are actually in force at the date of the serving of the notice. Thus, until building regulations come into force local authorities will not be tied by the limitations contained in subsection (3); this subsection will come into operation with the making of appropriate regulations. The Amendment has a further benefit in that it clarifies the criteria, by reference to which the limitation is to work, by replacing the words " more onerous " in the clause as drafted by explicit reference to the kinds and numbers of appliances which could be required under building regulations. This is a very technical and complicated matter, and
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I can only say that I think that the Amendment is rather clearer than my explanation. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I hope that when the circulars come to be written they will be slightly clearer than that explanation of this Amendment because I found it rather difficult to follow. Just to make quite sure that I have got it clear in my mind, I understood the noble Baroness to say that actually this is a drafting Amendment to make clear that the position of someone putting in fixed sanitary appliances will not in fact be worse than it would have been had the building been a new building to which building regulations apply. Is that the essence of it? Have I got it correct?
Baroness BIRK: Yes, I think so, because it says that although building regulations could require the provision of fixed sanitary appliances in buildings if they were to he newly constructed they do not do so at present. The Amendment overcomes the defect by making it clear that the limitation by reference to building regulations applies only to buildings in relation to which the regulations are actually in force at the date of serving the notice. It is really to stop making, if you like, over-demands which would be unfair and unreasonable.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.24 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 23, line 9, after (" specify ") insert (" a period (which shall not be within six weeks beginning with the date of service of the notice) ").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 24 and the next one I think stand or fall together, so perhaps we could discuss them together. We are still within the province of obscure wording. I must say that on first reading I did not find subsection (3)(c) at all easy to understand, and yet when one does grasp it the message is quite clear. What it is saying is that a person must not be required to do work within a period which expires before his time for appeals expires against having to do the work. If your Lordships look for a moment at the next clause you find that the time for appeals is six weeks, and in this Amendment I have taken those six weeks and inserted them into this para-

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graph. I think that makes this paragraph much more easily comprehensible and straightforward and is an improvement on the wording of paragraph (c). I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: Unfortunately, I do not think that the noble Lord's Amendment makes it clearer. In fact, it is not entirely clear what it does. The intention of the Amendments—and I agree with him that it is better to take them both together—seems to be to specify in Clause 19 a minimum period of six weeks which shall be specified in a notice under the section, et cetera, but for this purpose the wording is faulty. At the moment the clause requires that a notice which is not an occasional notice shall allow a period equal to, or longer than, that allowed by Clause 20 for an appeal. Clause 20 allows six weeks for an appeal. Thus the Amendment, as it is now drafted. would achieve nothing of substance and the clause, as it stands, makes plain the connection between the minimum period and the appeal period.
I should point out that Clause 20(6) makes a notice of no effect pending determination of an appeal and provides power for the court, if it does not quash a notice, to extend the period for compliance; that is, if there is no appeal there is a minimum period of six weeks, and if there is an appeal the court decides the period. If I may suggest it, I think that this is rather technical, and as there seems to he a difference between us on the meaning of the words in the Amendment, I wonder whether, in order to save time, I might write to the noble Lord, now that I have heard his explanation this afternoon, and take it together with the Amendment, as drafted, and we can see where we get to from there. I do not think there is anything further I can say now in relation to the Amendment he has on the Order Paper.
Lord AIREDALE: I think that is an excellent suggestion. These questions of how to draft a clause are hopelessly difficult to deal with in the course of debate. I shall read what the noble Baroness has said in Hansard tomorrow. It may he that between us we can improve paragraph (c) as it now stands, at the next stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.30 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 25A:
Page 24, line 25, a end insert—
(" ( ) This section shall not apply to any premises in respect of which there is in force a licence under the Cinematograph Acts 1909 and 1952 and the Gaming Act 1968.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 25A seeks to exempt from Clause 19 the places of entertainment, that is cinemas and bingo halls, which are the subject of the Cinematograph Acts of 1909 and 1952—that is for cinemas—and the Gaming Act 1968 in the case of bingo halls. Before cinemas or bingo halls can obtain a licence they have to satisfy the local authority with regard to the provision of sanitary appliances. Having satisfied the local authority on that score, and on all other scores, they then obtain a licence. Having gone through that hoop and obtained a licence for the bingo hall or the cinema hall, if the proprietor afterwards is approached again by the local authority, who could say, " Now you have got to make other provision for sanitary appliances under Section 19 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act ", I should imagine that the attitude of the cinema proprietor would he that this was very near to a fraudulent practice. His attitude would be, " Well, why didn't you say so when I applied for and received my licence to run my cinema? "
I think it would be a very great injustice if the sanitary appliances required for the purpose of the licence under the other Act were not sufficient and that the cinema proprietor was in any danger of falling within the mischief of Clause 19. I hope, therefore, that there will be an exemption from the provisions of Clause 19 in respect of cinemas and bingo halls. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: The main reason why I am asking the Committee to resist this Amendment is that, first, the powers of the clause are discretionary. If the local authority makes unreasonable requirements there is the right of appeal to the county court, and that, surely, is the right way for the merits of notices served under the clause to be challenged. It would be wrong to exempt a whole class of premises in advance when the clause provides for every case to be considered on its merits. Also, the granting of either of the licences

23
mentioned in the Amendment would not preclude use of the same premises for other purposes. The Amendment would, however, prevent the local authority from requiring provision of appliances which might be appropriate to those other purposes. In addition, since the Cinematograph Acts and this clause will be administered by the same authorities—that is, except in London—there should be no danger of conflicting requirements being imposed.
I understand the motivation behind the Amendment, but it does not seem to justify declining to allow local authorities powers to require reasonable facilities to be provided, especially when there is a right of appeal against conditions considered to be unreasonable. I think the same argument applies to premises licensed under the Gaming Act. There again it is difficult to understand why they should be specially chosen for exemption. The relevant places caught under the entertainment wing of Clause 19 are those normally used, or proposed to be normally used, for the holding of any entertainment, exhibition or sporting event to which members of the public are admitted, either as spectators or otherwise.
In any case, the Amendment is defective as it refers to " licence " in the singular under the Cinematograph Acts of 1909 and 1952 and the Gaming Act 1968. The licensing systems are, in fact, separate. It is not clear whether the intention is to except from the operation of Clause 19 premises licensed for one purpose or the other, or only premises licensed for both purposes; but !assume that this is a drafting matter, and that this is the former. It is the principle of the exemption of these particular areas that I am asking the Committee to resist. It is true that there are now about 28 local Acts up to 1971 which cover cinemas, and about 28 local Acts since 1971 which exempt cinemas, and there is no reason why we should not do the right thing now in this consolidation Bill. One of its objects was to get things into line so that there was not this great difference between some of the necessities of many local authorities. As I said at the beginning it is a discretionary clause; it is not mandatory, but it is there for those authorities who wish to exercise it.
Lord AIREDALE: As regards the point about the right to appeal against an unreasonable requirement, I cannot say that I have studied the Cinematograph Acts and the Gaming Act to see whether the same right of appeal exists under those Acts. My bet would be that it does, and so there is really no difference between us on that point. On the second point where there might be a change of purpose, I imagine that if a cinema ceases to be used as a cinema, or a bingo hall is used for another purpose, then their licences as cinemas or bingo halls would no longer run ; so that would be the answer to that one.
I should, however, have thought one could state the matter as simply as this; that in a small detail like the provision of sanitary appliances, a cinema or bingo hall ought to be required to do it under one Act of Parliament and not more than one. Her Majesty's Government can have it whichever way they like. They can get rid of the sanitary appliances part of the Cinematograph Acts and the Gaming Act, and say that cinemas and bingo halls, like everybody else, must now come under Clause 19. Or, if they are to continue with the system of licences depending partly on sanitary appliances being satisfactory, then Clause 19 of this Bill should not apply to cinemas and bingo halls, so that one Act only is governing what cinema proprietors and bingo hall proprietors could be required to do with regard to the provision of sanitary appliances. Perhaps I can continue to think about this until the next stage. I think that we shall have to come back to it, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 25B:
Page 24, line 35, at end insert (" any of the following places— ").
The noble Baroness said: The sole purpose of this Amendment is to improve the drafting definition of " relevant place " in Clause 19 to make it clear that the term " relevant place " means any of the places mentioned in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) under this heading. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.38 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 24, line 44, at end insert (" and ").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 26 is merely a paving Amendment to Amendment No. 27. Therefore, in moving Amendment No. 26, perhaps I may speak to Amendment No. 27. The purpose of these two Amendments is to give the Committee the opportunity to consider whether it really thinks it wise to allow, or to encourage, the provision of sanitary appliances in betting shops. I mentioned this topic at Second Reading, and I can take it quite shortly. I think that when the legislation was going through Parliament which set up the betting shops and got rid of the street bookmakers, Parliament was very concerned that there should be no loitering in betting shops. Evidence of that was the fact that Parliament insisted that there should not be televised broadcasting of races in betting shops, because that would encourage people to loiter there.
I believe that sound commentaries are allowed but not television. if that is so, and if a betting shop is, therefore, a place to which people are expected to go to carry out their transactions and then leave, just as they do in any other kind of shop, there does not seem really any reason why lavatories should be provided at a betting shop any more than at any other kind of shop. Of course, if Parliament now thinks that this battle has been lost and that people do loiter in betting shops and will continue to do so and that nothing can stop them, I suppose that their comfort can be considered. No doubt lavatories in betting shops would be very convenient for some of the customers. However, I feel that this is a departure from Parliament's intention as to how betting shops were to be treated when they were first set up, and I wonder whether your Lordships would not think that it would be a mistake and would simply encourage people to loiter there if comforts were to be provided in betting shops. With those few words, I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I remember the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, making this point on Second Reading and I quite understand the intention behind the Amendment. There is no dispute as to the desirability of avoiding encouraging loitering in
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betting shops. As a member of my local Bench, I clearly remember being concerned at the time when betting shops were being set up in the area that we should try to avoid loitering and being pleased that television sets were not to be permitted. However, the clause, by including betting shops, follows every local Act provision enacted since 1971 and, again, is intended to provide a discretionary power for use when necessary and reasonable. Once more, I must stress that this is not an imposition to make it mandatory upon local authorities to insist on this. However, experience has shown over the years that, although it may be contrary to the wishes of Parliament, some clients stay longer at betting shops than is necessary merely for the transaction of the business in hand. Also, radios are allowed there and, in addition, it is known that, where public conveniences are not available close to betting offices, there have been instances of fouling of nearby premises.
I therefore think that it should be up to the local authorities to make up their minds. I also begin to feel that there is a point beyond which one cannot " nanny " people. One does what one can. We do not make betting shops very comfortable; as the noble Lord pointed out, television sets are not allowed. However, I think that there should be discretion for a local authority to decide whether or not a particular betting shop must install lavatories. I am not convinced that the provision of sanitary facilities will either encourage or discourage betting. I feel that this depends on factors other than the provision of lavatories in a betting shop. I believe that to deny local authorities, as the noble Lord's Amendment would do, a discretionary power would be against the interests of public health. It is for that reason that I ask the Committee to resist the Amendment and not in the interests of increasing the amount of betting or the profits of bookmakers.
Baroness YOUNG: I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, in this Amendment. Indeed, now that I have heard the reply of the noble Baroness, I feel strengthened in my conviction. I do not believe that the issue has anything to do with encouraging people to bet or not to bet. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness on that

27
point, but it seems to me that the purpose of the clause as drafted is the provision of sanitary appliances at places of entertainment. I do not know what is the definition of betting shops, but I am surprised that a betting shop should be known as a place of entertainment. Perhaps what it provides may be entertainment for some people, but others might equally well argue that their idea of entertainment is to spend all the afternoon in a boutique trying on dresses. I can think of people who would argue that case. I do not think it a particularly strong one, but then I do not feel that the case for classing a betting shop as a place of entertainment is particularly strong either.
What I believe to be the substance of the argument is that, in a clause which is concerned with this particular provision at places of entertainment—and I am entirely in agreement with this—betting offices should have been picked out as the only kind of place to be included whereas other shops were not included. It may well be that, as the noble Baroness says, this is following the provisions of other local Acts since 1971 and that every shop that has been opened since 1971 has to provide these facilities: I should be surprised if that is so, but I stand to be corrected if there is some such provision. However, it is surely open to any betting shop, if it so wishes, to provide the facilities in question and I do not see why betting shops should be singled out by local authorities as places which might have to provide such facilities when other shops were not under that obligation.
Baroness BIRK: I would say that, in a wide definition of entertainment, one would include betting shops, though one man's entertainment is another man's bore. It would be for me, but it is a personal matter. It is true that people sometimes stay around waiting to listen to the radio to hear the end of the race and that there arc therefore perhaps more people around in a betting shop than go in and out of other shops. It is also true, as the noble Baroness is aware. that sanitary arrangements are often available in other shops and in stores. It varies, but I return to the point which I tried to stress in my original answer which was that this is a discretionary power. I cannot see why noble Lords should want to have it

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taken out when the decision would be up to the local authority itself. One imagines that, as I pointed out, the places where local authorities will want to enforce this provision will be where there are no public lavatories easily available and where there have been examples of fouling nearby. It is in the interests of public health and seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable and natural provision to include in the Bill. As I said before, no local authority has to implement it. It is purely discretionary and, in a tidying-up Bill of this sort and since it follows every local Act which has been enacted since 1971, as the noble Baroness herself admitted, it seems sensible to incorporate it in the present Bill.
Lord AIREDALE: I am very grateful for the support I have received from the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Of course the argument about allowing local authorities to have the discretion can be used in relation to the television sets which are at present not allowed in betting shops. It could be said that local authorities in their wisdom must be able to decide whether a television set in a particular betting shop would encourage loafing there or whether it would be harmless, but the fact is that Parliament has set its face against television because Parliament thinks that television in betting shops would cause loafing. There are certain matters upon which Parliament ought to make up its own mind and should not take the easy way out by saying that it will be left to the discretion of local authorities to do what they like because they are so wise that they will surely do the right thing.

Having said that, I do not know whether if I were to take this matter to a Division, I should win it. I feel that, on balance, having given the Committee the opportunity to discuss the matter and not feeling desperately serious about it myself, I should beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.50 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 27A:
Page 25, line 4, leave out from beginning to end of line 6.
The noble Baroness said: The effect of the Amendment is to bring places of

29
entertainment to which Section 75 of the Public Health Act 1961 applies (that is, pleasure fairs and roller skating rinks) within the scope of Clause 19. Section 75 enables by-laws to be made, inter alia, for preserving sanitary conditions at any pleasure fair or roller skating rink. It seems right to us that pleasure fairs and roller skating rinks, which are places of entertainment to which the public arc admitted, ought to be subject to reasonable requirements to provide sanitary appliances (and maintain and grant access to them) no less than other places of entertainment. Originally these places were excluded from the terms of the clause because it was thought that offences for failure to meet sanitary requirements should not be penalised on the scale provided for by Clause 19 (6), when contravention of safety requirements at pleasure fairs would continue to attract a maximum penalty of £20 under by-laws. However, the exclusion would have resulted in different maximum penalties for the same offence, that is the failure to supply sanitary appliances, committed in different places.
We now consider that it would be less anomalous to penalise offences at fairs in respect of sanitary provisions more heavily than those in respect of safety provisions than it would be to penalise offences against sanitary provisions differently according to the place where the offences were committed. The opportunity to revise penalties to take account of inflation should not he missed just because those penalties which remain unamended compare unfavourably with those which have been recently revised. There is no reason to think that in the future the other provisions will not themselves be revised. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that explanation of the Amendment. I wonder whether there is to be included in the Bill any definition of places of entertainment which are covered by Clause 19. We now have a reference to pleasure fairs and roller skating rinks and there might be other such establishments which ought to be covered but are not. Would it not be helpful to have some general definition ?
Baroness BIRK: I understand that this point comes under one of the clauses,
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which I cannot put my hands on at the moment, dealing with general powers. But this Amendment was put forward because otherwise these places would have been specifically excluded since they came under the Public Health Act 1961, and that related particularly to pleasure fairs and roller skating rinks. Otherwise I think it applies to dance halls and all the other places which one would consider for
" the holding of any entertainment, exhibition or sporting event ",
which are defined in the earlier part of the clause. This covers most of the places one could think of, but I will write to the noble Baroness setting out the position more clearly.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 20 to 22 agreed to.
Clause 23 [Funds of local authorities. etc.]
3.53 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendments Nos. 28 and 29:
Page 28, line 36, after first (" funds ") insert (" , Housing Revenue Accounts ").
Page 30, line 12, at end insert—
(" 18. Money received from the disposal of any property the income from which or the expenditure on which is included in a local authority's Housing Revenue Account shall not without the consent of the Secretary of State be paid into a fund established by the authority under paragraph 16 of this Schedule.").
The noble Baroness said: The second Amendment (which is the substantive one) prevents capital money received from the disposal of properties within a local authority's Housing Revenue Account from being paid into a capital fund established under Clause 23 without the consent of the Secretary of State. The first Amendment is consequential. These are drafting Amendments designed to correct an omission in Clause 23.
Clause 23 enables local authorities to set up such funds as they consider appropriate. This is achieved by replacing paragraphs 16 to 18 of Schedule 13 to the Local Government Act 1972 with new paragraphs 16 and 17. But as they

31
stand the two new paragraphs do not take account of certain Amendments which have been made to the existing paragraphs. The Amendments ensure that capital money received from the disposal of properties within the Housing Revenue Account is not paid into a capital fund without the consent of the Secretary of State, which in practice is rarely given. The reason for this is to ensure that the benefit of such receipts should accrue to the Housing Revenue Account. If they were paid into the capital fund they could be used for other purposes and thus lost to the Housing Revenue Account. For that reason I beg to move the Amendments.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 24 [Repayment of unclaimed compensation etc paid into court]:
3.56 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 31, line 23, at end insert—
(" (4) For the purposes of the preceding subsection any land held by a parish or community council shall be treated as held by the district council whose area includes the area of the parish or community council.").
The noble Baroness said: the purpose of the Amendment is to provide that where prior to 1st April 1974 an authority which has now ceased to exist paid money into court on behalf of a parish council or community council, the district council whose area includes the parish or community will be able to apply to the court notwithstanding that the land itself is now held by the parish. The need for this Amendment first became clear at report stage in another place on consideration of an Amendment"tabled on behalf of the National Association of Local Councils. Under Section 125 of the Local Government Act 1972 district councils are able to make compulsory purchase orders on behalf of local councils, who have no powers of compulsory purchase themselves. The National Association of Local Council's Amendment, which was withdrawn, would have permitted parish councils to apply direct for the repayment of compensation which had been paid into court on their
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behalf. It was opposed on the grounds that as local councils had no powers of compulsory purchase it would be inappropriate for them to be able to apply direct to the court and the district council should act on their behalf.
But it transpired that as subsection (3) is drawn at present the district council would be unable to make an application to the court in respect of money paid by its predecessor prior to local government reorganisation, because it would no longer hold the land which would have been transferred on acquisition to the local council, which is not a local authority for the purposes of this clause. An undertaking was therefore given that a Government Amendment would be tabled to deal with the point, and the present Amendment does so by making it clear that in such circumstances the district council can apply to the court even though the land is now held by the parish council—or community council in Wales. The problem does not arise in respect of acquisitions of land made after 1st April 1974, because in such cases there is no requirement that the land should still be held by a local authority as defined. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I understand that this Amendment has been included in order to meet a request from the association representing parish councils. I wish to express our gratitude that it has appeared and to say that we accept it.
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 25 agreed to.
3.59 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 31:
After Clause 25 insert the following new clause:
Indemnities for officers of local authorities appointed as receivers or administrators.1959 c. 72.
. If an officer of a local authority is appointed as a receiver for a patient in pursuance of section 105 of the Mental Health Act 1959 or, on the nomination of the authority, as the administrator of the estate of a deceased person, the authority may pay to the officer any sum which he becomes liable to pay in consequence of the appointment and may pay the premiums in

33
respect of any policy of insurance for indemnifying the officer from the consequences of any act or omission connected with the appointment which occurs while he holds the appointment.
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment will authorities local authorities to reimburse their officers who act as receivers for mental patients or administrators of estates for any loss incurred by them in either of those capacities. A receiver may be appointed under Section 105(1) of the Mental Health Act 1959 where, after considering medical evidence, the Court of Protection is satisfied that a person is incapable, by reason of mental disorder, of managing and administering his affairs (Section 101). Although the Act does not make any express provision on the point, local authority officers are often appointed as receivers of the estates of persons living in accommodation provided by a welfare authority where there is no relative of the patient available to act. Grants of administration of a deceased person's estate may be made under the Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1954 to certain persons in cases where the person to whom a grant would otherwise be made is an infant.
Local authorities are required or empowered by a number of statutory provisons to receive into their care children in certain circumstances, and where the child in question would have been entitled to a grant but for infancy, a grant of administration is sometimes made to an officer nominated by the local authority for that purpose. Receivers and administrators are, broadly speaking, exempt from personal liability where they have acted reasonably and in good faith. This is under the Mental Health Act 1959, Section 141, and the Trustee Act 1925, Section 61. The need for further protection arises where local authority officers have acted negligently to some degree and are not protected by the provisions of the Mental Health Act or the Trustee Act. This is particularly important in the case of local authority officers acting as receivers, because receivers are personally accountable to the Court of Protection, by whom they are appointed, for their acts and defaults. The power of local authorities to make reimbursements under this Amendment is entirely discretionary. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining this Amendment to us. It refers, of course, quite specifically, to the Mental Health Act 1959. I should like to ask whether officers could be appointed in other circumstances, where they in fact become receivers or administrators on the death of someone in their care. The noble Baroness talked of children in the care of a local authority, and presumably this might also apply to old people where they have no family or relatives for this purpose. I wondered whether this was an all-inclusive clause, or whether there is other legislation which covers these other two groups of people and we are simply talking about people who are in the care of a local authority under the Mental Health Act.
Baroness BIRK: As I understand it, under the Mental Health Act it applies not only to children but to any person who is incapable by reason of mental disorder. But the particular emphasis is on infants because in these cases, and where the child in question would be entitled to a grant but for infancy, a grant of administration is sometimes made to an officer nominated by the local authority for that purpose. As I understand it, it would be mainly in the cases of infants because they are in a special category; but as I also understand it, it could apply to anyone in that position where there has been a receiver or administrator appointed. If by any chance I am wrong on that—and I do not think I am—I will let the noble Baroness know.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 26 agreed to.
4.3 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 31A:
After Clause 26 insert the following clause:
"Restoration of supply of water, gas or electricity.
. (1) If any premises in the area of a district council, a London borough council or the Common Council are occupied as a dwelling and the supply of water, gas or electricity to the premises is cut off in consequence of the failure of the owner or former owner of the premises to pay a sum payable by him in connection with the supply, the council may, at the request in writing of the occupier of the premises, make such arrangements as it thinks fit with the undertakers who provided the supply for it to be restored to the premises.
(2) Where under arrangements made in pursuance of the preceding subsection in respect of any premises a council makes a payment in respect of a sum which, at the time when the relevant supply to the premises was cut off as mentioned in that subsection, a person was liable to pay in connection with the supply to the undertakers who provided it, the council shall be entitled to demand and recover from that person a sum equal to the payment; and where under such arrangements a council makes a payment in respect of the restoration of a supply to any premises or a payment for a supply to any premises, the council shall be entitled to demand and recover from the owner of the premises a sum equal to the payment reduced by any amount received by the council in pursuance of subsection (4) of this section in respect of the payment.
(3) A council by which a sum is recoverable from a person in pursuance of the preceding subsection shall also be entitled to recover from him interest on the sum, from the date of service of the demand for the sum, at the rate fixed by section 171(2) of the Local Government Act 1972; and such a demand must—

(a) be served on the recipient in writing; and

(b) give particulars of the payment to which the sum demanded relates; and

(c) in the case of a demand for a sum on which interest is payable by virtue of this subsection, state the rate of the interest and that interest is payable from the date aforesaid.

(4) Where by virtue of the preceding provisions of this section a council is entitled to recover from the owner of any premises a sum on account of a payment in respect of the restoration of a supply to the premises or a payment for a supply to the premises or interest on such a sum and—

(a) the owner of the premises is, under the terms on which a person occupies the premises, required to pay for a supply of the kind to which that sum relates; and

(b) the council has served a notice on that person requiring him to pay to the council, instead of to the owner of the premises, the rent for the premises which apart from this subsection is or becomes payable by him to the owner of the premises,

it shall be the duty of that person to comply with the notice except so far as the council directs otherwise and the council may accordingly recover from him from time to time sums equal to the rent in question.
(5) In this section ' the owner ', in relation to any premises, means a person who apart from the preceding subsection is entitled on his own behalf or as a trustee or agent for another person to rent for the premises from the occupier of the premises and former owner ', in relation to any premises, means a person who was so entitled to rent for the premises from the occupier or former occupier of the premises."
The noble Baroness said: This new clause has been discussed before. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, raised the
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matter on the first day of the Committee stage, when I said that we hoped to bring such a new clause as this forward at Report stage. We have in fact found it possible to bring it forward at Committee stage. It allows a local authority to help an occupier whose gas, water or electricity supply has been cut off because his landlord, who is responsible for paying the bill, has not done so. It allows the authority to pay the statutory undertakers to reconnect the supply and to recover their expenses from the landlord. Noble Lords will be familiar with this subject because it has arisen several times recently in your Lordships' House. Indeed, as I have just pointed out, the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, introduced his own new clause to this effect on the first day of this Committee stage and then withdrew it when I said that the Government's new clause was on the way.
A typical case where a local authority might use this power is this. A tenant pays a rent which is inclusive of electricity. He is up to date with his rent payments, but the landlord, for whatever reason, has not paid the bill, and after the usual warnings the Electricity Board have cut off the supply. The tenant then suffers considerable hardship through no fault of his own. In theory, of course, he can sue his landlord for breach of contract, but that would take time and, meanwhile, would not help him if he is in the dark and without heating.
Under this new clause he has an immediate remedy. He can ask his local authority for help, and they can use this power to pay the Gas Board or the Electricity Board to reconnect the supply. Under subsection (1) they can come to whatever agreement they think fit for the supply to be reconnected, and under subsections (2) to (4) they can recover the full amount they have spent, plus interest, from the owner. The authority will have the choice either of demanding payment direct from the landlord or, under subsection (4), of requiring the tenant to divert his rent to them until the debt is paid. This second method might be useful where the landlord is hard to trace. In such a case it would be more convenient for the authority to have the rent diverted and get money from the landlord that way, rather than spend time and effort tracking him down.
I do not think your Lordships will want me to set out the need for this clause at any great length. I should think we are all agreed upon it since there is evidence of tenants suffering in these circumstances, with no immediate remedy. Local authorities badly need the power to help in these circumstances, and the Government agree that they should have it. The local authority associations have seen the clause and are content with it; and
understand that the statutory undertakers concerned have no objections. For these reasons, I commend this new clause to your Lordships, and I beg to move.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved, as an Amendment to Amendment No. 31A, Amendment No. 31B:
In line 4, after (" off ") insert (" or is immediately about to be cut off ").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 31B and 31C are another pair of Amendments which undoubtedly stand or fall together and which perhaps we can therefore discuss together. I was delighted when the noble Baroness was able to table this new clause about the restoration of water, electricity and gas in the circumstances which she has outlined. The need for a clause of this kind was made very apparent to me in the course of the proceedings on the County of South Glamorgan Bill, when we were told of heart-rending cases which have occurred but which I need not rend your Lordships' hearts by reciting now.
However, it seems that this new clause, admirable though it is, falls short of perfection in one respect, and that is because it operates only after the supply has been cut off. I suppose, therefore, the situation could arise where it is common ground between the local authority and the Gas Board that Mrs. So-and-So's gas bill is going to be paid by the local authority because she as tenant has paid for it in her rent and that it is the landlord who is in default, but where, because the clause operates only after the supply has been cut off, what happens is that the gas-fitter has to go to the premises and disconnect the supply, and then has to go to a telephone kiosk and (assuming, of course, that he has the right number of pennies and can get through) contact the treasurer's department of the local authority and
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say that the supply has been disconnected. On that, the treasurer's department then says, " Very well; we are sending a man round with the money for the gas bill, so go back and reconnect the premises ". The fitter then goes back and undoes the work which he has just done. All this seems a terrible waste of manpower and of money.
We have just heard from the noble Baroness how difficult it sometimes is to recover this money from these landlords who do not pay their hills. It is a much bigger bill now than it would have been if the fitter had not had to disconnect and reconnect the supply. I should have thought it was worth extending the clause a little by saying that where the supply is " immediately about to be cut off" the bill can be paid by the local authority. This bill will be a smaller bill which they may have to meet, because they may not be able to recover the money from the landlord, than it would have been if the disconnection and reconnection had had to take place. That is the purpose of this Amendment. I beg to move.
Viscount AMORY: I wanted to comment on the new clause. I am not sure whether it will he in order to do it now. Are we concentrating our discussion on the Amendments and then coming back to the new clause?
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: I think the normal procedure would be to return to the new clause after the two Amendments have been disposed of.
Baroness BIRK: This really is a very difficult one because what the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, wants to do is to allow the local authority to step in and pay the landlord's bill, not as in the new clause only when the supply has been cut off but also when the occupier has written to the authority telling him that his supply is about to be or immediately about to be cut off.
I can see the attractions of the proposal and I have a great deal of sympathy with it for all the reasons which the noble Lord has cited and even other reasons. On the face of it, it is true that it provides a short cut to the same end and that there would be no need to wait for the disconnection to take place. The undertakers would be

39
saved the cost of disconnection and reconnection and the occupier would be spared the discomfort of even a short period without gas or electricity or whatever. We have, in fact, considered such a provision carefully ourselves and we should have liked to incorporate it in our original clause; but after a great deal of thinking and consultation we had to come to the conclusion that in practice a provision like this would be either unworkable or only workable at the expense of quite unacceptable extra demands on the administrative machinery both of the local authorities and of the statutory undertakers.
The typical sequence of events under the Government clause would be this. The electricity board send the landlord the bill. He does not pay it, and after four weeks or so they send him a final demand. This says that the supply will be cut off if he does not pay within seven days. He still does not pay, and after some time, which can vary greatly, they disconnect the supply. The occupier knows nothing about all this until his supply is cut off. The landlord is responsible for payment; so he gets the hills. The tenant need not necessarily know what the hills amount to, or whether his landlord has paid them or intends to pay them. So, in practice, the occupier will be in no position to tell the authority that he is about to be cut off. And we cannot expect either the statutory undertakers or the local authority to be in such close and continuous consultation that they will be aware of the position. The statutory undertakers may not, indeed, know that their customer has a tenant.
Under the Amendment, the danger is that tenants will write to the local authority saying they are about to be cut off when probably they are not. The landlord may merely be late in paying. But the authority would be bound to pursue the matter further, get in touch with the statutory undertaker, and start the whole process moving perhaps unnecessarily. The last thing we want to do in this Bill is to impose unnecessary or extra work on local authorities. Under the Government clause, there is a strong incentive for the landlord to pay the bill, because otherwise he is faced with the cost of reconnection, which is not negligible, and the authority's
40
interest. It is cheaper for him to pay the bill on time. But under the Amendment he can rely on the local authority to prevent disconnection—however much of their staff time this takes up—and he only gets the same bills that he should have paid in the first place, anyway.
While, then, I understand and sympathise with the noble Lord's intentions in putting forward this Amendment, I cannot see any way in which it could be practicable and workable, and therefore acceptable. I assure the noble Lord that it was not that this possibility was overlooked. We tried to find a way, but it is difficult to make words like " immediately " or " about to " or " likely to be " or whatever phrase it may be, precise enough to be workable in practice. For this reason I reluctantly have to ask the Committee to resist this Amendment and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Lord CROOK: I intervene for a moment in order to thank my noble friend for the explanation she has just given and to say how much I sympathise with the difficulty the Government have. At the same time, I have a tremendous feeling of support for the principle behind Lord Airedale's Amendment because of my experience as Chairman of the London Electricity Consultative Council. I wonder whether my noble friend would be good enough to tell us that she can try once again to look to see if there is some way—other than through Lord Airedale's Amendment, which I do not think is workable—in which something could be done.
Perhaps if I were to quote merely one heart-rending case which I dealt with in my official capacity, it might help. After all the usual notices and procedures had gone on with the London Electricity Board—and they waited longer than the proper time—they were forced, with the huge bill involved, to cut off supplies to a given premises. Within hours, I was hearing from the social security people that 12 families had been left without light, without heat and without cooking facilities. This amazed me. It needed only an hour or two with the London Electricity Board who were easily able to help by restoring the power on their own responsibility.
The truth was that this house was owned by a man who let it off in 12 flats. He

41
put in his own 12 meters. This is still possible under the law; it goes on a great deal and in my view it goes on too much. The people had all paid for their electricity in advance with their shillings in the slot and this had gone into the man's pocket while he had not paid a penny. It took the whole machinery of the Electricity Board and the Social Security Department, with consideration, perhaps, of legal proceedings—to say nothing of the time of my own Consultative Council Committee—to try to deal with this.
For the reasons that my noble friend has given, I do not pretend that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, is workable. I do not think my noble friend has an easy job, but I should not like to let this matter go by without mentioning my experience over the years. If my noble friend can do something, will she please try to do so ?
Baroness PHILLIPS: On a point of clarification, I have been following this with great interest, but I am still not clear about whether this applies only to landlords in residence in the same place as the tenants. Otherwise I cannot understand why non-payment of a bill which goes to him could be operated against the tenants in other premises.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: I should like to reinforce the plea that my noble friend has made. Everyone would agree that it is outrageous that anyone should be cut off from supplies of gas or electricity because the landlord has not paid the bill and not because the tenant himself, who suffers, has not paid. I realise the difficulties in the drafting of the Amendment and the difficulties in defining words like " immediately " or " about to be ". But I cannot think it is beyond the wit of my noble friend and her advisers to find a formula which would prevent this outrageous injustice from occurring.
Lord CROOK: May I, with the permission of the Committee, try to help my noble friend? The person in the premises who signed the agreement with the electricity undertaking was the person who owned the house. Unknown to the electricity Board—and they could never know—he had 12 flats with separate meters. He used to pay for the electricity and then, on one occassion, he did not pay the electricity undertaking.
Baroness YOUNG: Before the noble Baroness replies, I have a great deal of sympathy with the Amendment. Could the noble Baroness make clear what the costs are that would fall on the landlord ? She has explained clearly that under her Amendment the penalty against the landlord—in this case, quite rightly—is that he would have to pay the charge for reconnection of the supply and the interest on the Bill as it accumulated. The noble Baroness said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, that there would be no extra cost to the landlord if the Bill were paid immediately. The only cost the landlord would not have to pay would be the cost of reconnection, since the supply would not have been disconnected. Under Lord Airedale's Amendment if the landlord failed to pay the Bill, the interest charges would presumably accumulate just as much as they would under the Government's Amendment. I do not think that the arithmetic of it is as I thought she explained it. The case which I have in mind is that of old people who can so easily in the winter time get hypothermia if heating supplies are cut off for any length of time. It is for that reason that we all have a great deal of sympathy with this matter. I appreciate how difficult it is to draft legislation; but we are in any case talking only about permissive powers in these cases. It would presumably be up to the individual local authority to make such arrangements as it felt it could with the local gas or electricity industries, the Supplementary Benefits Commission or anybody else it considered appropriate. Looking at it from that point of view, I wonder whether that could be a way that the Government could find an Amendment which would meet the wishes of all sides of the Committee.
4.23 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: I should like to thank my noble friends and the noble Baroness opposite for their comments. My noble friend Lord Crook answered the point raised by my noble friend Lady Phillips. This is one of the problems, the landlord need not necessarily live in the house. This raises the difficulty in tracing him. This is why—and I think noble Lords agree that this is an important part of the new clause—the local authority can divert the rent. Another advantage

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of this is it saves extra charges on the rates.
I feel complete sympathy with what has been said and with everything my noble friend Lady Wootton said. I should like to consider this Amendment and see whether it is possible to do anything. I was attracted by the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who seemed to open a door—which no doubt will be firmly slammed shut by Parliamentary counsel and I shall try to open it again—when she suggested that one could at least leave it to local authorities themselves to see whether they could make an arrangement or whether they were willing to try to see how this worked out. In any case, here it could be discretionary for them to take these steps. I certainly will take this back because just as much as anybody who has spoken on it I should like to find a way round this so that there is not the inevitable cut off. I think noble Lords appreciate the problem that even with the best of intentions—I am not thinking of people playing hoaxes or being malicious—there could be a number of false alarms. I will do the best I can, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, will withdraw his Amendment.
Lord AIREDALE: I am very grateful to hear the noble Baroness say that she will consider this matter again. That enables me to be short in the few remarks I have to make before I seek leave to withdraw my Amendment. The last point which the noble Baroness mentioned in her first speech on this Amendment was regarding difficulty with the word that is used, whether " immediately " or whatever it is. This is a difficulty at which we need not strain unduly. What would happen would be that if the local authority auditor thought that the case was not one of immediacy, and thought that money had been paid wrongly, he would say so. If there was a dispute on the matter it would go to the court. The court is capable of deciding what " immediately " means in a given set of circumstances. I should think we can overcome that difficulty.
Something which gave me disquiet in the observations of the noble Baroness was in describing the mechanics of the system. She said that in these cases
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first the bill goes to the landlord, then the further demand and the final demand goes to him. If the money is not paid, the supply is cut off without apparently the tenant— the occupier—being approached at all by the statutory undertaker. I find this very hard to believe. The tenant may be a well-to-do person and may be able to settle the bill himself easily and take proceedings, if necessary, or simply deduct the money from future rent payable to the landlord.
Baroness BIRK: I think the point there is that very often they may not know who the tenant is. The bill goes to the landlord. They will not know whether there is anybody in occupation, whether it is a tenant, a member of the family of the landlord, or whoever it is. This is the problem. The correspondence is between the statutory undertaker and the landlord.
Lord AIREDALEBut statutory undertakers are not completely dunderheaded. There is the streets directory, the telephone book and all sorts of ways of finding out who is the occupier of a house. One could even knock on the door of the house and the occupier may be in. To contemplate cutting off somebody's supply—somebody who may be perfectly capable and willing to pay the bill at once, settle the matter and not be cut off—seems extraordinary. I hope what the noble Baroness said on this point is not true. If it is true, it ought to be looked at and the statutory undertakers ought to be instructed to act otherwise.
The noble Baroness emphasised very much the point of not putting extra work upon the local authorities. I agree about that; but what about extra work for the statutory undertakers? In the wintertime, when these problems are at their most acute, fitters are off sick and probably they are difficult to get, anyway. The statutory undertakers have unnumerable urgent tasks to deal with. The last thing they want is unnecessary work, going to cut off somebody's supply, which will have to be reconnected again at the earliest possible moment afterwards. What I am seeking to do also is to save the ratepayers' money. My feeling is that these landlords, who do not pay the electricity bills in the first place, or even when the final demand comes, are not the type of people from whom the local authority are

45
going to be able to obtain the money in any event. Therefore, if the cost of disconnecting and reconnecting the supply can be avoided, the ratepayer, who is going ultimately to have to pay in so many of these cases, will have a smaller bill to pay. With those impassioned remarks—
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: Before the noble Lord seeks to withdraw his Amendment, I wonder whether I might perhaps make a helpful suggestion. The problem seems to concern the tracing of the owner when he does not live on the premises. Would there be some way of minimising the work caused to the local authority if, where a landlord's address is different from that where the supply has been used, this problem could be solved by examining valuation sheets? I think that is a constructive suggestion.
Baroness BIRK: In some cases the landlord cannot be traced, and in other cases the landlord's address is known but he does not respond or pay his bill, or he waits until the final demand, as many people do. As I pointed out earlier, the statutory undertakers are concerned only with those who contract to buy the gas or the electricity: that would be the landlord. We must also remember that they are not welfare bodies. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, was a little hard, because I thought I had shown that I was very much on his side and would do the best I could—which I intend to do in spite of his rather severe strictures.
Lord AIREDALE: I apologise for seeming to be hard; I did not mean to be at all. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, for what he said and for having reminded me of one final point before I seek to withdraw the Amendment. If and when this clause reaches the Statute Book, I think it is clear that machinery will quickly develop by which, in practice, the Gas Board will be in close touch with the local authority with a list of the premises to be shortly cut off if somebody does not pay the bill. Therefore, the statutory undertaker and the local authority between them will be able to sort out in most cases, first of all who is the occupier and whether it is the tenant or the landlord who is at fault in any particular case. There will be a short list of appropriate cases where the local
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authority will be able to say, " You won't have to disconnect those, because we are satisfied that it is the defaulting landlord who is responsible in those cases and we shall be responsible for the bill." That is the kind of way in which matters will develop in practice. Having said all that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): We now return to Amendment No. 31A, which has been moved.
Viscount AMORY: I was very pleased indeed that the noble Baroness was so conciliatory over the last Amendment. I can only say that if my water supply was cut off because my landlord had not paid the bill, I should be perfectly furious. I was thinking hard during the discussion, and to my great relief I recalled that my water supply is owned by my landlord (my nephew) and therefore he has no bill to pay for it. Further, I do not believe he could cut it off because there is nowhere else that the water could go except flow through my desirable property. One hardly ever listens in detail to a Bill going through your Lordships' House without it opening up some fresh terrors of which one was formerly unconscious.
Following that, may I make one comment on the new clause. I have no objection whatever to the powers taken here, which seem to me reasonable and useful; but I am a little perplexed about the fact, as I understand it, that this clause gives specific powers to the council to recover the cost of any expenditure they have been put to through reconnecting the water supply. That seems to me to be analogous to the powers which my noble friend Lady Young and I suggested in connection with Clause 3. We suggested a somewhat similar power should be given to a local authority which had incurred expenditure because of liquid cement causing serious damage to sewers or pipes. To our deep disappointment—and I think I should be right in saying to my noble friend's chagrin—we were told it was inappropriate for such a specific power to be given in a modern Bill; and we were turned down on that.

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My grandmother used an old saying: " What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander ", or something equivalent. It seems to me that my grandmother's saying would be entirely appropriate here. If this specific power is given to a council in this new clause, why did the noble Baroness object so strongly to its being given when we were discussing Clause 3? I wonder whether she could comment on that? I have no intention of being beastly about this clause, because it seems a good and useful one and the powers seem entirely appropriate, but will she remember that " what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander "?
Baroness BIRK: When the noble Viscount got to his feet and gave us his anecdote, I thought he was going to come up with a marvellous way out of this problem, apart from his delightful story of his own water supply and desirable property.
Viscount AMORY: If the noble Baroness will forgive me, it was all meant to be extremely helpful. I was keeping an eye open and hoping that a message would be received while I was slightly " waffling ".
Baroness BIRK: It was extremely helpful, but I am not going to be drawn into discussing Clause 3 at this moment; we dispensed with that clause last time. I have written to the noble Viscount about this but, due to the super-efficiency of the Post Office, my letter has not yet reached him—we did not want to worry him over the week-end! I mentioned water when I wrote to him, but if I think there is anything in this clause that should also write to him about, I will do so.
Baroness YOUNG: I think that is a very generous offer on the part of the noble Baroness, which we are happy to accept. I take her point that we cannot go back to Clause 3 now. Nevertheless, I think that my noble friend Lord Amory has raised a very serious point, on a matter of principle which some of us have been concerned about as this Bill has proceeded through the Committee stage. One needs to be quite certain that what is being applied
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in one clause is being applied quite consistently throughout the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.39 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 32:
After Clause 26 insert the following new clause:
Amendment of section 126 of the Housing Act 1974.
. In subsection (7) of section 126 of the Housing Act 1974 after the words " Greater London Council " there shall be inserted the words " the Lake District Special Planning Board and the Peak Park Planning Board ".
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment really arises out of the Report of my noble friend Lord Sandford on National Parks. I believe it to be true that the Government have accepted the value of management agreements within National Parks and have promised that at some future date there will be legislation upon this matter. This will inevitably take a great deal of time, and it seemed to me that this Bill, which is after all a miscellaneous provisions Bill, provides the opportunity to consider the situation as it is now, because there has been an increasing feeling among the National Park authorities that additional statutory powers would be desirable to get them to take a much more positive lead in land management in National Parks, and that the existing codes which are contained in the whole development control system under the Town and Country Planning Act and the Access provisions in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 have their limitations.
The fact is that National Park authorities now have power to enter into agreements with landowners, with a view to fulfilling the general statutory aims of preserving and enhancing the National Parks and promoting their enjoyment, and Section 52 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 enables negative covenants in such agreements, as they seek to regulate or control the use of land, to bind successors in title. However, successful enforcement lies in the discretion of the court and the procedure is involved and complicated. Until recently there has been no means by which an authority could enter into an agreement which would impose a continuing obligation on a

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landowner and successors in title in a positive way. Unless the National Park authority can be sure that the agreement will bind the person to whom the land passes and the application can be enforced, there is little incentive to seek such an agreement.
Under Section 126 of the Housing Act 1974, there is some partial solution to this problem for it provides that when a local authority and a person with a legal interest in land enter into an agreement to secure the carrying out of works on that land or to facilitate its development, or the development of other land belonging to that person, then the agreement will hind the successors in title to that land. The problem is that this section of the Housing Act is not available for use by the Lake District Special Planning Board or the Peak Park Planning Board, and it is simply to extend that provision of Section 126 of the Housing Act 1974 that I have put clown this Amendment. I hope that this is a matter which the Government will consider sympathetically. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I certainly have no objection in principle to these two planning hoards named by the noble Baroness being given the powers of Section 126 of the Housing Act 1974. The powers are available to other local planning authorities, and it seems right that they should also be available to the two planning boards created by orders under Section 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, as amended by the Local Government Act 1972.
However, I cannot accept the Amendment as it stands, because it would be wrong to refer to the two boards by name since that would exclude any other joint planning boards which might be created under Section 1 of the 1971 Act. Therefore we propose to draft a Government Amendment for insertion at Report stage, which will give effect to this Amendment and broaden it. I hope that in those circumstances the noble Baroness will withdraw the Amendment. I nearly interrupted her, but as she was in full flow I did not like to do so and wanted to hear the rest of what she had to say. But, as I said, I hope she will now withdraw the Amendment.
Baroness YOUNG: With that assurance, I am very happy to ask leave to
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Withdraw the Amendment and I8 thank the noble Baroness for what she has said.
Amendments, by leave, withdraw.
Clause 27 [Power of local authorities to deal with dangerous trees]:
4.44 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 33:
Leave out Clause 27 and insert the following new clause:
"Power of local authority to deal with dangerous trees
27.—(l) Where a district council, a London borough council or the Common Council considers that a tree on any land is in such a condition that there is imminent danger of its causing injury to persons or damage to property the council may take such steps on the land, whether by felling the tree or otherwise, as it thinks are appropriate for the purpose of removing the danger and may recover the expenses reasonably incurred in doing so from any person who was an owner of the land when the council took those steps:
Provided that the council shall first give an owner of the land such opportunity as it may think practicable himself to take the appropriate steps.
(2) Where such a council considers that a tree on any land is in such a condition that it is likely to cause injury to persons or damage to property—

(a) if the council having made reasonable enquiries knows the name and address of no person appearing to the council to be an owner of the land, the council may take such steps on the land as are mentioned in subsection (1) above and may recover the expenses reasonably incurred in doing so from any person who was an owner of the land when the council took those steps;

(b) if the council knows the name and address of a person appearing to the council to be an owner of the land, the council may serve on such a person a notice requiring him to take on the land, within a reasonable period specified in the notice (which must not expire before the expiration of 21 days beginning with the date of service of the notice), such steps for making the tree safe as are so specified.

(3) A person on whom a notice is served by a council in pursuance of subsection (2) of this section may, within 21 days beginning with the date of service of the notice, appeal to the county court against the notice on one or more of the following grounds, namely—

(a) that he is not an owner of the land on which the tree is situated;

(b) that the tree is not in such condition as is mentioned in paragraph (b) of that subsection;

(c) that less expensive steps than those specified in the notice would suffice for the purpose of removing the danger;

(d) that it would have been fairer to serve the notice on another person who is an owner of the land aforesaid.

(4) Subsections (2) to (6) of section 20 of this Act shall apply to an appeal in pursuance of the preceding subsection as they apply to an appeal in pursuance of subsection (1) of that section as if for the references in subsections (2) and (3) of that section to paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of that section there were substituted references to paragraph (d) of the preceding subsection, for the references in subsections (3) and (5) of that section to the relevant place there were substituted references to the land on which the tree is situated and for the reference in subsection (4) of that section to section 19 of this Act and the reference in subsection (6) of that section to section 19(1)(a) of this Act there were substituted a reference to subsection (3) of this section.
(5) If a person on whom a notice is served by a council in pursuance of subsection (3) of this section fails to comply with the notice, the council may take the steps specified in the notice and recover from that person the expenses reasonably incurred in doing so."
The noble Lord said: We are now dealing with the power of local authorities to deal with dangerous trees, a subject which I think has aroused a good deal of interest. This Amendment is an attempt to redraft the clause with certain differences, and the most helpful way in which I can move it is by drawing attention first to the major points of difference between the clause in the Bill and the proposed new clause, and then to approximately three minor, more or less drafting points.
The proposed new clause is shorter than the clause in the Bill, and although brevity is not everything it undoubtedly counts for something. Secondly, the new clause as drafted gets rid of the conception in the clause in the Bill of the dangerous tree having to be only a tree on a certain piece of land defined in the clause; and, further-more, a tree about which the information must go to the local authority only from a certain class of person. The new clause gets rid of both those conceptions, and for this reason.
We are dealing with something which is very serious indeed and, quoting from the clause in the Bill, with a tree that,
" is in such a condition that there is imminent danger of its causing damage to persons or property ".
If we are dealing with something as serious and dangerous as that, it seems to me to make nonsense to go on to say that the clause must apply only if it is a tree on a certain class of piece of land, and even more ridiculous if it applies only if a certain class of person—that is to say,
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an owner or occupier—is the one who informs the council about the danger. The proposed new clause deals with a tree on any land, and it does not care who informs the local authority about it.
If the milkman informs the local authority that a tree has been struck by lightning and is in a desperately dangerous state, that is just as good as if an owner or occupier were to give the information. I ask your Lordships to imagine what would happen if some frightful disaster occurred and the local authority said, " Yes, we knew about that tree. We knew it was likely to fall and kill somebody. But we did not have power to act under this clause, because it was not the owner or occupier who told us about it; it was the milkman, and Parliament will not allow us to act under this clause if the milkman told us about the danger." If that got into the headlines, I should think people would ask whether Parliament was in its senses when it passed the clause in that form.
The third major distinction is that in the new clause I have put a proviso to subsection (1), which states that wherever practicable the local authority must give the owner an opportunity to deal with the danger himself. After all, he will have to pay for the work to be done, whoever does it, whether it is the local authority or himself. He may be an estate owner with equipment capable of doing the work, and it seems only right to give him the opportunity to do the work himself, so far as that is practicable.
Fourthly, I have left out the reference to the " occupier ", as it occurs in the clause in the Bill. I think I am right in saying that in almost every case the owner of a tree is the owner of the land, but the occupier may be only a weekly tenant and in some cases he will be put in a very embarrassing position if he is given orders by the local authority as to what he is to do to remove somebody else's tree. It seems to me much better to confine this, as a matter between the local authority and the owner. The fifth and last major distinction between the two clauses is that the new clause obviates the necessity for subsection (4) of the clause in the Bill.
There are three minor and more or less drafting points which are differences. The clause as drafted in the Bill states:
" … whether by felling the tree or otherwise … making the tree safe ".

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In the cold logic of Alice in Wonderland I suppose you can say that if you fell a tree you make it safe, but in the real world in which we live I venture to suggest that we talk about removing the danger and in this connection l should have thought that that was a better expression to use.
Secondly, whereas the clause in the Bill refers to
" damage to persons or property "
I think that in the legal world it is usual to refer to
"injury to persons or damage to property".
The final small difference is that I thought that paragraph (c) of subsection (2) of the clause in the Bill made rather heavy weather of finding the name and address of the person we were seeking and that I could shorten it without doing any damage to the sense.
Those are the differences, both major and minor, and I venture to put forward this proposed new clause as an improvement on the clause in the Bill, for the reasons I have endeavoured to explain. I beg to move.
4.51 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: As the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has said, the general effect of his Amendment is to substitute for Clause 27 a new clause which gives similar but not identical powers to district councils. The noble Lord explained it in considerable detail, so I will comment on his new clause and explain how it differs from the Government's clause. The new clause follows the lines which were foreshadowed by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, at Second Reading. As he has now pointed out, it is true that it is simpler than our Clause 27, partly because its different approach avoids the need for a separate subsection to cover the position of the council as the owner of land threatened by dangerous trees on adjoining land.
It also differs from Clause 27 in the following main matters of substance. It would permit the council to take the initiative in action to make safe a dangerous tree on private property. In the Department's view it is wrong to encourage or permit authorities to interfere with trees on private property on any significant scale where the general public are not
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invoked. The felling of trees threatening a highway is a different matter upon which authorities already possess specific powers under Section 134 of the Highways Act 1959, as extended by Section 10 of the Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1961. Owners should normally be able to fell a tree without bringing in or being prompted by the authority, and neighbours should normally be able to reach agreement on the felling of a tree threatening adjoining land.
The scope of Clause 27 has been limited quite deliberately. So far as a dangerous tree on his own property is concerned, the owner will normally have a strong personal interest in making it safe. It may otherwise fall on his house or his children or, if it falls on anybody else, it leaves him liable for compensation. It would limit to owners the people on whom the council can serve notices, from whom they can recover expenses or whose name they must try to find. In the Department's view, there is a reasonable case for also enabling an occupier to request the council to take action to make a dangerous tree safe—this is necessary because it may not always be possible to contact the owner, certainly at short notice—and for enabling expenses to be recovered from the occupier who called in the council (for he raised the matter in the first place) or the occupier of the adjoining land where the dangerous tree is, because he may be easier for the council to contact than the owner, and if trees are the owner's responsibility under the lease he should then be able to claim back from the owner afterwards. It would somewhat reduce the lengths to which the council has to go in making inquiries to find out the owner's name before it can make safe a dangerous tree.
This clause deals with trees on private land. I repeat that we have deliberately avoided giving to local authorities the power to initiate action which would remove the owner-occupier's present liability under the Occupiers Liability Act, from which examples such as the milkman or the postman or the examples which the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, gave would benefit at present. I agree that they are two quite different approaches but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, and other noble Lords will remember that whereas at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, wanted this exten-

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sion it was the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who made out a case for the Government's clause and said that in his view the noble Lord had gone too far. Obviously, there is quite a difference of opinion and the Government have come down in favour of this rather more limited liability, for the reasons I have just given. I agree that this is very much a matter of approach and opinion, but we take the view at this stage that this is as far as local authorities should be enjoined to go.
Lord AIREDALE: The distinction between the situation under the Highways Acts and this one, the Highways Acts dealing with places where the general public have access, is rather unreal because to a very large extent access to private property is enjoyed by people who are very little removed from being members of the public. All kinds of people—not only the milkman but the postman, the meter reader, the clergyman, the boy who delivers the evening paper and also tradesmen's vans—have access to private property and an interest in their access being as safe as it can be made. Therefore it distresses me very much that the Government are not prepared to go so far as to concede that the information upon which the local authority may act can come from anybody and not from a limited class of person. The case that I instanced where a disaster occurs and it is only because it is the wrong kind of informant that prevents the council from taking action, seems to me to he a situation which we ought to seek to avoid.
The noble Baroness said that the owner-occupier has an interest in keeping his trees safe because of his liability to compensate people who are injured, but let us suppose that it is summertime and the thunderstorm season, that the owner-occupier is away on holiday, that his tree is struck by lightning and that the next morning somebody who goes to the house sees that it is in a desperate state. If local authorities are to have any powers of this kind at all, they should have the power in that case to go in and take action to remove the danger. It is hopeless to talk about liability to compensation for a situation that the owner-occupier cannot know about because he is away on holiday. It may be that I shall get nothing at all, but I do not
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think it is any use my dividing on this Amendment now. I think we shall have to return to this matter at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 agreed to.
Clause 28 agreed to.
5 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 34:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:
"Access for removal, and storage before removal, ofrefuse etc. from buildings. 1936 c. 49.
.—(1) In subsection (1) of section 55 of the Public Health Act 1936 (which among other things requires certain local authorities to reject plans for the erection or extension of a house which are deposited with them in accordance with building regulations unless it is shown that satisfactory means of access from the house to a street for the removal of refuse and faecal matter are to be provided), for the word " house " in both places there shall be substituted the word " building ", for the words " faecal matter " there shall be substituted the words " satisfactory means of storing refuse for removal " and after the words " any means of access " there shall be inserted the words " or of storing refuse ".
(2) In subsection (2) of the said section 55 (which among other things provides that a person who obstructs the means of access by which refuse is removed from a house shall he liable to a fine not exceeding £5 and a further fine not exceeding £2 for each day on which the obstruction continues), for the word " house " there shall he substituted the word " building " and for the words from " five pounds " onwards there shall be substituted the word " £200 ".
(3) For the purposes of subsection (5) of section 62 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (which provides that building regulations may repeal or modify the enactments to which that subsection applies) the provisions of this section shall be included among those enactments."
The noble Baroness said: I am afraid this is also a rather technical clause. Subsection (1) of this new clause amends subsection (1) of Section 55 of the Public Health Act 1936, which requires a local authority to ensure that proper provision is made in plans deposited with them in accordance with building regulations for the removal of refuse. But the provisions of Section 55 are limited to the erection or extension of houses and cover only the means of access for removal of refuse. The subsection seeks to widen the section to apply to all new buildings and also to give the local authority control over the facilities to be provided for the storage of waste.
Subsection (2) amends Section 55 (2) of the 1936 Act. This latter provision makes it an offence to close or obstruct an access used for the removal of refuse or faecal matter from a house. The Amendment again extends the provision from houses to other types of building, and raises the maximum penalties from £5 plus a daily penalty of £2 while the offence continues, to £200 (with no additional daily penalty). A maximum fine of this order is in keeping with current fines under the Public Health Act for other offences in this field. Subsection (3) will enable Section 55 of the Public Health Act 1936 as extended by this clause to be repealed or modified in due course, upon the making of building regulations covering all or some of the same ground.
The clause is one of a number suggested by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. It was accepted in principle during Committee stage in the other place and an undertaking was given to table a Government Amendment at a later stage. As I have explained, both the existing section and the proposed clause apply only to buildings to be erected in the future, not to those already existing. It is true that by Section 61 of and Schedule 5 to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 the storage of waste and access for its removal from buildings can now be brought within building regulations. However, the Act of 1974 gives many other new powers as well, and the making of building regulations over the whole enlarged field is a substantial task for which careful priorities must be established. It is likely to be some time before we are ready to make regulations relating to refuse storage and access for collection. The amendment of Section 55 will be useful until such regulations are made.
An example of the kind of purpose which the proposed amendment is designed to achieve is provided by the case of a new block of flats. The authority would be able to require the provision of a few large containers (which would normally be served by a chute) properly housed, rather than a multitude of standard-sized dustbins left out in the open. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I should like to thank the noble Baroness for explaining
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this new clause, which we certainly support and which is very desirable from the point of view of the local authority. I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether she can say what part of the Long Title this falls under?
Baroness BIRK: I can assure the noble Baroness that it does fall under the Long Title and I imagine it is the part dealing with the extension of the Public Health Act.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 35:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:
Removal of obstructions from private sewers.
.—(1)If a private sewer is obstructed at a point within the area of a local authority (other than a county council and the Greater London Council), the authority may serve on each of the persons who is an owner or occupier of premises served by the sewer, or on each of such of those persons as the authority thinks fit, a notice requiring the recipients of notices in pursuance of this subsection in respect of the obstruction to remove it before a time specified in the notice; and that time shall not be earlier than forty-eight hours after the service of the notice or, if different notices in respect of the same obstruction are served in pursuance of this subsection at different times, shall not he earlier than forty-eight hours after the latest of those times.
(2) If an obstruction in respect of which notices have been served by an authority in pursuance of the proceding subsection is not removed within the period specified in the notices, the authority may remove it.
(3) Where an authority has reasonably incurred expenses in removing an obstruction in pursuance of the preceding subsection, the authority may serve on each of the persons on whom it served notice in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section in respect of the obstruction a further notice:—

(a) requiring him to pay to the authority a sum equal to so much of the expenses as is specified in the further notice; and

(b) specifying the other persons on whom notices in pursuance of this subsection have been or arc to be served in respect of the expenses and the amount specified or to be specified in each of those notices;

and it shall be the duty of the authority, in determining what amounts to specify in notices to be served by the authority in pursuance of this subsection in respect of any expenses, to have regard to any matters which appear to the authority to indicate the cause of the obstruction and, so far as the authority are aware of the obligations, to any obligations to remove the obstruction which arose under agreements between persons on whom the notices are to be served.
(4) A person on whom a notice is served in pursuance of the preceding subsection may, within the period of six weeks beginning with the date of service of the notice, appeal to the county court against the notice on the ground that it would be reasonable for the whole or part of the sum specified in the notice to be paid by some other person who is an owner or occupier of premises served by the sewer in question.
(5) On an appeal in pursuance of the preceding subsection against a notice the court shall either dismiss the appeal or order that the whole or part of the sum specified in the notice shall be paid to the authority which served the notice by—

(a) a person, other than the appellant, who is an owner or occupier of premises served by the sewer in question; or

(b) persons, other than the appellant, each of whom is such an owner or occupier, in such proportions as are specified in the order,

and that the sum specified in the notice shall be reduced accordingly; but the court shall not order any payment by a person other than the appellant unless that person has, not later than the beginning of the period of eight days ending with that on which the hearing of the appeal is begun, been made a respondent to the appeal in accordance with rules of court.
(6) A local authority by which a notice has been served on a person in pursuance of subsection (3) of this section shall be entitled to recover from him the sum specified in the notice after the expiration of the period mentioned in subsection (4) of this section or, if within that period an appeal against the notice is brought in pursuance of the said subsection (4), after the determination of the appeal.
(7) Expressions used in this section and in Part II of the Public Health Act 1936 have the same meanings in this section as in that Part; and sections 287 and 288 of that Act (which confer power to enter premises and penalise obstruction) shall have effect as if references to that Act included references to this section.
The noble Baroness said: This is another new clause which again is a rather long and technical one, dealing with sewers. This clause is an adjunct to Section 17 of the Public Health Act 1961, which gives local authorities the power to remedy, by notice served on the owner or occupier or, on his default, by direct action—blocked private sewers, wc's, soil pipes and drains. It seeks to provide, in respect of blocked private sewers only, for a system of operating the notice procedure which would provide a simpler method of apportioning costs among the affected parties. The clause was accepted in principle during the Committee stage in the other place and was one of a number sponsored by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities.
What is not so much wrong, but deficient, in the existing provision of the Public Health Act 1961 is that the local
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authority may only serve a notice on the person responsible for the premises where the blockage is found to have occurred, even though other people may derive benefit from the sewer and, of course, may have caused the blockage rather than the person on whom the notice is served. Frequently it is impossible to assign responsibility to any one person, so it makes sense in such cases to spread the responsibility among those parties who are affected by the blockage.
The clause follows the pattern set by its " parent " provision (s. 17/1961) in that if the local authority's notice to remedy the blockage is not complied with within forty-eight hours (a shorter time was suggested, but no evidence has been brought to show it is necessary) the authority may itself carry out the work. The main purpose of the clause is not just to secure a fair apportionment of responsibility for the sewer, but to apportion the costs of remedial work simply, and equitably, among the affected parties. Under the existing procedure an authority can only seek to recover its costs from the person on whose property the blockage occurred. This in fact makes it much more equitable. By serving notices on all the parties concerned the local authority not only ensures that the procedure is simplified but that every party is aware of the other parties involved and of the amount required from them. There is provision for a person to appeal against any costs he is required to pay. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 29 agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 36:
After Clause 29 insert the following new clause:
Control of parking on areas used for loading and unloading goods vehicles
.—(1) if it appears to a county council or the Greater London Council that any land in its area which is not part of a highway has been set apart by the occupier of the land for use as a place where vehicles may be driven and parked for the purpose of being loaded or unloaded in connection with a trade or business carried on on or in the vicinity of the land, the council may, by an order made with the consent of the owner and the occupier of the land—

(a) designate the land as an area to which the following provisions of this section apply (hereafter in this section referred to as a " loading area "); and

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(b) specify the trade or business in question.

(2) A council which has made an order in pursuance of the preceding subsection—

(a) may vary the order by a subsequent order made with the consent of the owner and the occupier of the land to which the subsequent order relates; and

(b) may revoke the order by a subsequent order made with the consent of the owner and the occupier of the loading area in question; and

(c) shall revoke the order by a subsequent order if requested in writing to do so by the owner and occupier of the loading area in question.

(3) An order in pursuance of subsection (1) or (2)(a) of this section may contain provisions prohibiting the parking in the loading area to which the order relates of vehicles of such kinds as are specified in the order, except authorised vehicles, at all times or at times so specified and may make different provision in pursuance of the preceding provisions of this subsection for different parts of the area; and in this subsection " authorised vehicle ", in relation to a loading area, means a goods vehicle as defined by section 196(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1972 which is in the area for the purpose of being loaded or unloaded in connection with the trade or business specified in the order designating the area.
(4) Section 84C(1) to (4) and (6) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 (which relate to the procedure for making orders under the provisions of that Act which are specified in subsection (1) of that section) shall have effect as if subsections (1) and (2) of this section were included among those provisions; and a person authorised in that behalf by a council by which an order has been made in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section may enter on the loading area to which the order relates for the purpose of placing any traffic signs which are required to be placed there by virtue of subsection (3)(e) of that section and for the purpose of maintaining or removing the signs.
(5) A person who, without reasonable excuse, causes a vehicle to be in any part of a loading area at a time when the parking of it there is prohibited by an order made in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50.
(6) Section 85(2) and (3) and section 90 of the said Act of 1967 (which provide for the giving of information to identify drivers of vehicles who are alleged to have committed offences to which the said section 85 applies and for the admission of certain written evidence in proceedings for such offences) shall have effect as if an offence under the preceding subsection were an offence to which the said section 85 applies and, in relation to an offence under the preceding subsection, as if in the said section 85(2) the words from " and in relation " onwards were omitted and for sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) of paragraph (a) there were substituted the words " by a notice in writing given to him by a local authority (as defined by section 35(1) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976) in whose area the loading area in question is situated".
(7) The Secretary of State may, by regulations made by statutory instrument, provide that sections 20, 52 and 53 of the said Act of 1967 (which among other things provide for the removal,
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storage and disposal of vehicles left on roads in contravention of a statutory prohibition) shall have effect, in relation to any vehicle which is or was in any part of a loading area while the parking of it in that part is or was prohibited by virtue of this, section, with such additions, omissions and amendments as are prescribed by the regulations; and any statutory instrument made by virtue of this subsection shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(8) References in the preceding provisions of this section to an order in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section include, in the case of such an order which has been varied in pursuance of subsection (2)(a) of this section, references to the order as so varied.
The noble Baroness said : This is another new clause, a clause which would enable local authorities to designate land as a loading area, this being land on or near which trade or business is being carried on. Thereafter it would be an offence punishable by a maximum fine of £50 to park in the loading area except for the purpose of loading or unloading a goods vehicle in connection with the trade or business. The conditions which must be fulfilled before the land can be designated are, first, that the land must appear to a county council (or the GLC) to have been set apart by the occupier for the purpose of loading and unloading in connection with his trade,et cetera. Secondly, the owner of the land and the occupier of the land must give their consent before the order is made. if the owner and occupier of the land subsequently demand that the order be rescinded the appropriate local authority must revoke the order.
Service areas in the neighbourhood of shops are often tilled with parked cars that have no business to be there, These cars obstruct service vehicles and, in consequence, delivery vans are often forced to manoeuvre and park on the public road where they do, of course, cause congestion and obstruction. Moreover because the cars are parked on private land and not obstructing the highway, they cannot be controlled.
The Government therefore propose that powers should be available to county councils as traffic authorities to designate land by order as a service area, called in this clause a " loading area ", so that private cars would be banned from parking on land so designated. Since the land which could be designated would be any land which appeared to the appropriate local authority to have been set apart for

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the purpose of loading and unloading, the authority would have to decide as a matter of fact whether the land had been so set apart. In a few cases the owners or occupiers may wish to reserve part of the area for the parking of their own cars, et cetera, and under the clause this will be possible. Subsection (3) of the clause also enables provision to be made in the order for different kinds of vehicles, different parts of the area and different times of day.
Under subsection (4) the provisions of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 about the procedure in connection with the making of orders are applied. Under Subsection (6), provisions of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 are applied which would enable the local authority to remove vehicles contravening a prohibition on parking in a loading area.
It may he objected that owners-occupiers do not need these powers, that their existing powers, for instance, to fence their land and control entry through a manned gate are quite sufficient. However, experience shows that this is not so. Fencing and manning are too expensive, and once someone has parked his vehicle on the land there is considerable doubt in law as to the extent of force that can be used to remove it. The relatively simple remedy of taking the offender to court for what will become a criminal offence is therefore proposed. Local authorities may also take action under the clause. Actual prosecutions may not need to he numerous. Local publicity for the legislation and good signing (which will he prescribed by the Department) of loading areas should do much of the work of clearing the areas for their proper use. I think I should point out here that this is well precedented, as also are the two previous new clauses which I moved, Amendments Nos. 34 and 35. I beg to move.
Baroness YOUNG: I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for her explanation of this clause, but I would ask her just two questions about it. Clearly the new clause after Clause 29 is going to affect a great many individuals. The noble Baroness said, as I understood her, that the Government would lay down by regulations that these matters should be advertised in order that there should be advertised for local objections. I take it that
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that is to be the case; otherwise I can see that it is the kind of thing which could cause very considerable local disquiet among people when there is a conflict of interest in parking between vehicles loading and unloading, and private car owners w ho expected to be able to park in that particular situation. I can think of a good many local shopping centres where this kind of new clause would apply. It is very necessary that there must be proper notices and proper public advertisement before it takes effect. Would the noble Baroness be good enough to confirm that? Secondly, the noble Baroness said that the last three new clauses that she has introduced have all been well precedented. I take it that this means in private Acts and not in any public Act. Perhaps the noble Baroness will confirm that this is so.
Baroness BIRK: The answer is " Yes ", to both questions put to me by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. We are stressing local publicity for the legislation and the signing will he prescribed by the Department so the authorities will have a lead. This means there will be consistency in different areas. This is all well precedented in private Acts and although I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Young, will not want me to read them all over again, many of the subsections are drawn from public Acts. So far as signposting and publicity are concerned, procedure regulations will also provide for proper notices and publicity. I hope the noble Baroness will now feel reassured about this.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 30 [Use of spare capacity of computers and printing equipment of local authorities]:
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): I have to call attention to the fact that if this Amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 38.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 36, line 18, leave out (" or printing equipment ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 37, and it is my intention to speak also to Amendments Nos. 39, 40,

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41 and 43. I would add that the arguments are applicable also to a separate set of Amendments, Nos. 38 and 44, in the name of my noble friend Lady Young and myself. The purpose of these Amendments is to confine the powers conferred by Clause 30 solely to the use of surplus capacity of computers; in other words, any device of local authorities for storing and processing information. I understand that the whole tenor of the Government's justification for this Bill has been that its chief purpose is to give general effect to clauses which are well precedented in local Acts, and which are non-controversial. I understand, too, that two years ago the Department of the Environment circulated a list of matters for inclusion in a general powers measure for local authorities. Some are covered in the present Bill, but there was no mention then of any intention to confer the powers contained in Clause 30.
As I mentioned on Second Reading, Clause 30 was introduced without warning on Report in another place. The Opposition, who had no time for any consultation before the debate, accepted the clause, though questioning whether some authorities might not perhaps buy excess equipment in order to undertake outside work. As the noble Baroness will be aware, the British Printing Industries Federation fears, as the requirements of local authorities extend to many kinds of printed matter, that a local authority could acquire virtually any printing machine, even though the authority might only be able to use it on their own work for a fraction of its total capacity. An additional danger, surely, is that a local authority may feel justified in acquiring additional printing machinery on account of an unexpected, urgent demand for printed matter needed to perform its own functions, as all spare capacity at the time was being used on commercial work.
With regard to commercial work, it is difficult to see how local authorities would be able to obtain orders for printing except by undercutting. Then, competition from local authority printing operations would be unfair to commercial printers, as such operations could first of all be subsidised by the rates to the extent that the prices charged failed to cover costs, and secondly, local authorities might well be unable to calculate their true costs in running commercial printing departments due to the
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difficulty of apportioning the capital, labour and overhead costs between commercial and non-commercial activities. There is also the difficulty of apportioning overhead costs between printing and non-printing activities.
The clause, too, could have a very damaging effect on jobs and investment in the printing industry where, I am advised, already there is unemployment. Apart from the concern expressed by the CBI, the Printing Industry Committee of the TUC, and the British Printing Industries Federation, the noble Baroness will also be aware of the grave concern expressed by such firms as United Printing Services on the issue of possible repercussions on redundancies, short-time working, bank-ruptcies and works closures, and by other printers all round the country. For the moment, I understand that the industry is working well below capacity.
If I understood the noble Baroness aright on Second Reading, I think she said that the Government would be prepared to accept additional clauses proposed by local authority associations (as she has done this afternoon) as Clause 30 was in another place, only if they fitted the criteria of being desirable, well precedented and non-controversial. In fact Clause 30 is highly controversial so far as the printing industry is concerned. The only precedent lies in Section 38 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1969, which has no emphasis on printing equipment, and the power to print for other persons has never been used. The precedent, therefore, is really weak.
In conclusion, for the reasons I have outlined, I hope the noble Baroness will be able to accept my arguments and agree to this Amendment, for, as one printer in Banbury put it to his local MP:
" The damage which could be caused to the printing industry if this Amendment is not accepted by the Government is inestimable."
Surely, computers and printing equipment are completely different. In other words, computers with their necessary minimum high level of capital investment are one thing, photo-litho machines quite another. Finally, at present local authorities can print solely for other public bodies, which should take care of any spare capacity a local authority might temporarily have. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I have listened very carefully and with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale. It is true that originally our main aim in preparing this clause—which was, incidentally, added to the Bill on Report in another place—was to provide for the sale of spare time on computers. There are some 75 precedents for the sale of spare computer time, so that very clearly falls within the scope of the Bill. Printing, which came along with this at the same time, is, of course, in reality a separate matter. There are two precedents in private Acts. There is the London one to which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, referred, and there is also the Essex County Council's Private Act along the same lines. Nevertheless he is quite right in saying it cannot be described as well precedented; it is precedented but not well precedented. Nor is it, as I have recently discovered from my postbag, non-controversial. It is highly controversial. I have had innumerable letters from printing firms, individuals, trade unionists, and everybody connected with the printing industry it seems to me. I think, therefore, that the case that has been made out for the deletion of references to printing from the clause is an extremely strong case. As the noble Lord pointed out, it certainly no longer falls within the criterion of non-controversial, and therefore on behalf of the Government I accept these Amendments.
Lord MERRIVALE: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness and to Her Majesty's Government. I know what she has said this afternoon will give great pleasure to the British Printing Industries Federation and to its director, Mr. Henry Kendall, who, I know, has had considerable correspondence with the noble Baroness's Department and Ministers concerned in another place and in this House. It will also give great pleasure to members of the British Printing Industries Federation as well as to the C.B.I. The noble Baroness said she has had quite a lot of correspondence, and I have had passed to me by Members of another place quite a large number of letters written to them by printers in their areas. For those reasons, I would extend on behalf of those who are affected my very heartfelt thanks.
Lord LEATHERLAND: Naturally, I do not want to disagree with my noble
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friend the Minister, but she did mention that under one of the Private Acts, the Essex County Council, of which I used to have the honour of being chairman, has power to employ printing in the manner suggested in the Bill. All I am asking, without differing from my noble friend, is whether the powers the Essex County Council now enjoy under that private legislation will last for a few years until all this private legislation is done away with, or whether they will have to cease employing their printing plant in the manner suggested as soon as the Bill is passed ? I think they will be able to enjoy it for the rest of the period of their private legislation. So far as my knowledge goes—and I was chairman of many of the County Council's committees—not very much use was made of the power to take printing from outside sources. In fact we placed a very good deal of our printing contracts with outside firms.
There is one other matter I should like to refer to; that is, Amendment No. 43, which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, said he was associating with his Amendment No. 37. Amendment No. 43 seeks to make a deletion at page 36, line 34, to leave out the words,
" and ' printing equipment ' includes any equipment for reproducing or recording documents ".
If that were accepted, it would mean that the famous Xerox apparatus which is used in many offices, including local authority offices, would be prohibited. Surely, that is not the intention. I presume the noble Lord means ordinary letterpress printing and not Xerox or other photographic means of recording documents?
Lord MERRIVALE: I think the earlier remarks of the noble Lord were addressed to the noble Baroness. With regard to the latter part of his remarks, my understanding was that the acceptance by the noble Baroness of my Amendment No. 37 was acceptance of the batch of Amendments, which would include Amendment No. 43.
Lord LEATHERLAND: If that is so—and only my noble friend can say that—I wish she would look again at Amendment No. 43, which would prohibit councils from using these Xerox and similar machines.
Baroness YOUNG: If I may intervene for a moment, perhaps by way of explanation on that last point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, I think his remarks should really be addressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, but as I understand Amendment No. 43, it would not prohibit local authorities from carrying out their own work, which quite rightly they should do, but only from taking on outside work which could be done by an outside firm. If I have understood the noble Baroness correctly, we are very grateful for her offer to accept these Amendments on printing, and this would no doubt cover all the Amendments in the tidying up of this clause, to make it read as it is now the Government's intention that it should read.
Baroness BIRK: In answer to my noble friend Lord Leatherland in regard to his point about the Essex County Council and any other authority which is already using these powers, nothing in this Bill will repeal anything in existence at the moment. On his second point, about the deletion of the words in Amendment No. 43, certainly, as I understand it, it refers, as do the other references in this clause, to using the spare capacity for functions other than functions of the council, in other words, using it for outside commercial use. There would be no question, to my mind, of a local authority not being able to use Xeroxing or any other printing equipment for its own use. It is the spare capacity which would be used for commercial purposes.
Lord LEATHERLAND: That meets my point entirely.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 36, line 22, leave out (" or equipment ").
The noble Lord said : This is consequent upon Amendment No. 37. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE move Amendment No. 40:
Page 36, line 28, leave out (" or equipment ").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE: moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 36, leave out line 29.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.32 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE Lord AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 36, line 32, at end insert (" not being less than the payment appearing to the local authority to be charged by undertakings owned other than by public bodies for similar facilities, services or goods.")
The noble Lord said: Thanks to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, we are now left with the use of spare capacity of computers alone as an exception to the general conception that trading is not a function of local authorities. Local authorities have ample functions without engaging in trade and anything in the nature of municipal trading is regarded with a good deal of disfavour. However, we have here the exceptional case of an expensive computer being required by a local authority for its own purposes but having spare capacity and using that spare capacity for commercial purposes. If it is not the function of local authorities generally to engage in trade, still less is it their function to attempt to undercut private enterprise in the same field; yet in a case like this there may be considerable temptation to a local authority to undercut.
A local authority may think in this way: " The computer was required by us for our own purposes, otherwise we should not have been entitled to obtain it, and if it was required for our own purposes we can allocate the cost of purchasing it or hiring it, and allocate that purely against the cost of running it for our own purposes, and anything that we can make over and above the mere cost of the electricity it uses and the person who operates it, in return for its use for outside work, we can regard as pure profit and as a great benefit to the ratepayers." This of course is enormously detrimental to the interests of private enterprise operating in the same field, who obviously can operate the machine only taking into account the enormous cost of acquiring the machine in the first instance. Therefore it seems only right to insert a proviso which says that a local authority, in doing commercial work for outside interests, shall not undercut private enterprise operating in the

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same field. The Amendment is precedented in the County of South Glamorgan Bill, and I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I accept that if local authorities are to be able to sell the spare capacity of their computers they should do so at rates which reflect the current market rate for the job. We have no wish for local authorities to offer their machines for hire at rates which are unrealistic. I therefore accept the Amendment in principle, but would prefer to put it in our own words, and I will introduce an Amendment on Report. The Amendment cannot be accepted as it stands because of its wording. For example, " payments " in legal drafting are evidently not " a charge ". Nor is " undertakings " the right expression for the persons or bodies providing such services in the private sector. This is not a criticism of the noble Lord, who drafts his Amendments magnificently. I am simply explaining some of the points of objection. However, if he will agree to withdraw the Amendment I will bring forward one on Report.
Lord AIREDALE: Only the other day the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that she never expected her drafting to be right. That being the case, who am I to expect my drafting to be right ? I am glad to hear that the Amendment meets with sympathy from the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 36, line 34, leave out from (" information ") to end of line 35.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 30, as amended, agreed to.
5.37 p.m.
Lord SANDYS Lord SANDYS moved Amendment No. 45:
After clause 30, insert the following new clause:
Power of local authorities to prescribe signs etc. to be used on certain buildings
.—(1) A county council may in relation to any substance likely to involve special hazard
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to persons engaged in normal duties of fire fighting in its area—

(a) prescribe standard uniform signs or symbols or warning notices in a form approved or prescribed by the Secretary of State clearly indicating the nature of the substance and the existence of danger to persons so engaged :

(b) by notice require the occupier of any part of any premises used for the manufacture or storage of the substance to affix, within such reasonable time as is specified in the notice, and thereafter keep fixed in such conspicuous position or positions as the county council may direct in or on the part of the premises used for such manufacture or storage, the appropriate sign, symbol or notice.

(2) Any person who contravenes the requirements of a county council under this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50 and to a daily fine not exceeding £10.
The noble Lord said : I move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gisborough. It consists of a new clause and it may be of assistance if I were to explain some of its background. My noble friend has been asked by the County Council of Cleveland to move this new clause to help towards ensuring greater safety to firemen when dealing with premises containing hazardous chemicals and substances by the display of signs indicating the nature of those substances which are stored therein.
As your Lordships will probably know, Cleveland has the largest complex of petrochemicals in the country and w ill very soon have the largest chemical complex in the Western world. Not only this, by 1980 it will also have the largest steel complex. We can be very proud of this, but at the same time there are clearly risks attached to a concentration of highly technical industry in a relatively confined area. Of course, that industry is concerned not only with itself but also with its own feedstocks, which are brought to it from other areas, so there is a transport concomitant as well. We are reminded all too clearly by what took place at Flixborough on 1st June 1974 of what can happen when a mishap takes place in a chemical plant; it can have very widespread and important repercussions.
The concentration of chemicals has made the County of Cleveland very much aware of this problem, and the possibilities of accidents are therefore never very far from the authority's mind. This has led, since July 1975, to a voluntary scheme among industrialists in that part

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of the world concerned with hazardous chemicals and their transport, storage and manufacture known as the Hazchem Scheme. This consists of the labelling of vehicles so that if one of them is involved in an accident the firemen can, by reading the label, make a quick and accurate decision as to how to deal with the crisis and whether they should wear special clothing to protect themselves in tackling a very dangerous situation. The object of the proposed new clause is to extend the Hazchem Scheme from vehicles to buildings or to wherever there is likely to be a fire or the danger of fire through spillage, and the emergency services can immediately know how to deal with it with the greatest effect and the least danger to themselves and to others. The basis of the new clause is Section 16 of the Tees-side Corporation (General Powers) Act 1971 and although these powers are still enforceable in the old area of Tees-side, they are not enforceable in the rest of the county, and it is vital that the whole of the rest of the United Kingdom should be covered effectively and enjoy the benefits of this safety scheme. The clause provides for the Secretary of State to approve various signs and these would be considered by the Health and Safety Commission and Executive, who would give their advice on the matter. County councils would in any event be given discretion to prescribe signs and would be under no obligation to do so; thus, it is a permissive power and not a mandatory one.
There appear, however, to be two stumbling blocks which the Government have come up against in considering this new clause since it was first moved in another place. First, there is the difficulty of marking buildings where more than one hazardous chemical substance is kept, such as a laboratory. However, it would seem that warning of this very fact is vital to firemen because many safe substances can become highly volatile and highly toxic when mixed together and firemen should be warned to use breathing apparatus in what might become a toxic situation but which at first appeared to be a non-toxic area. Secondly, the question is whether powers already exist under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for councils to extend their own Regulations.
The Government have suggested that powers already exist and that by the
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employment of powers under that Act for making Regulations, this new clause is rendered unnecessary. However, I am advised that powers under the Act are not wide enough at the present time to cover the making of appropriate regulations in the particular instance where a private employer provides a private place of work but where a fire may not be due to an employee, to the fault of an employee, or lack of care or anything of that nature but may be an unforeseeable act of God.
Further, if regulations were made under the Health and Safety at Work Act there would be an unacceptable delay. There is a further strong reason why regulations should not be made under the Health and Safety at Work Act. The county provides the service and should thus be the enforcing authority to ensure that the regulations are carried out, rather than the Health and Safety at Work Executive. I believe that this new clause would be beneficial and that it would further enable the Regulations to be put in hand at once rather than there having to be further discussions with the Health and Safety Commission, and I therefore commend it to your Lordships.
Lord MERRIVALE: I do not wish to disagree with my noble friend Lord Sandys, who speaks from the Front Bench, but I wish to raise a matter with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in view of the fact that the proposed new clause is causing some concern to the CBI. The CBI considers that the matter to which my noble friend has referred and the powers which he is seeking to have included in the Bill would he more appropriately dealt with in the Regulations coming under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. I do not know what the reaction of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will be to the proposed new clause, but I should like to know whether her Department has had consultations on the subject with the CBI and what its reaction to it has been, for my understanding is that it would object to the new clause being inserted in the Bill.
Baroness BIRK: Nobody could possibly disagree with the intention behind the new clause, which was carefully and clearly explained by the noble Lord, Lord Sandys. Its intention obviously is to improve safety for firemen who are called

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to attend fires at premises where chemicals are stored, and any measure to improve safety must be looked at very carefully. If there are difficulties, as there are, in the marking of stores containing hazardous substances, efforts must be made to overcome them. Difficulties may arise, as we know, when more than one chemical compound is stored in the same building, as is often the case at chemical suppliers' premises, in the chemical stores of smaller manufacturing companies or in laboratories of hospitals or places of education. I remember that when I was associated with taking the Health and Safety at Work Act through this House a number of these problems arose and were discussed then and it was decided that this would be dealt with by way of regulations.
The point here is that it is a matter for the Health and Safety Commission. The same new clause was moved at short notice on Report in another place and there was at that time only the possibility to give it a rather superficial review, but since then it has been looked at very much more closely. We have come to the conclusion that it would be wrong to legislate in this Bill when adequate statutory powers are available already, and if it is found that more legislation is eventually needed then it is legislation in that area—in the health and safety at work area, the employment area—rather than in this local government area where it should lay. It is interesting to note that although clauses of this nature have been the subject of certain local Acts in the past, inquiries by the Health and Safety Executive have failed to discover any areas where the clause has in fact been used so far; the GLC is one of these areas.
The desirable criteria for a hazard warning scheme include we think at least the following, and I do not think that there will be much disagreement about this: it should be of national application, it must he readily understood by firemen, it must be compatible with other legislation—and with EEC requirements now—it must cope with the problem of mixed stores and, if adopted, it must be required in every set of premises, as absence of a sign may be taken by a fireman to indicate " no hazard " whereas it might mean that no notice had been put up there. It must be an offence not to display a
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notice and the problem of redundant notices, which could put firemen and the public to great inconvenience, will also need to be covered. In other words, it could be just as dangerous to have odd notices up which were misleading as to have no notices. It must also provide for questions of security and it must provide for an appeal system to settle disputes. The Executive are confident that these can only be met by national regulations.
In the present clause there is no provision requiring the removal of redundant signs. As drafted, the clause says that it would be an offence to fail to comply with a notice served by a county council but, once a notice is served, there is no provision for appeal against its terms. We think it undesirable that industry should have no right of appeal against a notice if failure to comply is to be a criminal offence. If regulations are made under the Health and Safety at Work Act, the notice procedures in that Act, with their built-in right of appeal to an industrial tribunal, could be used and would overcome that difficulty.
While I am on the point about industry, in answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, there has been no consultation with the CBI. There has not been time or need since the Amendment was tabled because, if the Health and Safety Executive make the regulations, they will of course consult the CBI, which is represented on the Health and Safety Commission. The TUC will also be consulted. The point is that this is clearly an area of health and safety at work where there should be a comprehensive remedy. If legislation is needed it should he sited there. The chairman of the Commission has agreed that urgent consideration should be given to the making of regulations on this subject. Therefore, I do not want to delay the Committee on the details of the present Amendment nor to go over the drafting or the problems arising from the way in which it is drafted.
The main point is that such a provision is not really correct for adoption by individual local authorities. It is a national matter. I have very great sympathy with it. I feel that it is a matter of urgency and I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, and any other noble Lord concerned would be doing a public

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and social service if they pressed very hard on the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission, whose name, address and telephone number I have in front of me. I mean that quite seriously. I believe that it is the right way to tackle this. There should be mandatory implications here. This is far too serious a matter for it to be left to the discretion of individual local authorities. We should be able to rely on the criteria which I read out at the beginning of my reply and which I believe to be extremely important. The fact that this has been brought up and the discussion on this new clause will, I believe, have been extremely useful even though I hope the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, will withdraw the clause. I shall only say that I hope the noble Lord will go ahead and push hard at the Health and Safety Commission.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: May I endorse the remarks of the noble Baroness as regards the importance of the safety of firemen who are dealing with situations of great gravity where there are certain parameters of danger which are unknown to them'? In view of her observations, is the noble Baroness dissatisfied with the present arrangements for preserving the security of firemen in regard to chemicals in hospitals, laboratories and firms whose activities may be unknown which may produce danger to firemen ? I was not quite sure exactly what the noble Baroness was referring to in the last part of her otherwise admirable speech.
Baroness BIRK: I am not quite sure that I understood the point of what the noble Lord was asking. What I meant was that, whereas firemen even now get as much help as possible and a considerable amount is done, with the increase in the number of toxic materials that are dealt with and with the increased concentration on health and safety at work, which is certainly a move in the right direction, clearly, there is always room for improvement and I believe that this is so in this field. The noble Lord was quite right to remind us of Flixborough and there have unfortunately been a number of other similar tragedies. What I was saying was that the request is sited in the wrong piece of legislation. That was all I was saying. I did not mean that there is no need for anything to be done about this.
Lord SANDYS: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for what she has said, both in her introduction in regard to the question of appeals and the whole situation so far as the Amendment is concerned, as well as for her comments on the best means of tackling this very important matter. I should indeed be most grateful for the name, address and telephone number of the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission. I now have it in front of me and I am very much obliged to the noble Baroness for her suggestions and recommendations. In the circumstances, I am sure that it would be for the convenience of the Committee were I to withdraw the Amendment at this stage, leaving the opportunity to return to the matter on Report if necessary. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 31 agreed to.
Clauses 32 and 33 agreed to.
Clause 34 [Certain 'inure local Acts etc. to be subject to the planning enactments etc. except as otherwise provided]:
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 39, line 7, leave out from beginning to (" and ") in line 9.
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment has been put down at the request of
the Department of Trade, the Department responsible for the administration of Section 34 of the 1949 Act. They have advised that it would be of no value to apply Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949 to all " works " Bills and orders because that section has been found to be technically defective. This is because the conditions which can be imposed upon a consent granted under the section bind only the person carrying out the works which necessitate the consent, and to whom the consent is given, and then only until the construction of the works has been completed. They do not enable conditions to be imposed which, for the life of the works, would safeguard shipping.
To provide such a safeguard, the Department of Trade, instead of imposing conditions under Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949, require the Promoters of Private Bills for the carrying out of

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works to insert certain clauses for the protection of navigation. These overcome the deficiences described. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendments Nos. 46A and 46B:
Page 39, line 9, leave out (" and ").
Page 39, line 12, at end insert (" ; and
(e) section 1(1) of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974 (which imposes restrictions on dumping in the sea), ").
The noble Baroness said: The latter Amendment is the substantive one. It adds Section 1(1) of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974 to the list of enactments specified in Clause 34 which are enactments to which future local legislation authorising the carrying out of specific works on specific land will be subject. The first Amendment is consequential. Section 1(1) of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974 provides that the restrictions imposed by the Act are in addition to any restriction imposed by or under any other enactment. In local legislation, it is sometimes the case that dredged materials are not to be deposited in the sea without the consent of the Secretary of State or of the particular harbour or navigation authority in question.
However, Section 1(1) relates only to those enactments passed before the Dumping at Sea Act 1974 and it is therefore necessary to insert savings clauses in local Acts and orders passed or made after the 1974 Act which make specific provision for dredging and the disposal in the sea of the materials dredged. This Amendment would dispense with the need to insert savings clauses for the 1974 Act in local legislation containing specific provisions relating to the dumping of substances in the sea. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 35 [Interpretation etc. of Part I]:
6 p.m.
Lord SANDYS Lord SANDYS moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 39, line 39, after (" 25 ") insert (" 26 ").
The noble Lord said: This is a very straightforward Amendment and is intended to empower a parish council, a
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local council or a community council to carry out works outside its own area. We are concerned here with a practical matter. Quite often a local council may, for instance, wish to erect a bus shelter in a place just outside its area. The shelter may be on the opposite side of the road to another shelter which comes within the council's area. Alternatively, the council may wish to conduct other works of a similar nature outside its area. The Amendment does not need further explanation and so I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: As the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, explained, the Amendment has the effect of extending the provisions of Clause 26 to parish and community councils. The Amendment is identical to the one put down during the Commons Report stage. Where a power already exists enabling a local authority to carry out works within its own area, Clause 26 empowers the authority to carry out those works elsewhere provided that the enabling power does not prohibit such an extension. As drafted, however, Clause 26 does not extend to parish or community councils.
The Amendment would seem to have been prompted by the National Association of Local Councils. Both parish and community councils enjoy a fairly limited range of works powers which in the main would, I am afraid, seem to be unsuitable for exercise outside the area of their parish or community and, by implication, in the area of some other parish or community. These councils are essentially local in character and are designed to cater for essentially local needs. That is their modus vivendi. To give them such an extension of their powers as the Amendment proposes would seem to conflict with their nature. Therefore, I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that his Amendment is admirable but quite unacceptable.
Lord SANDYS: It will be no surprise to the noble Baroness to learn that I do not agree with her because it is on the small scale and in the area of a parish or a community that very often it is of great advantage that minor works can be carried out to the benefit of all concerned. Nevertheless, I hope that it may be possible for the noble Baroness's Department to have consultations with the National

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Association of Local Councils before the next stage of the Bill, and with that I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 40, line 12, leave out (" section ") and insert (" sections 3(2)(d) and ").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 48A:
Page 41, line 8, after (" 2(5) ") insert (" or subsection (2)(c) of section (Control of parking on areas used for loading or unloading goods vehicles)").
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment is consequential on the addition to the Bill of the new clause, which we have already accepted, dealing with the control of parking on areas used for loading or unloading goods vehicles. Subsection (2)(c) of this clause deals with the duty of a council to revoke an order if the owner and occupier ask them to. The effect of the Amendment is simply to reserve the position whereby it is open to an owner or occupier to take action by way of civil proceedings if a council fails to carry out its duty of revoking an order when requested to do so. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 35, as amended, agreed to.
6.5 p.m.
Clause 36 [Application of Part II]:
Lord DE CLIFFORD Lord DE CLIFFORD moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 41, line 16, leave out (" is ") and insert (" was ").
The noble Lord said: I wish to move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend. I understand that the effect of this part of the Bill is to bring the 1847 Act into operation in all the areas throughout the country. My noble friend wishes to prevent the extension of this Part of the Bill to the deep rural areas which are unlikely ever to see hackney carriages. I understand that already in the area of Felixstowe there has been an extension of area which may inhibit the provision of hired cars in rural areas. My noble friend would like to be told whether this proposal could be held up pending
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consultation. I understand that there has been considerable consultation on this matter, but my noble friend thinks—and I must agree with him—that anything which would prevent or hinder the provision of transport in rural areas, where buses and all the other means of public transport are becoming fewer, is most undesirable. I beg to move.
Lord SANDYS: At this point we start on Part II of the Bill which as your Lordships will be aware begins with the words:
" Hackney carriages and private hire vehicles."
I am wholly in agreement with what my noble friend Lord de Clifford said in moving the Amendment so admirably. It surprises me very much that in 1976 the Government are basing a major series of 36 clauses in Part II of the Bill upon an Act of 1847 which applied to the horse-drawn world where at that time motor transport was never considered. I was not fully aware of what a hackney " is, so I looked it up in the dictionary, and I should like to recount the definition for your Lordships. It is:
" Hackney—an ambling horse or mare, especially for ladies to ride on."
Under a further derivative it is stated:
" plying for hire, as hackney carriage, a hackney chair or a hackney coach."
A very serious point of drafting is involved here. The question of whether the law should be suitably amended by taking up the Act of 1847 and writing new provisions into that Act, rather than writing off the whole of the Act of 1847, has been very carefully considered and we shall listen with close attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has to tell us.
I return once again to an old favourite, the prologue to Plain Words, by Sir Ernest Gowers. What he said was this—and I quote his exact words:
" Whatever the purpose, the object of the writer will be the same: to make the reader take his meaning readily and precisely ".
That must be the touchstone of all good draftsmanship, and I hope that the Government will be able to explain to us why the decision has been taken to introduce a series of 36 clauses based on the Act of 1847.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I should like to support, on the same lines, the two noble Lords who have just spoken. I have been approached by the National Federation of Taxicab Drivers, and they have put up the same reasoned case that here we have the Act of 1847 being taken in by Part II of the Bill instead of, as the noble Lord has said, being repealed by it—and I must confess that when I first looked at the notes I thought it could not be 1847 but must be 1947. The National Federation feel that the industry has been promised, and indeed the local government associations have been promised, a consolidated Bill dealing entirely with this section for many years (decades, I think, could be a more correct description) and yet it seems that the Government have taken the opportunity merely to bring it into this Bill as Part II I should therefore like to say to the noble Lord that I shall certainly be introducing some Amendments at the next stage of the Bill.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): I am not sure whether we are going to have, as it were, the debate on the Question whether the clause shall stand part, now or subsequent to the discussion on this particular Amendment. Of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has Motions down to leave out all the clauses in this Part of the Bill: but let me deal briefly with one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, and by my noble friend Lady Phillips. The reason why this section is in the Bill is that a substantial number of Members of the Standing Committee in another place defeated the Government. I may say that all the Conservative Members of the Committee voted against the Government, and that is why this part is in the Bill in the first place. That is the position: the Government were defeated on this matter. In Standing Committee in another place this entire section of the Bill was introduced, and the Government accepted the decision of Members of both sides—both some Members on the Government Benches and all the Members of the Conservative Party who were Members of the Standing Committee. So that in fact answers why this part is in the Bill in the first instance.
I suspect we may he coming back to the substance of this particular clause, and indeed to the whole range of issues involved
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in Part II, on the Question, Whether the clause shall stand part, although I do not know whether that is the noble Baroness's intention, but perhaps I could deal briefly with the narrow question involved in the Amendment before us. If I could give just a little background, the position is this. Taxis are subject to licensing control under the Town Police Clauses Act—and, yes, it is 1847, and not any more recent year—and under byelaws, and this particular Act does not apply to London, it does not apply to Scotland and it does not apply to Northern Ireland. Private hire cars, on the other hand, are subject to control only in areas where there are local Acts—areas such as Liverpool and Sheffield. Following local government reorganisation, taxi controls have been extended throughout the area of the district in some districts, but in other districts taxis are controlled only in certain parts, such as the former urban districts of the area.
Perhaps I could give an illustration. Suppose that, as a result of local government reorganisation, the new local authority includes a particular urban district which had passed the appropriate resolution so far as the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 is concerned. In some cases, the taxi controls in that particular old urban district, now part of a larger authority, have remained, and in some areas the powers have been extended. Indeed, at the moment resolutions are still coming into us from local authorities to rationalise their arrangements—arrangements which are being rationalised as a result of local government reorganisation.
The problems involved in the noble Lord's Amendment are really these, that they would in fact freeze the patchwork situation as at the 12th February of this year. I am not wholly clear why the 12th February is the date selected, but I presume it is because it is the date, I think, of the publication of this Bill. But it is obviously a rather arbitrary date to select, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, would accept that. This freezing would apply to private hire cars and—this is an important qualification—for some aspects of taxi controls, such as fares, licence fees and so on. This would inevitably prevent the subsequent rationalisation in the areas of control which, I repeat, has been made necessary by the

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reorganisation of local government. I hope that on the basis of that explanation the noble Lord will not press this Amendment. Then, if we wish, as it were, to have a Part II debate, we might conceivably have it on the Question, Whether the clause shall stand part?
Lord DE CLIFFORD: I must thank the noble Lord for his reply. Virtually, this was an Amendment to discover what the situation really was, and no doubt my noble friend will read the noble Lord's reply very carefully and will consider it. I may be wrong in this matter, but is not the bulk of this Part based on the Plymouth City Council Act 1975? It bears the greatest resemblance to it, if it is not. But in view of what the noble Lord has said, and reserving this situation for Report stage, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 36 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness YOUNG: I am very glad to have this opportunity to introduce really what is, I think, in a sense, a Second Reading debate on Part II of the Bill. I must explain why this is so to those Members of the Committee who have not had the advantage of following all the proceedings in detail. When we had the Second Reading debate I gave notice to, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that as we were taking this Bill only a day and a half after it had left another place we on this side of your Lordships' House had really not had an opportunity to study the Committee proceedings in another place or, indeed, to undertake the consultations that we would have wished to undertake. Therefore, I have put down the Motion to leave out Clause 36 because the more I have looked at Part II of the Bill the stranger I have found the whole sequence of events that surrounds it.
I can quite appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would rush to say that Part II was inserted because the Conservative Members in another place supported it in Committee, but I am sure he would agree with me that that is not really more than a rather slight debating point, because had the Government wished to put it right at another stage they would not have hesitated to do so. In fact,
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they did not do so, so they have presumably accepted this argument and left it at that. They have done so when the Government must have been in much greater possession of the facts than the Opposition could conceivably have been, because this matter arose very suddenly at Committee stage in another place when one of the Members introduced 36 (I think it was) new clauses into the Bill—at least, the whole of Part II.
None of these new clauses was debated at any length at all; and, on rereading the debate in another place, I found that only three speeches were made, with the Government Minister, Mr. Oakes, winding up, after which there was a Division taken to include all these new clauses in the Bill. It may well be that the fault was on the part of some of my honourable friends, but I believe that those of us who are in Opposition have not the benefit of all the advice that, naturally, Government Ministers can get, and it may well have been that they, too, had they considered the matter further, would have reached the same conclusions as those to which my noble friends and I have come.
The fact is, as the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, has said, that this is very largely based on the Plymouth City Council Act; and I understand it is precedented in two other local Acts. The difference between this and a Public Bill, of course, is that, when a Bill appears as a local Act, private individuals have the right to make representations against it; and, indeed, they did in the case of the Plymouth City Council Act and of the other ones. Now it has been incorporated into a General Act and these private individuals have not had the opportunity to make their representations against it because it is a Public Bill and not a Private Bill. Furthermore, they had wished and had confidently expected that the Home Office would have introduced a general Bill or at least would have undertaken extensive consultations and, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I am certain will be aware, his honourable friend Dr. Summerskill undertook that there would be consultations particularly with the private hire operators as well as those running taxicabs.
At a very late stage, rather limited consultations did take place, for which I am certain that all those who took part in

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them are very grateful. But what has emerged is that in fact this general legislation adversely affects the national operation of private hire and chauffeur-driven cars particularly in regard to freedom of movement; because the specific point is that what may apply within the boundaries of Plymouth City Council may be completely justifiable and working satisfactorily with nobody having any complaints, either drivers, operators or customers, becomes a completely different proposition when this narrow legislation is extended throughout the country.
I therefore feel that there is a quite strong case on both grounds for removing from Part II in toto all the parts of this legislation which apply to private hire vehicles. The case, I believe, is weak in the case of taxi drivers but at least it is based on the Act of 1847. It has appeared in general legislation since then and this is something which is understood ; but in the case of private hire vehicles it has not appeared in general legislation before, there have not been any consultations, and, in fact, some of the provisions appear to be completely unintelligible and I cannot believe they can have been the intention of the Home Office.
I understand, for example, that if I decide to hire a car to take me from London to Gatwick—which is the kind of thing that somebody might do—and then I wanted it to take me from Gatwick to Heathrow this would not be possible under the terms of the Bill and we should have to start the whole procedure again. This kind of freedom of movement to hire a car in one place and move on round the country if you so wish is a long-established function and is a great public service for those who want it. I understand that because this public legislation is based on these Private Bills, this freedom of movement at the moment would be curtailed.
I hope that we shall get this quite clear, but certainly those concerned nationally with private hire operations are concerned at the way this Bill will operate. They feel, with considerable justification, that they have not had the opportunity for proper consultation and they feel that they have been promised by the Home Office for a great many years a consultation document followed by a Bill which
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would cover taxicabs and private hire vehicles and this has not come about. The whole of this has been slipped very suddenly into public legislation and they feel very concerned about it. If I am expressing a concern today, it is one that has been made very forcibly to me.
We were all impressed by the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, accepted that there had been a great deal of criticism of the clause concerned with printing and, on the basis that the Bill was meant to be non-controversial, she generously withdrew that part of the Bill and this is something for which we are all grateful. I hope that the Minister responsible for those parts of the Bill which are concerned with taxis and private hire cars will realise that these, too, are equally controversial, particularly the private hire arrangements, and are against the principles as enunciated when the Bill was introduced, and I hope he will consider seriously either amending them radically or withdrawing some of them.
6.24 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: I should like to support what the noble Baroness has said. The Minister was startlingly frank, I thought, in what he said just now. The Government got stuck with Part II of the Bill because they were defeated by the Conservatives in Standing Committee in another place. I do not want to come into the Party question at all; but surely if a Government are stuck with something one day, they are not stuck with it for all time. I think I am right in saying that by the Standing Committee stage there had been no consultation with the private hire firms at all.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: That was because there was no element in the Bill at that time involving any of these parts of the Bill that we are now discussing.
Lord AIREDALE: Indeed! Surely a Government can say: " Since this part of the Bill was sprung upon us, we have had limited consultations in the limited time that has elapsed since that day. We have come across all kinds of difficulties which we were quite unaware of on that occasion in Standing Committee and, had we known of them, we could have argued the case at Standing Committee against this part of the Bill. We have had second

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thoughts about this in the intervening time. We have our own ideas of how a Bill to deal with this topic should be drafted and they are different from this part of the Bill, based as it is on a Private Act of a local authority. We therefore gracefully accept that Part II simply will not stand up any longer and we therefore agree, at least in so far as it relates to private hire operators, to dispense with it and to start again with something very much more satisfactory."
If this is gone ahead with, what are the multiple private hire operators going to be faced with ?—a patchwork of England with controlled areas here and there and uncontrolled areas in between, faced with different conditions regulating the conduct of their business according to what area they start from; what area they are going to arrive at at the other end, and what areas they are going to pass through in between as to whether these different areas are going to be controlled or uncontrolled. Further to that, even in so far as the controlled areas are concerned (this being an adoptive Bill and the local authorities having a choice whether or not to adopt it) let no one suppose that the controlled areas are going to have identical regulations. Far from it! This part of the Bill is full of conditions which each local authority may impose in its own particular area.
Let us take one example: the kind of car that can be used for hire purposes. A subsection of Clause 39 specifies conditions as to its type, size, design, appearance and comfort et cetera. This means—it must mean—that even as between two controlled areas a hire car which is satisfactory in one area is not satisfactory, does not comply with the conditions, in another. This really creates chaos, not for the small firms which operate only in their own areas—that is not complicated—but for the nationwide hire car companies who are doing long distance work. For them it is going to be chaos.
There is one crumb of comfort in all this. It is in Clause 66(1). It arises from the example of the journey to Gatwick which the noble Baroness mentioned just now. It is not a very big crumb of comfort because this subsection consists of three very restrictive elements. It says:
" Nothing in this Part of this Act shall apply to
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a vehicle used for bringing passengers or goods within a controlled district … ".
But it says nothing about taking passengers or goods out of a controlled district.
So the effect is this: supposing that I wanted to travel from Aldershot to Basingstoke, and Aldershot is a controlled district and Basingstoke is not. From Aldershot I telephone my favourite hire car firm in Basingstoke with whom I have an account, and I say, " Can you come to Aldershot to collect me and take me out of Aldershot to Basingstoke? ". The answer is, " We are very sorry, we cannot do it." We are only allowed to bring passengers into a controlled district. We cannot take them out ". This seems quite ridiculous.
Now let us go to the second element of this crumb of comfort. It has to be in pursuance of a contract for the hire of the vehicle made outside the district. Where is a contract made? Most of the contracts for hire vehicles—I imagine a very great many of them—are made by telephone. If I want to be met tomorrow at Southampton station I ring up from the Palace of Westminster a car hire firm in Southampton. I say, " Will you meet me in Southampton tomorrow ? ". I am in Westminster, they are in Southampton. Where is the contract made? If I had to bet upon it, I would bet the contract is made in Southampton. But I say so with very little confidence indeed. How can you expect hire car firms to grapple with legal complexities of this kind ?
Now we come to the third element: if a vehicle is not made available for hire within the district. Think of the mischief that that could cause! Somebody in Basingstoke marries somebody who lives in Aldershot. They have the wedding in Aldershot. There is a huge coming and going of friends and relations between Aldershot and Basingstoke. Somebody hires a car from Basingstoke and it goes to Aldershot. They say, " Now will you take somebody else back to Basingstoke? ". The answer is " No ". It cannot be done; it does not come within this subsection because they are not allowed to make the vehicle available for hire within the district. So what happens? The car from Basingstoke has to go back empty from Aldershot, and another car has to be hired in Aldershot to go to

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Basingstoke. It comes back empty to Aldershot. That does not help the energy conservation programme, does it?
The whole of this shows every sign of being completely unthought-out in so far as it relates to nationwide car hire firms who simply will not know where they are. It is the most hopelessly unjust situation that could be foisted upon them. I hope that the Government will be able to say, " Having looked at this since the Standing Committee in another place, we realise that this simply is not on: we must start again and proceed with the Bill which we would hake introduced anyway ".
6.34 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: I will come to the history of this matter, which was discussed by the noble Baroness, in a moment. I will begin by agreeing with her on one point: certainly legislation of this sort is intended to be precedented and non-controversial. With that in mind, the Government originally took the view that this Bill was not the right place for the introduction of Hackney carriage and private hire controls. The subject—as the noble Lord has just indicated in his speech—is a complicated one, and the Government have for some time—and the noble Baroness raised this point—been preparing a Consultative Document as a prelude to the introduction of comprehensive legislation. We intended that when the Consultative Document had been prepared and issued we should hold consultations with the local authority associations and the other interested bodies, following which we would prepare our own legislation. I must make this absolutely clear: I can give absolutely no guarantee at this time when we would find time in the legislative timetable for such legislation. That is a point, to which I will return in a moment, which no doubt weighed with the Standing Committee in another place.
It was because of this that we considered that the best course—and this is what we put forward at the standing Committee in another place—was not to include provisions proposed in this Part of the Bill. But the majority of the Committee took a contrary view. With great respect to the noble Baroness (whose judgment I rarely question). I do not regard it altogether as a debating point to
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point out that this Part is only in the Bill because of the behaviour of the Opposition in Standing Committee at another place. It was a Conservative vote, together with a number of those members of my Party, that put this Part in the Bill. It is only fair to add this: normally Governments are accused of not listening to the voice of Parliament. On this occasion the noble Baroness appears to be accusing us of listening to the voice of Parliament and implementing that clearly expressed view.
In view of this clear expression of opinion by members of both Parties in the Standing Committee, the Government decided that they should not seek to overturn the wish of another place but they would do the best they could with this matter. In accordance with the undertaking given at Report stage in another place by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, we have undertaken consultations with interested parties to see whether any modifications of the provisions of Part II are necessary. We intend to bring forward Amendments at Report stage which will meet at least some of the points which have been raised. I suggest it would also be wise to consider carefully the strongly felt view of another place in favour of including these provisions in the Bill because it is a clearly expressed wish, as I have endeavoured to point out.
There have been a number of points made by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. First, that there has been inadequate time for consultation about these provisions in the Bill. I would not seek to argue that there has been a substantial amount of time involved for these consultations. I accept that point immediately. The time-scale inevitably is very limited because we did not know that this clause was going to appear in the Bill until we were defeated in the Standing Committee. Nevertheless, these discussions have been pushed ahead with some energy and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she said. There has been some gratitude expressed by those involved in the talks that we had pushed on with them. Secondly, there has been the suggestion that the provisions are inadequately precedented in local authority legislation, and I would not seek to pretend that there have been a large number of

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local authorities which have used powers of this sort; but, nevertheless, there have been some.
The noble Baroness drew attention to the specific point about the precedents. Taxi and private car controls on the scale envisaged in this clause of the Bill are dealt with in comprehensive fashion in two recent local Acts: the Plymouth City Council Act 1975 and the Liverpool Corporation Act 1972. The new clauses introduced in another place were originally identical to those of the Plymouth Act, and we have seen no evidence so far to suggest that these two local Acts do not provide a satisfactory code of control, although they rely heavily on the provisions of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 which, in our view, is certainly ripe for reappraisal whether or not Part II of the present Bill passes on to the Statute Book. It was the view of a number of Members of another place that the provisions of Part II would form a useful interim measure of control while the more fundamental reappraisal of the 1847 Act was undertaken.
I hope that the answers I have given will help to allay some of the fears expressed. Certainly, as I have indicated, the Government intend to come forward at Report stage with a number of Amendments to this Bill as a result of the consultations which have taken place. I do not want to make heavy weather of this but I think it only right to do so. I understand that under the Standing Orders of the House I am not able to quote directly other than from the Minister in another place. Therefore I will report what Mr. Speed said—he is, of course, a gentleman whom the noble Baroness will know. He leads on local government matters in another place for the Party opposite. I do so not in order to make a debating point but to point out why the noble Baroness's friends in another place took the view that they did.
Mr. Speed made it clear that he attached great importance to the need for urgent action, and unless there was some guarantee given—which the Government were in no position to give—that we were going to act within 15 months, he thought it right to press ahead with these Amendments. If I may say so, I am sure the noble Baroness will have studied that speech with the care and attention that I have. It was not just Mr. Speed who took this view. He indicated that he had been having consul
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tations with a number of his honourable friends who look after Home Office affairs in another place; so it was a fairly considered decision which was taken by the Opposition and was not just the debating skill of my honourable friend the Member for Leicester, South, who introduced this. It was a carefully considered decision that it was time for an interim measure. I am quite sure that the noble Baroness, when she studies that speech a second time, will come to the conclusion that it is really an extremely powerful argument which Mr. Speed put forward.
I would say that I perfectly accept the fact put by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord who has just spoken. It is a difficult matter when legislation is suddenly changed and a new major section is added to a Bill : l would not for a moment suggest the contrary. It means that when Government bring forward their own proposals there are normally prolonged discussions with the organisations concerned. Clearly, on this occasion they have had to be considerably speeded up; but they have taken place and if we are given the opportunity of doing so, we shall come back at Report stage with some Amendments. I would not suggest for a moment that all the interested parties will necessarily be wholly satisfied. I apologise for the fact that a major section of a Bill of this kind, which I would have hoped was of a non-controversial character, has raised so much concern in the minds of a number of interested bodies. I can only express the hope that when the continuing discussions produce new points, some of the Amendments we are prepared to put down at Report stage will at any rate meet some of the anxieties which have been expressed.
Viscount AMORY: The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has explained how this situation has arisen with his usual lucidity and fairness. l am very much impressed with some of the points raised by my noble friend Lady Young and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, which seem to argue that if this was passed in its present form absolute chaos would reign with some kinds of long-distance transport private hire firms. I myself feel that leaves us in a very difficult position at the moment. One feels that however this came to be passed in its present form in the other

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place, even after the most careful consideration by Her Majesty's Opposition, if we in our subsequent discussions here come to the conclusion that the clauses as they stand would lead to chaos, then whatever the consequences to my Party—and I see the Chairman present here—and however disastrous the effects would be on our Party, I do not think we can leave the situation as it is.
The noble Lord said that on Report stage he hopes to introduce Amendments to meet a number of points. We do not know what those points are or how successfully they will be met, but I should like to make the point that this is not at all a satisfactory position. It we are of the opinion that chaotic results will follow even in some sections, then we ought to press Amendments at the right moment to sec that such chaotic results do not follow. It will depend on how far the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is able to go in satisfying the very realistic points raised by my noble friend Lady Young and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale.
Baroness YOUNG: I am, of course, very grateful for the assurance of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that he intends to bring forward Amendments to this part of the Bill. I accept what my noble friend Lord Amory has said, that it will very much depend on the Amendments, and it is one of those cases of the proof of the pudding being in the eating, or at any rate, in the seeing. It is of course a serious matter, and we could argue interminably over who said what at Committee stage in another place; but, looking at it again, I feel that my honourable friend Mr. Speed did in fact ask the Minister whether representations had been made about this and whether any particular problems have arisen. Perhaps I might quote Mr. Oakes, at column 157:
" In answer to the hon. Gentleman's point, I understand that in the main outside organisations have been somewhat silent, except for one big operator who objected to the way in which the clauses were being presented to the House " [Official Report, Commons, 6/4/76.]
That is perfectly true. Everybody was silent because they did not know they were to be included in the Bill: that is the substance of the point. I think it would be a more useful exercise to look forward to what we can do in this Chamber. In
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the presence of the Party Chairman, perhaps I may say that I am sure he would agree that neither the Government nor the Opposition will feel that the greatest issue facing the country, and one which should divide us most, is the future of taxi cabs and private hire operators. That said, it does, of course, enormously affect hundreds of individuals and we must get it right. If there is some confusion here—
Viscount AMORY: Would my noble friend agree that I believe, on referring to the Party Chairman, she will find that we have nothing in our Election Manifesto committing ourselves on this matter?
Baroness YOUNG: I am, as always, most grateful to my noble friend Lord Amory for that reference. Had I thought of it, I should have looked up the Government's Party Manifesto and, if it was not in there, I should have thought this was the most compelling reason for taking out Part II of this Bill—and no doubt I should have had the support of a great number of Members on the Government side concerning that. I do think there has been a great deal of confusion about this part of the Bill, and I have been encouraged by a letter received from the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, about the interpretation of the Long Title of the Bill. I should like to quote her letter, in which she talks about this section:
" to make amendments of provisions of the law which relate to local authorities or highways and is commonly amended by local Acts ".
She goes on to say:
" This is the key phrase which covers most of the Bill, i.e. those clauses which in different versions have commonly appeared in local Acts. The taxi provisions in Part II which were added in Committee are well precedented and fall under this heading … ".
In fact, of course, the noble Baroness does not talk about the private hire provisions but only about the taxi provisions. Therefore it seemed to me there was a difference on the part of the Government as to whether or not these are covered by the Long Title, whether or not one of the Amendments the Government will have to put down will be a major Amendment to the Long Title so that this is covered, and whether at the moment it is not covered by the Bill. I hope that before we proceed further, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, can answer that point.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWIC: I resolved last week, when listening to the noble Baroness and my noble friend, not to become involved in a dispute about the Long Title of this Bill, which at that stage was a point beyond my comprehension and, I fear, still is. Nevertheless, the noble Baroness has raised an important point and I will look into it.
Clause 36 agreed to.
Lord STRABOLGI: Before your Lordships embark on the next clause, may I suggest that this may be a good moment to halt the Committee stage, if that is acceptable. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

BIRTHS AND DEATHS REGISTRATION (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
6.51 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 Births and Deaths Registration (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 20th May, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Births and Deaths Registration (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, a draft of which was laid before this House on 20th May 1976 he approved. This order provides mainly for consolidation of Northern Ireland legislation relating to the registration of births and deaths. The existing legislation in Northern Ireland is contained in two statutory provisions; the Births and Deaths Registration Act (Northern Ireland) 1967, and the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Northern Ireland) Order 1973.
The 1967 Act, revised the law relating to the registration of births and deaths, and for incidental matters such as the appointment of a Registrar-General and other registrars. The Act specified that the Registrar-General would furnish an annual report setting out the numbers of live-birth, still-births and deaths, and that the Department of Finance would continue
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to maintain the General Register Office. The 1973 order catered mainly for changes in the system of registration following reorganisation of local government services in Northern Ireland. The district councils became local registration authorities and, as such, act as agents of the Department of Finance. In addition, the former local registrars were replaced by officers of the district councils. In passing, I should mention that the order before the House today does not deal with provisions in the 1973 order which relate to marriages.
As I have already said, the purpose of this order is to consolidate Northern Ireland legislation. However, the order also contains a number of minor amendments. For example, references to various enactments, cited throughout the order, have been brought up to date; there are also changes in terminology which take account of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973—for instance, " Ministry " becomes " Department " and " Minister " becomes " Head of the Department ". In addition, there are a few policy amendments which are not of major consequence as will be appreciated from the following examples. In Article 2(2) there is a slight amendment in the definition of the word " occupier ". In certain cases, the occupier of a public building, such as a hospital or welfare home, is required to act as the informant of a birth or death. The present definition of the word " occupier " includes a " Governor, matron, superintendent or other chief resident officer "; the proposal now is to omit the word " resident " as a chief officer may not necessarily reside on the premises.
In Article 12, the present law gives the registrar power to serve notice on a qualified informant requiring him to attend at his office and give information concerning a birth. The existing wording is now to be extended so as to include a foundling child; in future, the registrar for the district in which an infant is found abandoned will be empowered to require the person finding the child to give particulars to the registrar. The order was published as a proposal and circulated to district councils. In general, it drew little comment but various minor suggestions were fully considered and included where appropriate. I commend the order to the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Births and Deaths Registration (Northern Ireland)

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Order 1976, laid before the House on 20th May, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NORTHERN IRELAND (TRIAL OF TERRORISTS AND WITNESS PROTECTION) BILL [H.L.]
6.55 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Government have stated that their security policy in the present Northern Ireland terrorist situation depends upon their using the present law and the present courts to put out of circulation those criminals who. in previous times, would have been put out of circulation by the use of detention or internment. I should like to say that if the framework of the law were suitable for this, nobody would welcome it more than I.
The necessity for detention was widely recognised by the comments of such eminent men as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in their respective Reports, and if the Government decide to end detention it follows that changes in that framework must be made. The Diplock Report stated,
" The main obstacle to dealing effectively with terrorist crime is intimidation of witnesses ",
and in paragraph 27 of his Report the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, stated,
" We are convinced on the evidence that if jury trial were reintroduced their verdicts would be subject to influences of intimidation ".
So that both witnesses and juries were covered by those Reports.
It is to meet one aspect of the deficiencies in the framework that I now propose the Second Reading of this Bill, which is to provide for the protection of witnesses. It is a modest attempt to help, and I should like to make it quite clear that, while I am completely convinced of the necessity for this Bill, I am very much open to suggestions from the experts in this House to change the methods in Committee. In a few weeks' time we shall be dealing with the Act to continue the emergency provisions, and I hope the noble Lord,
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Lord Donaldson, will make it clear in reply that the Government intend to fill this gap and to deal with the existing situation.
It is sometimes worth while to stand back and look at a situation, and see the total strategy which has been developed in the past for dealing with the terrorist situation. In the face of a terrorist onslaught, by far the most important task of a democratic State is clearly to establish its will to win before the people and the world. Absolutely nothing should be allowed to emanate from Government which would in any way undermine that determination, and that public facade, of the will to win, and the whole range of Government action—be it economic policy, a firm and fair security policy and legislative measures—must ensure, and in good time , that everything supports the will to win.
Some people believe that it is always necessary to be rough, tough and violent to establish that. I do not believe that, although it is often necessary to be very tough. What is vital is that Government policy over the years—and we are in a situation which has extended over years and, unfortunately, may extend over more years—should be consistent. Because he is using terror, murder and committing all his foul crimes, the terrorist is, by his very nature, a minority. He uses the bullet instead of the ballot box.
Dr. Clutterbuck, in his book Protest which discussed the question of Northern Ireland, clearly demonstrated that the danger from a Government's failing to act in time, and to act firmly, is far greater than the danger from its over-reacting, because the inevitable result will be backlash. Indeed, I feel very strongly that the measure of all Governments failing to act properly is the level of sectarian violence in Ulster today. The brutal fact is that backlash would not have occurred if the population had believed that the Government had the will to win. It is with great sadness that I say there is not a single section of the population in Ulster who believe that it is the Government's intention to win as opposed to maintaining the status quo. I feel that we must do something to help because in the end it is our soldiers and the people of Ulster who inevitably will suffer and many die.
I stated earlier that consistency was the key to success. If the present Government's policy is to stand a cat's chance in

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hell of succeeding, then we must do something to re-establish the faith of the people of Northern Ireland in the determination to win. In the past, as seen by us in Northern Ireland, the somersaults of Government policy have been tremendous. It would have been impossible to have been tougher than we were with detention. It would have been impossible not to have been weaker than we were when we abolished the Government in Northern Ireland and gave to the terrorists a status to which they were not entitled. The criminals were made political prisoners. We have continued to somersault right up to the present time.
It appears to me that the policy which has been pursued is that we must never take a tough policy to its logical conclusion in case we actually defeat the IRA. However, today's policy, as it is described, is to use the courts. The great British public believe that this is the right policy because the Government have said again and again that more are being charged and convicted and that more information is coming from the terrorist areas. The facts are that this is simply not true. Fewer people were charged and convicted in 1975 than in 1974. I agree that the number was not significantly fewer but it was fewer. However, the real point is that the figures do not justify saying that there is a changed situation. The figures I am using were issued by the Northern Ireland office, and I should like to know whether the Government can explain why they have maintained again and again that more were being charged and convicted when that does not appear to be true. In fact, I believe that the 1976 figures show a further decline.
It is to try to re-establish some form of confidence in the Government's security policy because of the danger of the extension of backlash that I am moving this Bill. It provides for three problems. First, it broadens the scope of the emergency provisions legislation to allow, subject to appeal, all criminal acts in Northern Ireland, if there is a terrorist element in them, to be tried in front of a non-jury court. Secondly, it provides for the protection of witnesses in cases involving terrorism both by the original Act and by this Bill. Thirdly—this is a smaller but, I believe, a very important element—it provides for the extension of Section 20 of the 1973 Act to protect certain
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categories of citizens from having information collected about them by men of violence.
If I may deal very shortly here with the third aspect first, the original Act made it a scheduled offence if somebody in suspicious circumstances collected information—telephone numbers, car numbers, places of residence—about certain people like soldiers, members of the RUC and judges. Just lately the IRA have issued a threat, the intention of which is to prevent the Criminal Jurisdiction Act from working correctly. They have threatened anybody who takes part in the operation of the Criminal Jurisdiction Act. I believe it is very important that this extension should be made to protect this class of people; namely, solicitors, counsel and the like.
If I may deal with Clause 1, under the 1973 Act, Parliament conceded that in the circumstances of Northern Ireland justice could not be fairly administered by courts with juries. Therefore, certain offences were scheduled to be tried in front of non-jury courts. The Attorney General then had the right to certify these out so that normally they could be tried in front of jury courts. Clause 1 of my Bill will allow various members of the administration of justice in Northern Ireland, provided that they are satisfied that a terrorist element is involved, to schedule these in so that they are tried in front of non-jury courts.
I do not know whether this House realises the extent of the development that has occurred since the two Reports to which I referred before, the Diplock and the Gardiner Reports; but, like the Mafia, the men of violence now run things like massage parlours. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, will have seen the advertisements in the newspapers:

" Meet your friends at the opening of the grand new sauna bath-massage parlour ".
That is most encouraging. But there are more sinister aspects than that. They are used for blackmail. In the Andersonstown area, there are only two legitimate grocers shops owned by ordinary people; the rest are owned and controlled by the IRA. Those two grocers shops arc under very considerable pressure, with people watching the customers going in and out. Apparently legitimate businesses are being used to finance the foul work of these criminals.

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My honourable friend in another place, Mrs. Knight, has attempted to highlight some of the problems in the building trade where there is a big problem, because shortly the Government will be placing contracts for a huge building contract involving £54 million. I think we shall have a terrible problem if the building firm involved gets the contract. Then Government money will be financing people to commit crimes. I have been informed by somebody, who I believe really knows, that the weekly turnover of IRA businesses in Andersonstown is between £20,000 and £50,000 a week. Recently, a pub called " The Suffolk Arms " was bought for the extraordinarily high sum of £150,000. A brewery in the area now has one fully loaded lorry a week hijacked. This is only one case in which stolen goods could be used to finance violence.
In America, the Mafia were prosecuted by the Administration for income tax offences. Nobody can say that in the circumstances existing in Andersonstown it would be possible to find witnesses who would be prepared to secure conviction in this kind of case. Therefore, the powers-that-be in the administration of justice should have the right to schedule even income tax cases so that non-jury courts could administer justice.
When this change in the law was first made there were great misgivings because the people of this country are very proud of their jury system, and the Bar in Northern Ireland was as upset and worried about it as any other part of the United Kingdom. However, I feel that I speak with certainty when I say that it is generally accepted that the Bar itself is satisfied that the non-jury courts are administering justice well, truly and properly. That illustrates why I say that practically every offence committed in Northern Ireland should he charged in front of a non-jury court if it has any terrorist connotation.
I must now turn to Clause 2 of the Bill, which is the " guts " of the problem of the administration of justice in Northern Ireland. It concerns the protection of witnesses in cases covered by both the original Act and this Bill. When the Government abolished detention they were saying that the conditions which the Diplock and Gardiner Reports found no
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longer existed and that terrorists could now be convicted in front of the courts without the intimidation of witnesses, because it was the intimidation of witnesses which produced the necessity for detention in the first place. Both reports used as their yardsticks of the existence of intimidation the frequency of kneecapping, which they considered to be an indicator. I should have thought that the figures up to date of kneecapping were very unsettling and implied enormous intimidation, because between 1973 and 1974 the number of kneecappings was doubled: in 1975 it went up again by 50 per cent. and so far as I can see the numbers are still rising. it is clear to me that if the Government do not like my Bill they must show that they have an alternative, or else they are saying that they really have nothing to say and whatever witnesses come forward must just take their chance.
I should like to make it quite clear that I do not believe that this Bill will protect all witnesses in all cases, but it goes some way to protect the innocent bystander, and in Northern Ireland it is often the innocent bystander who is the best witness of all. If he had a witness protection order; if, when he was asked to bear witness he had instruction as to how he was going to be protected, I believe we should have witnesses coming, forward much more readily and justice would be done to a greater extent. Lastly, in asking the House to welcome me this Bill and to give it a Second Reading I repeat that I realise it is only a modest Bill to deal with only part of a very serious, broad and difficult problem. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—( Viscount Brookeborough.)
7.12 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the Bill which my noble friend has introduced this evening attempts to deal among other problems, with the protection of witnesses, but it is the protection of witnesses which is a very long-standing problem in Northern Ireland. In 1972, the Report of the Commission under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, found that intimidation was widespread and his Report warned that it could not be assumed that witnesses would be able to give evidence in court without risk to their lives, their families and their property. The Report

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concluded that the Government would have to resort to detention with rules of adjudication which were different from the internment procedure and it recommended also the establishment of the " Diplock Courts " as they have been called—the courts without juries—for scheduled offences. The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 carried these recommendations into effect.
Then, as my noble friend has reminded us, in 1975 another Commission sat under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and found much the same circumstances as had confronted his noble and learned predecessor. In the same paragraph quoted by my noble friend, paragraph 27, the Gardiner Report recorded 482 known cases of intimidation of witnesses during the 18 months which followed on front the 1st January 1972—and I think it is worth quoting this to show how important it is that my noble friend has brought forward this Bill this evening—
" in which civilian witnesses to murder and other offences were either too afraid to make any statement at all or, having made a statement implicating an individual, were so afraid that they refused in any circumstances to give evidence in court ".
The Gardiner Report added later that the prevalence of murder and kneecapping made this only too easy to understand. Since then, intimidation and violence have not ceased. It is true that for some months last year the nature of the violence changed from large-scale outrages to individual killings. I think that that is precisely the kind of violence which, if anything, creates more fear among members of the general public, and I understand that this year there has been a higher number of killings than in any comparable period since 1973. So the figures which terrorists present in their grim annual balance sheets have not improved and the ability to intimidate has not abated. Yet during last year the Government changed their policy when the Secretary of State released all detainees.
I think it would be fair to claim that the Secretary of State's policy rested upon one main factor; that is, that more information was becoming available which in its turn would lead to more charges being brought and more convictions being secured. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, may be able this evening to give us absolutely
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up-to-date statistics about what is always called the " success rate "—the number of convictions which are obtained in the courts. My noble friend Lord Brookeborough said that the numbers charged and convicted showed a slight reduction if one compared 1975 with 1974, and although I would welcome it—and I know my noble friend would, if the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, could give us any figures for this year which would show a trend in the other direction from which conclusions could be drawn—my own interpretation of the figures available and of the existing level of violence is that the problems of obtaining convictions through the Northern Ireland courts are not being eased. Therefore it is most important that my noble friend has introduced this Bill today. However much we may detest detention, we are driven to the conclusion that although terrorists are being brought before the courts in large numbers, widespread intimidation of witnesses persists, and this provides those who organise terrorism—the godfathers of Northern Ireland—with a safe refuge from the due processes of the law.
In asserting this I am in no way criticising all that is being achieved by the work of the Security Forces, the work of those who administer the law in Northern Ireland and also the work of the Government there. It is fair to make the point that Ministers have shown their resolution in doing away with the special category status, and it needed quite a bit of resolution to do that. But we really cannot disregard the continuing trail of crime. While the House was in Recess during the week-end of the 5th and 6th June I think I am right in saying that I I people were killed, mainly in Belfast, and many others were injured. Only on this morning's news I heard it being announced that in North Belfast a dozen people have been killed in that area of the city in the last three weeks, three of whom have died during this last week-end. The only conclusion that I find myself able to draw is that there are still men lurking in the shadows in Northern Ireland who intend to keep this murderous pot boiling.
I would go further and come now rather nearer to the terms of the Bill. I believe that the law is not dealing effectively with those who incite others to terrorism. I

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am not a lawyer, but I have read the proceedings on this point in another place in the Standing Committee on the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) (Amendment) Bill last year when the Opposition probed this point, but very briefly, and I am of course familiar with the recommendation of the Gardiner Committee that an initiative might be taken by introducing the new offence of terrorism. Therefore, as a layman I should like to ask the Government a simple question: are there any statistics which show how many people are charged and convicted with complicity in the committing of a scheduled offence without actually having committed those offences? I am hound to put it to the Government that the Opposition believe that the organisers of terrorism in Northern Ireland are simply not being brought before the courts, and, if they are, they are not being convicted. This view has been expressed from the Opposition Front Bench in another place for certainly more than a year.
This Bill therefore shows the dilemma which faces the Government: having dispensed with the detention can an alternative means of convicting terrorist organisers be found within the judicial system ? I concede that this is a desperately difficult problem, but my noble friend, in his speech, used an arresting expression. He referred to " the total strategy " of a Government in looking at a problem like this. I think that the value of this Second Reading debate is that it is requiring the Government to discuss with the House the strategy which they are trying to pursue against this intractable problem.
My Lords, having said that, I have doubts about Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill, as to whether they find a solution to the problems which they seek to solve. Clause 1 would enable the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland to bring any criminal offence within the jurisdiction of a single-judge court. I think it would be regrettable if this provision were to raise again controversy over the establishment of the Diplock Courts. One of the very welcome aspects of the Gardiner Report was that although the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, wished to see trial by jury restored in Northern Ireland as soon as possible, the noble and learned Lord and his Committee
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recognised the good work of the Diplock Courts and reported that scheduled offences should continue to be tried by those courts for the foreseeable future.
In addition to this, it is worth pointing out to my noble friend that Section 26(3) of the Emergency Provisions Act provides for the Secretary of State, by order, to be able to amend the list of scheduled offences whenever necessary. I must say that this is one of those occasions when, having heard a speech, to some extent I have changed my own mind, so persuasive I thought was the speech of my noble friend about what was going on in Andersonstown at present. Therefore I would add that, although I do not like the wording of Clause 1, I would hope that the Secretary of State would look again at the list of scheduled offences to see whether they could be altered, at least to meet the case which my noble friend has made this evening.
Clause 2, however, providing for the protection of witnesses, raises more fundamental issues. I must say I am concerned that concealment of the identity of a witness from the public or from the accused could give the impression of a move back towards detention when no such move is intended in the Bill. In addition, I would put it to my noble friend that Clause 2 would not produce the practical advantages for which he hopes. For precisely because it is the case that the concealment of identity of a witness only from the general public and from the accused would not inhibit cross-examination by counsel, so under a free process of cross-examination, the identity of the witness would soon inevitably become evident. It is worth hearing in mind that this is not my own view, but that of the Diplock Report. In paragraph 70 of that Report, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, and his colleagues said :
" We have naturally considered whether any method could be devised whereby the identity of informants could be kept secret while still enabling their evidence to be adduced in a court of law. The human difficulty is that nothing would convince them that there was no risk of their anonymity being betrayed ".
So although I support my noble friend in his attempt whereby the godfathers in Northern Ireland may be brought to trial and to conviction when guilty, I would prefer to try to tackle the problem from a different direction, by adopting the

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recommendation of creating an offence of terrorism contained in the Gardiner Report.
As I understand it, such an offence would include directing, organising, training and recruiting. I trust that it would also include inciting and providing what are known as safe houses. It seems to me that such an offence would simplify the task of indicting, as is, I believe, sometimes necessary, on a number of different counts, which I believe can relate to different Acts of Parliament, and which can have. I believe, the burden of proof shifting from the prosecution occasionally to the accused. It would be possible to introduce this offence for the whole of the United Kingdom, which surely is preferable to legislating for Northern Ireland alone.
My Lords, I would hope that if the offence of terrorism could be introduced, it would be possible to make the punishment fit the crime for this new offence; when it is considered that recruitment to terrorism in Northern Ireland can involve the recruitment of children, then I think there is a strong argument for an increase in the sentence for some of the offences which would fall within this new offence.
I am aware that this solution would not solve the problem of the protection of witnesses which my noble friend's Bill seeks to tackle in Clause 2. Therefore, I ask the Government two things. At the moment, the Secretary of State has sitting a Ministerial committee on law and order. If that committee has not already done so, will the noble Lord undertake that, through that committee, the Government will look urgently at the problem of witness protection ?—for I think my noble friend's case today is a powerful one, and that at the very least that ought to be the reaction of the Government. But at the moment, despite the successes of the Security Forces, it is my belief that the godfathers in Northern Ireland are not being apprehended, and that the Government to some extent are sitting on a knife edge. At any moment, a further upsurge in violence may require the Government to take an initiative as to how to bring to trial violent men whom the Security Forces know perfectly well are involved in terrorism.
My second question, therefore, is this: within the next two or three weeks, as my noble friend said, the Government
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will be bringing forward the order to renew the Emergency Provisions Act. Would the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge. give an undertaking that on that occasion, or, if that is too short a notice, before the House rises for the Summer Recess, the Government will come back to Parliament and make a statement as to how far they have got in perusing and tackling the problem of those who organise terrorism in Northern Ireland? If the Government will undertake to return to this problem and to let Parliament know their thinking on how to bring the organisers of terrorism to trial at least before the Summer Recess, then I hope that my noble friend may consider that the debate we are having on the Second Reading will, in itself, have been well worth while. The problems which the Bill has raised are urgent, and I know that the Government will consider them with the utmost speed.
7.28 p.m.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I rise briefly to support this Bill, but before doing so I should like to say how sad it is that relatively few noble Lords are present to hear the arguments for and against the constructive measure of the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, which seeks to deal with matters of life and death, literally, in a part of the United Kingdom. This is not an isolated aberration, due to the comparative lateness of the hour, but a constant fact of life both in this House and, I am afraid, even more so in another place. I think it is regrettable that so few people seem prepared to take a positive and constructive interest in the fate of our fellow citizens.
It is not as though this Bill, for instance, were a particularly complex, technical or esoteric Bill which necessitated a deep, profound and intimate knowledge of Northern Ireland affairs. Very few people in this country will not have read of the shocking shooting of a bus driver in front of his wife and children just before he was about to go to court to give evidence against a suspected terrorist. It is precisely this sort of atrocity that this Bill, in what I believe is a well thought out way, attempts to try to stop, or at any rate diminish: something that is not only a highly desirable thing in itself but which is likely to lead to more witnesses coming forward, leading to an increase in the detection and conviction

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rate, and thereby cutting down the incidence of sectarian assassinations such as we have seen in the past few weeks. I hope for that reason alone that the Government will give it their urgent consideration.
7.30 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for raising this very important point, and I do not wish to tangle with him over the facts. The facts are disastrously true: intimidation continues, kneecapping continues, witnesses are prevented from giving evidence, and the terrorism in one way or another has not noticeably abated. We have moments, a month or two, when it is a bit better, and moments, a month or two, when it is a hit worse. So I do not want in any sense to dispute the situation which the noble Viscount is trying to attack here.
I would make one very general remark. He spoke of the Government's inconsistencies. He is asking now in this Bill for a further zig-zag, which I think would be absolutely disastrous at this moment. The position is that the Government, in my opinion correctly, and with great courage, decided to do two things. The Government decided to abolish detention and to abolish special category. These were two steps which were taken in order to restore the rule of law and respect for the rule of law, because the minority community and a very large number of the majority community despised and hated detention and all that went with it. The main thing which went with it was witnesses behind a screen, scrambled voices and all that. This was the thing which, in our opinion, gave offence to the public and made it very difficult for us to get the public to work with us. These bold and dangerous steps were taken by my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State.
Once again I am not going to tangle with figures; I am not going to say that it is a perfectly obvious graph getting better in convictions. But our evidence from the RUC and the chief constable is that we are doing well in convicting the more serious criminals; particularly the rate for murder and attempted murder is high, and we are getting better information
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than we were getting under the old system. This is simply the information on which my right honourable friend is continuing his decision. He takes the view that to move back towards a detention situation would be a zig-zag of a bad kind and of a kind which would begin to undo some of the real benefits we have received from these two major acts of statesmanship, or whatever you like to call them. That is my general comment on the noble Viscount's Bill.
I would say a word or two in greater detail, primarily talking about Clause 2, which is the nub of the Bill. The witness who is most at risk, as the noble Viscount said, is the one who is the neighbour and the eye-witness. What happens if a witness protection order is made in respect of him? First, although no mention is made of his name in court, clearly he would have to be concealed from view. But once he spoke his identity would become apparent to the defendant, as a person's voice is often more identifiable than his appearance, and more difficult to disguise. So some attempt would have to be made to overcome this. Let us suppose, then, that the witness maintains that he had seen his neighbour with a gun or explosives in his back garden. Cross-examination would immediately locate his address. If, however, this would be held to disclose the witness's identity, and hence being contravention of the order, how could defence counsel carry out his cross-examination ? The noble Viscount might argue that, because defence counsel would know the identity of the witness, such cross-examination would be unnecessary. I do not think that defence counsel would agree. They might well wish to examine the feasibility of the witness's seeing something from a certain window at a certain time and wish to establish whether in fact the witness was where he said he was. There is a separate problem, which is that the Bill provides that the identity of every witness shall be revealed to counsel and solicitors involved in the case. I do not wish in any way to suggest anything derogatory about the very high standards of the Bar and the solicitors' profession in Northern Ireland, but it means quite a lot to people and is obviously, from the point of view where lives are at stake, a somewhat dangerous thing. So we do not like that either.

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I have a long quotation from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, and another one from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, but I am going to spare your Lordships those quotations because I think your Lordships know that both these legal luminaries were perfectly clear that it was no good trying to do what this Bill is trying to do. They both said so in so many words. I will read the quotations if the noble Viscount is doubtful, but this is a source of legal information which cannot, I think, be gainsaid.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said, what about the offence of terrorism; would the solution to this not be to take the advice in the Report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and create an offence of terrorism? This is the answer that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State gave to Lord Gardiner when he said he was not going to do this, but I give it again because I think it is valid. Terrorism is an act of violence for political ends; that is what the word means. Acts of violence are already offences under existing law. To require evidence of political intent would make the job of the Security Forces almost impossible. In other words, if you could catch a man for terrorism you could catch him for the crime he has committed. So we take the view that this might be a harmless window dressing event but it would really do nothing to support what we are all in favour of doing.
I would revert to the point I raised in opening in a little detail. A person would have to be concealed in court, and indeed the Bill provides for this, and his voice might have to be disguised. The overtones of the detention scheme are all too obvious. If the questioning of a witness were to be so restricted that cross-examination were not possible on vital points without disclosing his identity, we edge yet further towards detention. One of Lord Gardiner's Committee's strongest points was the difficulty of testing the truth by cross-examination. If, as appears from subsection (3) of Clause 2, the trial judge is to be required to undertake such cross-examination, the judicial system is then so altered that the system would inevitably be regarded as the Commissioner's form of detention. The dilemma posed by the
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Diplock Commission becomes all too apparent.
The Government have discontinued the use of detention procedures. We have been through all this, and I think all parties are glad to be rid of it. It has removed a major stumbling block in respect of co-operation with the minority community, both politically and from the security point of view. The RUC report, as I have already indicated, that their relationship with the minority community is now better than at any time since the introduction of internment in 1971—strong words. Clearly, it is important not to revert back to the problems caused by detention, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has this very much to the front of his mind.
There are certain lesser objections with which I will not bother your Lordships because I think I have made it clear that if the Secretary of State or I, or any of us concerned with this, thought that this Bill would do what the noble Viscount wants it to do, we should welcome it. We do not believe it would, and we believe in the end it would do more harm than good.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, asked me to give an undertaking (a thing I am always rather reluctant to do) that my right honourable friend in another place, or I here, when the Emergency Provisions Act comes up for renewal, would say what we were doing about the organisation of terrorism and what extra steps we were taking to get the men behind the terrorists. This is what I understood the noble Lord to be asking. What I will say by way of an undertaking is that my right honourable friend will give an absolutely full description in discussion, subject to the security restraints, of which there are always a certain number, of what he and the security forces are doing. I cannot say more than that, but that I will say. It would be a normal part of his putting the position before the House, and I do not think that the noble Lord can ask me to do more than that. That I do gladly.
The noble Lord also asked me whether the Ministerial committee, which is sitting and is getting near to reporting, would pay special attention to the question of intimidation of witnesses, which we have been discussing tonight. The answer is that

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this is central to their whole approach. When the noble Lord asked me that he asked me nothing. It is rather like saying, Is a Ministerial committee sitting?" This is the problem in Northern Ireland, and of course they are considering it, and considering it extremely closely. I am not going to say whether they are coming up with any answers because they have not reported yet. In any case, if they do come up with any answers they may well be answers which, for security reasons, had better not be made public. I can assure the noble Lord that basically the subject of this Bill is at least half the problem of Northern Ireland at the moment, and nobody denies this, and the closest attention is being given to it.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brooke-borough, referred to figures. I am not going to argue figures with him. I will look into them. I think that there has been a small decrease here and there, but the view taken is that the type of crime proceeded against and the men convicted are more serious than the type included in earlier figures. But I should like to write to the noble Viscount on this because over figures it is important that we should be talking the same language.
I would support the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. I think that our debate has been useful. Certainly the Ministerial committee will read it, and read it carefully. I think it would he a mistake to take this Bill further at this stage because it is quite clear that, from the Government's point of view, it is not acceptable. Therefore, I think, in a sense, the next stage would he rather wasting the time of the House, but I do not think that the noble Viscount has wasted our time up to this date, and I hope that perhaps he would be persuaded to leave it at that.
7.43 p.m.
Viscount BROOK EBOROUGH: My Lords, may I reply quickly to the debate. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Belstead, who always shames me with such a nice turn of speech, and who covers the ground in such an extremely able way. I am always conscious of my inadequacies in dealing in detail with any particular subject. I want to make it clear that if the noble and learned Lords,
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Lord Gardiner and Lord Diplock, found the problem of protection of witnesses a difficult problem, that difficulty still exists. Equally, if they decided that detention was the only way to overcome the problem and the Government decide not to have detention, then the Government must examine with greater vigour that particular problem.
May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge—and I want to thank him very much for his kind reply—that I have never thought that we could protect all witnesses, and the " neighbour " which he talks about is one you cannot protect. I have seen preparations for crime, but I have never seen actual crimes committed in terrorist situations. But on many occasions the most valuable witness is the innocent passer-by. He can be protected by this, and that is worth considering.
I have lived through this terrorist situation for a very long time. Time and time again we have asked for something to be done and we have been told that it is impossible because of security policy and legal matters, but it has been done in the end. I am convinced that, with the development of " legitimate " illegitimate businesses, this problem has to be tackled. If the Government cannot deal with it this way, how are they going to deal with it? Or are they going to let the men of violence dominate vast areas of Belfast with legimately or illegitimately owned businesses? This is the problem, because at the present moment these men cannot be brought to justice.
In conclusion, and in asking leave of the House to withdraw the Bill, may I say that it would be churlish of me not to support my noble friend in his admiration of the courage shown on the abolition of political status, which was a terrible stain on our justice. I think we have been very lucky that that has appeared to go off as well as it has done. I should also like to support the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, in saying that the relationship between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and areas which were disaffected is definitely better, and I should not like to take part in anything that would worsen that situation. I do not believe that in these two instances it would have that effect, but that must be a matter of judgment.

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May I give the noble Lord fair warning—I hope that he is terrified!—that next Session I hope, with strong support from my noble friends, to introduce a much more comprehensive Bill (maybe learning from what happens between now and the Report of the Committee) to deal with a wider range of problems concerning the security situation in Northern Ireland. I beg leave to withdraw the Bill.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
l, by leave, withdrawn.

HORTICULTURE CAPITAL GRANT (VARIATION) SCHEME 1976
7.48 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI Lord STRABOLGI rose to move, That the Horticulture Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1976, laid before the House on 26th May, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Horticulture Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1976, which was laid before this House on 26th May, be approved. The Horticulture Capital Grant Scheme plays an important part in the Government's policy of encouraging growers to increase productivity through improved efficiency. In addition to these capital grants, growers benefit from the research and advice available from the advisory services of the Agricultural Departments.
My Lords, the main changes proposed in this variation Scheme are contained in the Schedule. First, it is proposed that growers of cane fruit be eligible for a grant of 15 per cent. on the provision, replacement or improvement of stakes and wirework needed to grow their crops. The most important crop in this group is raspberries and some 80 per cent. of these are grown in Scotland. Growers of loganberries and blackberries would also benefit from the new arrangements. Secondly, grant is extended to the provision of water supply to open fields. This is a logical extension of the existing arrangements and fixed (permanent) pipelines would he eligible for a grant of 25 per cent. Irrigation equipment at the point of delivery is already eligible for a grant of 15 per cent.
Thirdly, it is proposed that the very detailed and specific list of eligible plant
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and equipment in Schedule 1 of the principle Scheme be replaced by more general descriptions. It is not intended thereby to extend the grant to equipment for use in other areas than at present; but the removal of references to specific equipment avoids any unnecessary restriction on the grant aiding of newly developed machinery. The remaining changes to the original Scheme are relatively minor and are intended to bring it into line with Amendments to the other capital grant schemes. These involve an increase in the limit of expenditure, metrication of the eligibility criteria, the ending of grants for hedge grubbing as a separate operation, provision for the receipt of claims when the Scheme ends and a change in the definition of labour unit. My Lords, I commend this variation Scheme to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Horticulture Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1976, laid before the House on 26th May, be approved.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the House will indeed be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for introducing this variation Scheme, especially in view of the fact that it is aimed at increasing productivity and following the Government's programme as set out in the White Paper Food from our Own Resources. This is a non-controversial matter of the first order, it being concerned with food production, and we congratulate the Government on bringing forward this small measure in that it helps towards the target set for horticulture, which I understand is a 5 per cent. increase by 1980. It is noteworthy that no fewer than 10,000 applications were received between January 1974 and March 1976 for a total investment in horticulture of no less than £27.5 million, which would expect to incur a grant of £2.4 million. One especially welcome feature of this Scheme is in regard to water supply and the industry will undoubtedly be glad to hear that a grant of 25 per cent. is to be awarded to permanent pipework, which is in addition to the 15 per cent. on equipment which has already been granted in this connection. In thanking the noble Lord for bringing this to our attention, it is fair to say that it is all part of the Capital Grant Structure Scheme and that this is the third of the trio.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the welcome he has given this Scheme and for his constructive speech.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ORDNANCE SURVEY CHARGES
7.53 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT Lord TEVIOT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the charges being made by the Ordnance Survey for the production by publishers of information are reasonable. The noble Lord said : My Lords, maps have been published in this country since the 16th century. The National Survey was set up in 1791 for defence purposes in Scotland. The first map in England was that of Kent published in 1801 and this country can be very proud of its achievements in cartography throughout the world; we set the pace which others have followed. The industry can also be proud of its export achievements.
Many of the well-known companies in commercial map publishing, too, were established in the 19th century. It is true to say that they derived their base material from the National Survey under licence agreements. However, they have been dependent on other sources besides the Ordnance Survey to ensure that they give accurate and up-to-date information, and they maintain constant contact with the ground, particularly the recent development in projected and completed streets and roads, information which is not readily available from Ordnance Survey material. In short, they are understandably dependent on public resources for their information, but one must emphasise that commercial map publishers are not in direct competition with the Ordnance Survey.
While admittedly they do this in anticipation of making profits, they do so with a view to providing the public with current information in the combination and form they want. To acknowledge use of the National Survey base, whose sole original purpose was defence, commercial map publishers paid the Ordnance Survey a small fee for each map produced. A special scale of payments was issued by
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the Ordnance Survey to assist in the administration and collection of the charges, and the publishers paid accordingly. The scale was designed to discount charges on long print runs, thus ensuring the economic production of map products to the mass market. It was therefore the policy of the Ordnance Survey to assist the availability of lower priced maps to the public, including of course all types of educational institutions from infant schools to universities and technical colleges.
However, in 1973 the Ordnance Survey wished for consultation with the commercial map publishers to discuss the mechanics of implementing a new system of royalty charges. Three years of discussion followed, at which point the Ordnance Survey declared their intention to increase those historic charges to map publishers by colossal sums of money—to use its own words—millions and not thousands of pounds. Unfortunately, there was no way in which the Ordnance Survey would bend ; it was dogmatic in its intention to go ahead with its proposed plans. Thus, with effect from 1st January of this year, the Ordnance Survey have introduced a new, increased scale of fees, with further rises planned to take effect from 1st January 1977 and 1st January 1978 which will have a highly damaging effect on the ability of the industry to produce maps without increasing prices substantially.
The Map Publishers Group of the Publishers Association believe that these new fees, which appear to be based on the policy that the Ordnance Survey should be more self-supporting, are damaging to the public interest and mistaken in their intent. Their major arguments are, first, that the Ordnance Survey by nature is principally a national service which cannot be financed substantially by the production and sale of maps; secondly, that the increases imposed are, in the words of the Department of Prices Policy and Consumer Credit, " astronomically and admittedly steep "; thirdly, that the Ordnance Survey has included maps of smaller scale which were not previously subject to fees and which, because of their scale, owe little, if anything, to Ordnance Survey material; fourthly, that if allowed to go through, the new scale is bound to affect the cost of maps to the general public and have a

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damaging effect on employment in the publishing industry; and, fifthly, that by its policy, the Ordnance Survey appears to be taking on itself certain decisions as to whether commercial publications should or should not be published by virtue of the size of fee imposed.
I come to the Government Trading Funds Act 1973, where it was proposed that the Ordnance Survey should be financed by means of a trading fund. While there was no argument with the principle of the Act, there was considerable concern at that time about the inclusion of the Ordnance Survey. I will not go into the arguments against because they apply equally now as they did then. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, moved an Amendment in your Lordships' House on 17th October 1973 in the names of my noble friend Lord Balerno and other noble Lords. I am pleased to see this evening that both noble Lords are here, together with other distinguished noble Lords. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandys, who has had more than a basinful with local government, horticulture and now maps.
I should like to know whether the Government have plans to make the Ordnance Survey a trading organisation. If not, could they give a positive assurance that they have no intention to do so ? The only way that they could do so is by an Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Gowrie, who in any event said that the area would have to be fully discussed before both Houses of Parliament. In that debate, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said—at col. 1965 of the Official Report—that he would not like map users, particularly in the academic community, to be charged through the nose simply in order that the trading fund, when established, could break even. We owe it to the academic community, the universities and schools, to provide them with these services at reasonable cost. This is exactly what has happened in the present situation, which I intend to go into more thoroughly when I have discussed the effect of the new scale of fees upon education.
The new scale of fees is set out in Ordnance Survey Leaflet No. 23, which appears to be a very contentious document so far as its legality is concerned. One peculiarity is that the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, in whom
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copyright is vested by Royal Letters Patent, has delegated powers to the Director General Ordnance Survey for the day-to-day administration of copyright in Ordnance Survey maps, including the determination of terms and conditions under which permission for their reproduction is given. This seems, to say the least, very odd as the Controller himself is being charged royalties on the use of his own material. It should also be mentioned that, with few exceptions throughout the world, information of this nature is considered to be in the public domain and is open for all to use without charge.
It must also be re-emphasised that these are only the first stages of the increases which, as I have already stated, will result in the disappearance of many lower priced products from the market. These include basic road maps, walking books and guides. It is at this point that I must declare an interest because I have published two small walking books on Sussex.
The Ordnance Survey charges to a commercial publisher are and always have been treated as a production cost. Any increase is therefore totally reflected in increased costs to the public. The publishers themselves must also bear substantial increases by providing working capital to pay these fees. For example, a major map publisher will have to pay increased fees of £400 on a print run of 20,000 copies of a plan. As the firm has over 100 plans in its published list of titles, many of which are large print runs, it is now expected to raise an extra £50,000 to fund the same operation as in previous years. Add to that figure its other map products on which the new fees are now to be levied, and the burden may well become unbearable both for the publisher and the public.
The point should be made that publishers do not sell direct to the public, as the Ordnance Survey well know. They have themselves to distribute products through an established system of structured trade discounts, both wholesale and retail. I could quote many examples of individual increases to the public, product by product. However, I felt that, due to the many hundreds of titles involved, it would be more practical if I merely instanced two examples of increases to

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publishers. One is a collective increased charge and the other relates to an individual textbook. The London Transport Authority's publications produced in 1975 were charged £1,300 by the Ordnance Survey. In 1976, the figure had become £46,000, recoverable only from fare-payers. In the field of education, a text book printed in 1975 attracted a fee of £272. If reprinted now, the fee would be £3,200, recoverable only from capitation fees.
I now come to the second question of which I have given prior notice, and which I should like to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. Are costs of the National Survey included in the fees charged, and are costs of the National Survey included in the cost of Ordnance Survey published maps? Surely plant, preparation and plate-making costs should be set against the Exchequer in support of the National Survey which, both historically and traditionally, is a national responsibility. The Estimates Committee Report for 1962/63 clearly lays down the costing policy to be followed. The map publishers have been informed that prices have been increased on Treasury orders to recover part of the cost of this Survey, but should commercial publishers be expected to recover that cost for the Ordnance Survey? The answer to this question is of great importance, particularly as the Department for Prices Policy and Consumer Credit has called the new fees levied on commercial maps, " astronomical and admittedly steep ". Also, their implementation coincided with a letter from that same Government Department asking publishers to hold down book prices and inviting them to join the " Price Check " scheme.
Apart from the colossal increase in fees levied on map products which conditionally carried a royalty charge, the Ordnance Survey have arbitrarily increased the coverage on which fees are now due, thus encompassing many types of publication previously exempted. In short, they have extended the previous scale limitation of 6 miles to one inch to 16 miles to one inch. In a letter to the Bookseller on 24th April 1976, the Ordnance Survey attempted to justify the change by stating that it was done to protect the sales of their own route planning map (scale
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10 miles to one inch) and to include in their scales charges for reproducing part of an Ordnance Survey map for revision purposes. However, the effect of the new fees and the extension of scales will immediately put into jeopardy a number of educational text books and atlases.
Price increases in the Ordnance Survey maps—traditionally a working tool for both teacher and student—will also add to the educational burden and the extra costs can only come from already hard-pressed capitation fees and will doubtless mean fewer books for children. A well known publisher who has a substantial educational list, pointed out recently that a mapwork textbook with a printing of 20,000 copies would face a 1,100 per cent. increase in the royalty charge, which on this one book represents an increase of £2,900. That same publisher has stated to Ordnance Survey that, " it becomes clear that a very steep rise in the copyright fee charged will have a very serious effect on our list." This attitude is shared by many other publishers who are similarly placed, and it is confirmed by the Educational Publishers Council.
An article was published on this matter in the Times Educational Supplement of 2nd April, 1976. Also, to quote the view of educational establishment authorities, I have heard from a Head of Department of Geography at London Polytechnic that the increases have seriously hampered the work of his department in that they are now unable to buy many products which are essential to them. A letter in the Geographical Magazine (Vol. 48, April 1976) from a Senior Lecturer at the University of Durham confirmed that he considers that the Ordnance Survey's policy will have significant ramifications in the educational organisations in this country, particularly schools. He suggested that a loss leader in the map sales to schools might immediately benefit the Ordnance Survey by introducing more children to a range of products from our national mapping institute.
For many years, the Ordnance Survey have encouraged commercial publishers to invest heavily in and develop an industry which they themselves could make no real attempt to influence or support. They are now, under the guise of being more commercially minded, riding on the back of private enterprise, with possibly

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a view to taking over the market for themselves. The increase in map sales in this country, which the Ordnance Survey's present action will now halt, has been achieved by the commercial map publishers producing goods at fair prices to meet and nurture a growing public demand. This was recognised by the Ordnance Survey in their decision to enter into the market some years ago; it is surely their failure to compete on equal terms which has led to their ultimate attempt to change the rules so that only they can win.
One wonders by what right this has been done. It must be accepted that, unless these increases can be halted, there will be the usual dreary acceleration of cut-back which we hear of almost every day in your Lordships' House, job losses in a previously profitable and expanding industry, and a carry-over into the already troubled areas of specialised printing. The net result will be a considerable loss to the Ordnance Survey of the now punitive revenue they are hoping to collect from that industry.
While the map publishing industry will applaud any action which is designed to transform a Government Agency dependent on subsidies from the taxpayers into a commercially viable operation, apart from the cost of the National Survey, they are greatly concerned when the methods employed are to the detriment of an industry developed to serve both public and educational needs. Can it, therefore, be justified in terms of fair trading to recover increased benefits from commercial map publishers to make the Ordnance Survey more competitive with those same publishers? If so, the suggestion arises that the only way a Government Agency can become competitive is either by a subsidy from the Exchequer or from its competitors. May I ask if every publisher of maps is subject to the regulations laid down by the Ordnance Survey's Leaflet No. 23, because the Ordnance Survey have repeatedly stated that the new scale of charges was introduced to correct anomalies in the previous structure? In effect they have increased those anomalies.
A guide and handbook contains a 48 page map section, produced at a scale of 10 miles to one inch, which is technically within the new royalty coverage.
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Yet because the map is reputed to have been based on material other than the National Survey no royalty is payable. Also, even though the Ordnance Survey have declared that the information used to up-date and amend any map of this country must have been derived from Ordnance Survey sources and must therefore he subject to a royalty charge, again in this instance it is reported that no royalty is payable. Can it be that these new scales, introduced to correct anomalies, are open to negotiation? A point in question would be the case of the oil companies' maps where the proportion of Ordnance fees in the selling price has risen from 8.25 per cent. to 3615 per cent. Due to these new fees now imposed on them there is every likelihood that they will be produced by a publisher who is reputed not to pay fees to the Ordnance Survey, as it is said that their maps are not based on information from the Ordnance Survey. Should this change of publisher occur due to the fees now imposed, Ordnance Survey will lose fees they are intending to collect and the existing publisher will lose a considerable amount of turnover.
In the letter (previously mentioned) to the Bookseller, the Deputy Director of the Ordnance Survey Publications stated that Ordnance Survey attempt to establish an authorship right in all maps published of this country. To quote an example, the managing director of a company producing walk books, who visited the Ordnance Survey recently, was told that technically a sketch map he had produced himself to guide him from his office in Buckinghamshire to the Ordnance Survey in Southampton was subject to a royalty charge as the information used must have been derived from Ordnance Survey sources. This seems far-fetched in the extreme. This point was also brought to light by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in 1973 when he stated that if you reproduce an Ordnance Survey map, or get maps printed by someone who has not got a licence, you are liable to a royalty charge. On the point in question this map was produced from memory and was not a direct reproduction from Ordnance Survey. However, royalty would appear to be claimed by them in exactly the same way.
I should like briefly to get back to the Government Trading Fund Bill for the

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moment, in relation to which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, made the point that the application of copyright policy to the area in which the information is available only from Government sources has very serious implications. The map publishers asked the Ordnance Survey to wait until after the Whitford Committee reported on their findings into the copyright law of this country, and in both cases they were refused. As submissions by both the map publishers and the Ordnance Survey have been presented to that Committee, I should like to ask whether it is known when the Whitford Committee's findings will be published, for that information is not yet readily available. Perhaps the noble Baroness can enlighten me on the matter. In view of the serious implications of this matter, I hope that the noble Baroness and the Department of the Environment, together with the Ordnance Survey, will agree to delay the implementation of the new scale of charges until a full inquiry is carried out, as was requested by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and acknowledged by my noble friend Lord Gowrie in 1973—particularly as I understand that the Ordnance Survey are now considering concessions for educational publications.
My Lords, one must firmly emphasise that all mapping products are, in one form or another, educational to the user and it would appear that the Ordnance Survey are now beginning to realise the full implications of their own actions. In view of these doubts a full inquiry with all parties concerned must be called for at the earliest possible time.
8.14 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to my noble friend Lord Teviot for bringing forward this Unstarred Question upon an issue of very wide concern, as has been demonstrated by letters in the Press and in a number of articles which have come to your Lordships' attention. My noble friend has digressed at considerable length on the details of the situation, but in introducing my own short remarks I wish to say first what a pleasure it is to take part in a debate with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, a former President of the Royal Geographical Society. As a Fellow of that same society for the past
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20 years I am also a map user but of a very much less experienced nature.
This evening the Ordnance Survey are in the witness box and it is an unfortunate situation because here is a very old and well respected Government Department. T think that everyone who has had any contact with the Ordnance Survey can claim them as a friend of education and a friend of the Armed Services of this country and of many countries overseas. Many Governments can I think attribute their own National Surveys to the Ordnance Survey because experts from the Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom have gone to the four corners of the globe to advise on surveys. It is not only a national institution ; it is an international institution known throughout the world.
What has taken place in this present dispute has been brought about by circumstances, and it can be demonstrated that a succession of events has achieved what was not originally intended. It would be beneficial to dwell particularly on the positive aspects and not on the negative ones at present. I should like to echo what my noble friend Lord Teviot has asked and to say that I believe that the solution to many of the points he raised may lie in the ambit of the recommendations of the Whitford Committee, and I hope that we shall hear from the noble Baroness about when we may expect to receive the report of the Committee.
We have before us the new leaflet No. 23, which the Ordnance Survey published and which was referred to by my noble friend. It is a melancholy fact that this seemingly innocent looking document, with its tables and its terse and somewhat unilluminating remarks on castings has given rise to the present situation. It is remarkable to me to read leaflet No. 23 and then to listen to my noble friend Lord Teviot say that it has given rise to no less than a 1,100 per cent. royalty increased charge in the case of one particular publication. Surely once again here is an unintended situation coming forward, arising out of a number of circumstances which taken together have produced something wholly unacceptable to the map using public.
I should like to refer to correspondence which appeared in the Bookseller in

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April and May this year. I believe that two letters—one from the Deputy Director of Publications of the Ordnance Survey, on 24th April, and the reply, on 22nd May, from the Chairman of the Map Publishers Group—will give us in essence the case as set before your Lordships. Turning first to the situation as set out by the Ordnance Survey, it struck me as remarkable that over 90 per cent. of the Ordnance Survey copyright revenue comes from the holders of business licences; that is local authorities, the Post Office, public utilities, and businesses and professions concerned with the development of land and buildings. My Lords, as I understand it, this is quite outside what my noble friend Lord Teviot was pleased to term the general public users; that is to say, the users of oil company maps of very large number, the users of educational publications, et cetera. Therefore, the Ordnance Survey, when writing in April, claimed that a very high proportion of their revenue comes from this relatively small but very important group of users.
The second point I wish to make is that we are looking at a three-stage group of increases, 1977 being the second stage and 1978 being the third. I would put it to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, in view of the very welcome announcement made by Her Majesty's Government at the weekend that the rate of inflation has been cut to 15 per cent., that perhaps this may be a further argument for the reduction of these charges; because, no doubt, built into the pricing system being adopted by the Ordnance Survey is the assumption that the level of inflation would perhaps be higher than it has turned out to be.
We are speaking after a three-year discussion, 1973 to 1976, which took place between the Ordnance Survey and the map publishers, and it seems remarkable to the layman, like myself, that in the course of this very long discussion there should not have been some point or some evidence, some initiative by one side or the other, which could have given rise to an agreement. It is a matter of regret that these talks broke up without any agreement being reached ; and we shall look forward to hearing the Government's view as expressed later in the debate.
8.22 p.m.
Lord MANCROFT: My Lords, I should like to offer a few words in support of the
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contention put forward by my noble friend Lord Teviot. I, too, share his view that this policy of the Ordnance Survey is very much to be regretted, and I think it will have far-reaching and unfortunate results. I think the reasons they put forward this new policy are perfectly respectable and praiseworthy. They desire to make themselves commercially viable, and nobody can grumble at that point of view. It is the way they are trying to do it. They have put up their figures to a degree which no commercial concern would dare to imitate, and they are surprised that there has been some measure of protest. We must not fall into the usual political trap of saying that we must have a widespread degree of Government economy, but not here; that Government expenditure must he cut to the bone, " but not my bone ". Similarly, we have frequently heard Members of another place say, " There must be widespread Government saving, but not in my constituency ". So let us not fall into the trap of saying, " Of course, we must have economies everywhere, but not in the Ordnance Survey "; and I do not say that. I think their reasons for trying to do this are good: their methods are extortionate.
I take one point only in order not to take up too much of your Lordships' time. I have for 25 years been concerned in one way or another with tourism and the travel industry. I still am, though no longer in a commercial role. This decision has been greeted with widespread dismay in the tourist world. The effects will be far-reaching. It will surely mean that certain publications will go out of business. I will not waste your Lordships' time by telling your Lordships how widespread the use of maps is in the tourist industry, from the modest little books of which the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, is the author, as he has just told us, to town plans, tourist maps, road maps, very expensive posters and the like—the whole field.
I am told that the British Tourist Authority are extremely anxious about this because their costs are going up as a result of this decison by something like 700 per cent. Many maps are going to be far too expensive for the ordinary tourist. Many publications which are welcomed by tourists to this country are going to go out of business. For 10 years I had the honour to be President of the London Tourist Board. We used to produce this little map, The London Mini-Plan, which

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was very popular. It did not cost a great deal, and we used to produce it in such numbers that we could afford to give it away free in large numbers, too. I understand that the cost of producing that little London mini-plan is going up by 300 per cent. It will be quite impossible to make it commercially viable or to be able to give it away. Incidentally, I have in my other pocket several spare copies, and if any noble Lord should like one while stocks last he has only to say so.
My Lords, I must not concentrate solely on tourism. There are, of course, other and equally important, if not more important, aspects where this policy will touch. The noble Lord mentioned defence, of course. As the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said, in our map industry we do indeed have something of which we can be immensely proud, and other countries realise that. Defence is a particularly important subject in which the map world is concerned. Where are we now? It is mid-June. In mid-June 32 years ago, like many others of your Lordships, I found myself walking about the roads and fields of Normandy, greatly helped in my task by the quite superlative maps with which we were supplied, which made our tasks infinitely easier—many of them, I suspect, made by the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in the RAF photographic unit. They photographed the beaches and the sand dunes almost every day, and we knew where every blade of grass was—and we blessed them for doing it. That standard of map-making is the envy of the world, and I fear that the policy of the Ordnance Survey may prejudice that standard by unbalancing the supply and demand ratio.
It was not always so. We did not always have that standard in the Armed Services. I remember the late Lord Leicester, who died at a ripe old age during the war, showing me a very scruffy pencilled map in his home at Holkham Hall. He said, " That is the map upon which the First Battalion of the Scots Guards went into action at the Battle of Tel el Kebir. It is the only map we had. What do you think of it? " I said, " How did you come by it? ", and he said, " My soldier servant and I crawled about all the night before on our stomachs making it for the commanding officer because he had no map. He went
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into battle victoriously on the map I made, and the other two battalions in the brigade had to advance led by a Royal Naval officer with a small pocket compass ". It was even worse at the Battle of the Crimea. Lord Raglan fought the battle of Al'ma without a map and never knew where the River Al'ma was. He would not have done much better if he had known, quite frankly, where the River Al'ma was. What I fear, therefore, is that if we are going backwards—and this is a retrograde step that I believe the Ordnance Survey, with quite respectable intentions, are taking— we shall all end up as a nation of mapless Raglans; and I, my Lords, for one part, do not approve.
8.29 p.m.
Lord BALERNO: My Lords, may I follow the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, with another anecdote of a different nature? Way up in the North of Aberdeenshire is a parish which is called King Edward—two words, "King Edward ". It is spoken of by the natives there as " Kineddar ", and it has been known as " Kineddar " for some centuries. The reason it is called " King Edward " is that rather more than 100 years ago, when the Ordnance Survey were making the one-inch map of the district, the sergeant who was commanding the survey party asked a native what it was called and, on hearing that it was called " Kineddar ", he put down " King Edward ". So we had a King Edward church, a King Edward station and the whole parish of King Edward—two words. Unfortunately, both the church and the railway station have now disappeared, but the Ordnance Survey have done a wonderful piece of work. I have just checked up on the last issue of the map: they have produced a Castle of King Edward.
My Lords, I say this because I think that the Ordnance Survey have every right to the copyright in the name " King Edward " in relation to that part of Scotland. That does not give them a copyright on the name of Aberdeen or London. A most useful function of the Ordnance Survey has been to establish uniformity in the spelling of place names. Why should other map publishers have to pay a fee to Ordnance Survey for maintaining this uniformity which is necessary if we

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are going to have things done in proper order?
I should like to approach this subject from an academic if not a slightly moral point of view. I trust I am not going to bore your Lordships; but this unilateral and massive increase by the Ordnance Survey in their so-called royalties demands a probe into their justification for any payments at all by the map publishers. I would immediately grant the right of Ordnance Survey to charge royalties on the reproduction or near reproduction of any map they produce. The law of copyright justifies this. And where an Ordnance survey map is copied for the purposes of a Government inquiry or any other administrative commercial requirements. Then the Ordnance Survey would be justified in making a whacking charge. If you take the Oxford English Dictionary definition of " royalties " you will find that it reads:
" A payment made to an author, editor or composer for each copy of a book, piece of music etc. sold by the publisher or for the representation of a play."
That would cover the reproduction of a map. But by what right can it he said to cover also the information covered by the map—that was a point which my noble friend Lord Teviot made—and not only places but also the location and elevation ?
I submit that where what is really public information is taken from an Ordnance Survey map and reproduced in a totally different form, as for instance, a road map, and on a totally different scale, the question of royalties does not arise. There is no copyright on information itself, but only on the way it has been produced, be it book or map. A very great deal of scientific research is ordered or subsidised by the Government. This research is eventually published in scientific journals and books. While verbatim extracts from such books or journals are subject to copyright with the consequence of a possible royalty payment, the information contained in them is free for all who care to read and understand and to use as they think fit without any taxation at all. Nobody would suggest that such information should be taxed in order to pay for the cost of research. But that are precisely what the Ordnance Survey are intending to do:
" To move to full recoupment of losses on its services."
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Those are the words contained in a letter from the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. Information conveyed by the Ordnance Survey maps must, therefore, also be freed from this absurd proposition. The user of the information and not only the user of the Ordnance Survey map must contribute substantially to the cost of running the Ordnance Survey. Maps, whether they derive from Ordnance Survey or elsewhere, are as much the infrastructure of our civilisation as the scientific and technical knowledge which makes its wheels go round and raises the standard of our living.
It seems to me that the map publishers have been very generous in accepting these levies made on them by the Ordnance Survey under the guise of royalties. I think that it is their inherent decency that has led to the Ordnance Survey making this extortionate levy on them now. The Ordnance Survey have compounded their crime in two ways. First, there is a Committee sitting on the copyright law. The Ordnance Survey have refused to defer the introduction of the new charges until the Whitford Committee have reported. This seems to savour somewhat of bureaucratic arrogance. Secondly, the Ordnance Survey have, on occasion, copied many improvements and innovations in cartography made by other printers and publishers of maps. They do not acknowledge this on the maps that they publish; but they insist that all maps published by others must carry acknowledgements to them.
In conclusion, my Lords, the very high charges which the Ordnance Survey are demanding leads me to the suspicion that they may be trying to get a monopoly in map production in the United Kingdom. They are attempting to break up any competition. This is a pity ; for the record for the work of the Ordnance Survey stands so high. I suppose that no other country in the world has a better service both of survey and of mapping and it has rightly earned the gratitude of so many of its citizens. What a pity it should now be made to play this dirty trick!
8.36 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to say that I am not gatecrashing by speaking before the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I am doing so

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because I am probably the least qualified person to speak in this debate and he is probably the most knowledgeable. Therefore, I am giving way with grace and happiness that we shall be hearing from him something that is really worth while.
I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, on such an erudite speech and one on which, obviously, he has done a great deal of work, but I should like also to support those who have said what a pity it is that the map publishers stated that they were prepared to abide by the findings of the Whitford Committee but that this was not agreed. If it had been agreed we should not have needed this debate tonight at this late hour because both the Group and the Ordnance Survey had said they would agree to the findings.
I was slightly worried about the wording of the Motion. I thought it only too easy for Her Majesty's Government to say that they were satisfied with the increased charges although they had not agreed to them in the first place; but perhaps when the noble Baroness comes to reply she will not merely say they are satisfied but will give us some details of the reasons why she may not be satisfied with all of them.
I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to a letter written by George Philip, which, I think, puts the case in a nutshell. He was replying to a letter of the 24th April which was written by Miss Betty Drewitt. He says:
" Is Betty Drewitt seriously claiming that the Ordnance Survey consider themselves to be the author of a map produced by another publisher? It might just as well he said that Beethoven should pay royalty to Steinway because he composed his 5th Symphony using a Steinway grand. Let us be honest and forget the word royalty, for the Ordnance Survey royalties are no more than fees and are arbitrary at that."
That sums it up very well. I hope today that we shall be able to agree, and persuade others, that these increases are not satisfactory.
I want to quote another passage from the letter quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, by the Prices and Policies Consumer Credit department, which stated:
" I can fully understand your concern at what in some cases represents as astronomical increase in fees."
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It goes on to say that it is also admitted that a private sector firm may increase the price of a loss-making product to afford a small margin over the total cost. I should like to know what is a small margin. Perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to tell us. I understand that in 1896 an Inter-Departmental Committee was appointed to consider the prices of Ordnance Survey maps and that there was a recommendation that maps should not be sold at a price less than the cost of printing; that is to say, excluding the cost of the survey division and the preparation of plates. We all recognise that printing and paper costs have risen fantastically in recent years. Though I understand it has been the policy of the Ordnance Survey to assist the availability of lower priced maps to the public schools and universities, I believe the Crown Copyright Reserve will be sufficient for a reproduction of fewer than 200 square centimetres in an atlas or guide book. Full acknowledgment is required to be put in a prominent position. It appears that the copyright charges have risen over recent years by 30 per cent. so commercial publishers may now have to limit certain titles and discard others.
I am particularly interested in the educational aspects of this. Ministers are requesting local authorities—and we have had a number of them—to cut back expenditure; but many schools, technical schools and colleges of further education need these maps. Schools are likely to be the hardest hit. Mapwork is part of most of the geography courses. There is compulsory mapwork in most geography examinations. Examination boards, for example, supply each candidate with his own map. This was 65p in 1975 and this year is now £1.15. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, referred to the increase in the number of copies. If the educational authority wishes, for example, to order 20,000 copies, that is a 1,100 per cent. increase. Last November it would have cost £272.69, but the reprints will be £3,200. The charge for each extra copy was 1 p and it will now be 16p. Surely this is not reasonable. In regard to dealing with education, a book of four maps which was 1p per copy is now 4p per copy.

Mr. Mothersole, the Director of the Educational Publishers Council, stated that he did not have any idea of the effect of the new charges when they were first

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planned. The Ordnance Survey are dependent on Exchequer funds. Again, we come to the rate and taxpayers and this affects education. It appears that the Ordnance Survey's recent action has completely changed the basis on which maps are published in this country. It would seem that the only result will be fewer maps being published at higher rates, and fewer being produced for educational purposes. It is not just the schools which are affected, but the Scouts, the Duke of Edinburgh's award and young people who use maps; also the Services—which have been mentioned before—use them, and if one may be parochial here, we have been hearing of the necessity for maps on " The Archers " because they have had trouble with the bridle paths.
It appears to be in contradiction to the hydrographic maps and surveys—and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is wiserthan I am on this subject—which, by their overseas sales, I understand make a profit, or they did last year. So one can infer that it is intended that there should be State control in regard to the publishing of Ordnance Surveys by means of increasing royalties or withholding permission to produce certain products. Several publishers are wondering if this is not the thin end of the wedge. Map sales by commercial map publishers have been up-to-date increasing, producing the goods at what I think everyone will agree are fair prices. Will the Minister state what further increases are contemplated for 1977–78?
In conclusion, I should like to say that in their determined effort to make the map user pay for what is a public responsibility—the National Survey—the Ordnance Survey have inflicted such increases on the commercial map makers as may well ensure that their own operation has no viable competition. Historically, copyright has been for the protection of the originator; Ordnance Survey are now using it both to make profits and to damage an independent industry. I hope that at the end of this evening's debate the noble Baroness will give us some comforting words and that the people who have been working so hard on behalf of the publishers will see that they have a future.
8.45 p.m.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady
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Vickers, for allowing me to change places with her on the list of speakers. The reason why I asked for this change was that I understood that it was the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, that I should wind up this debate for him. The fact that I happen to be sitting on the same side of the House as the Government is no indication that I am on their side in this matter. Indeed, it will be apparent very soon that I am not on their side. I would not wish to follow the noble Baroness into the question of the Hydrography Service because that is also a very sad story, but it is an area in which I believe there are some signs of repentence on behalf of the Government, signs which are wholly lacking in regard to the actions of the present Government regarding the Ordnance Survey. Your Lordships will usually regard me as somebody who uses fairly moderate language in your Lordships' House, but I believe that the matter we are discussing tonight is something which amounts very nearly to—and, indeed, may be—maladministration by the present Government. I should like to say why I believe this to be so, and why indeed it is necessary, in order to explain the background to the issue which the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, has so rightly raised, to look at Government policy.
I was very glad, not for the first time, to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and, indeed, my old ally, the noble Lord, Lord Balerno. He is also a past president of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society—perhaps he is still president. I am glad that we should be in alliance in this matter. But I do not believe this to he a plot by the Ordnance Survey to destroy the publishers, though if the policy of this Government is not changed regarding certain matters, it will be very damaging. It has long been my theory and view that a high proportion of the mistakes of Government are due to incompetence rather than malice. In this case, I am beginning to be doubtful as to whether there is not a degree of malice. I would not attach that to the Ordnance Survey but to the Department which is responsible.
I would not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that what the Ordnance Survey and tile Government are trying

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to do is reputable. I do not regard either highway robbery or monopoly extortion as reputable. I use these words deliberately because this is the position as it appears to many people. I shall wait with great interest to see how my noble friend, who is so very highly regarded in this House, will answer these matters. That she will answer them competently I do not doubt; whether she can answer all the points that are made, I doubt. I must say that if it is not possible to answer them properly, this matter w ill continue to be discussed.
I did say that we cannot consider this matter in isolation from what Government policy may be. This is a matter on which I am in some difficulty. I have given the noble Baroness some notice of the difficulty that I had. Noble Lords will remember that at the time of the Trading Funds Bill, when your Lordships amended it to leave out the Ordnance Survey, at that time the Government had declared four Aims, and the Government gave an undertaking. I quote from a statement made in another place by the then Government:
" The Government have given the undertaking that as soon as possible in the coming months they will publish a review, which will be open for further discussion, showing the background of the statement of aims of the Ordnance Survey which my right honourable and learned friend announced last February "—
this was back in 1973; and this is the Conservative Government —
" secondly, the outsome of the three studies—the 2½-inch maps, the tertiary levelling and the large-scale maps."—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/73; col. 1443.]
Noble Lords will remember that one of the great follies which we succeeded in stopping was the abolition of the 1/25 thousand map and an attempt to scrap the work on tertiary bench marks; so we have got that chalked up all right. In addition, they said that the Royal Society had undertaken to carry out consultations.
I wrote to the Secretary of State, who was then Mr. Crosland, to ask him what the Government were doing about those particular aims—I have them here but I will not trouble your Lordships with them. The most important of them was to seek to maximise returns on all products and services, subject to any limitations imposed by Government. I asked the Secretary of State whether they proposed to publish the survey which justified the policy. The
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letter I received from the Secretary of State reads as follows:
" To begin with, I must point out that the position of the present Government in this matter is not the same as the Conservative Administration. The latter announced the four Aims, were criticised for doing so and promised a document explaining how they came to act as they did. The present Government merely inherited the Aims. They were not parties to their production and cannot be expected to explain their provenance. If there is to be a statement on Government policy—I have yet to consider whether one is desirable—it will be a statement of the present Government's thinking, not an explanation of that of the Conservative Administration."
But what is the present Government's policy?—because all the evidence is that they are continuing the policy of their predecessors. But they are not admitting to it; nor are they explaining the situation. I personally have a high regard for the Secretary of State—of course, he has now moved to grander things—but I told him I have rarely had a letter so unsatisfactory and, I might say, almost impertinent, from a Minister in reply to a serious and friendly inquiry. To say that the present Government merely inherited the Aims and cannot be expected to explain their provenance does not really help. It does not say whether, having inherited these Aims, they are carrying them forward. I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to tell me whether, having inherited these Aims, in what respects the present Government's policy differs from that of the previous Government.
This is fundamental because, as noble Lords have pointed out, the historic background of the Ordnance Survey in this country is the provision of the most admirable survey maps and information. The greater part has been in the public domain, as in other countries. To me it is surprising that a Labour Government —and I am not wishing to drive the Government, who have stumbled and worried about certain Health Service charges—are prepared at a time like this to multiply charges to a degree I can only describe as extortionate, and without any explanation other than in a document published by the particular organisation who are levying those charges.
I would ask the noble Baroness to consider one or two matters. The noble Lord, Lord Balerno, said it was reasonable to charge royalties on copies sold in certain matters, but of course they are not charging

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them. They are charging them on the print run, with the prospect of getting their money back, having had the use of it for a little while, if they do not sell all the copies. I must say I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, refer to the education side, because I am told that if you make even a Xerox copy of a map you are liable to pay a royalty. At the time of the previous announcement, the Ministry of Education were then totally uninterested and said that the matter did not concern them. Even today, those of us who are involved with learned societies such as the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, who are themselves involved in education, are deeply concerned. I am only sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, who is also a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, is not here to give backing on this matter.
I think we ought to wait for the Whitford Report, but I would ask the Government : Would they not again consider setting up an inquiry or even publishing some of the information which is made available to the Map Users' Conference? I am told there is no difficulty in arranging this. But the truth of the matter is that this is one of those specialised subjects which is not within the comprehension of Government at either ministerial or departmental level. No one has defended the Civil Service more steadily than I have, but this is a matter in which the Treasury are calling the tune. On the face of it, it appears reasonable that people should be charged for this, but when one examines the way in which it is worked out one finds it is totally unreasonable and indeed very destructive.
I am bound to say that for a Government, without explicitly inheriting the policy of their predecessors, to put it into effect or allow it to be put into effect in such brutal form, in the face of the clearly expressed views both in your Lordships' House and subsequently in another place —on that occasion they were rather late in waking up to the issue—must amount to something very near maladministration. I have never used that word before, but I think we need a very frank explanation. Of course, nothing I am saying in any way reflects on the noble Baroness in this matter. I regret I have had to use
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strong language in a matter where I think the behaviour amounts to highway extortion, and is not reputable.
8.57 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I rise to speak before what is so obviously an experienced and knowledgeable group of your Lordships. The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, said that she was the least experienced—but I think there are two of us here. However, I am glad to open my reply this evening by responding to the remarks which have been made in commendation of the activities of the Ordnance Survey which I think many of us tend to take for granted. I believe that it can be said truthfully, as has been said tonight, there is no other country which has been so thoroughly surveyed. We rightly place a great deal of confidence in the accuracy of the maps which are available to us as a result. As just one indication of the Ordnance Survey's activity and the popularity of their products, I can perhaps mention that in the 175 years of their life the Survey has supplied over 40 million copies of their maps to the general public. What is even more remarkable is that over half that number have been supplied during the last 15 years. Clearly this demonstrates the extent to which as a nation we are getting to know our own country either by car or on foot. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said, he even got to know his way around Normandy as a result.
Accordingly, I am sure there is general agreement that there should be a national survey and mapping organisation and that the Ordnance Survey are the right body to continue to have that responsibility. I believe there is also general agreement tonight that the Survey have been working to high standards and that it is right that these standards should be maintained. But it must be remembered that surveying and map production are essentially labour-intensive operations. They require a high degree of skill and considerable investment in sophisticated equipment. This necessarily means that the Survey's operations are particularly sensitive to increases in labour costs, despite the tight control which is maintained over manpower. In fact, the current manpower complement is now about 4,450, that is, 200 lower than four years ago.

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Nevertheless, price increases have been inevitable, and I know that the recent general increase of about 40 per cent. in prices and other charges has attracted a great deal of attention, particularly at a time when the Government are maintaining restraints on prices generally.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? She is referring to the Ordnance Survey's own maps, is she not? She is not referring to the astronomical royalty?
Baroness STEDMAN: No, my Lords; I am referring to the Ordnance Survey's own maps. The recent price increases have been inevitable. I know that they have attracted a lot of attention, and have led many people to ask how the Government can justify the price increases and what policies govern the Survey's activities in this area. In response, it is first necessary to set the background. It must be borne in mind that the total costs of the Ordnance Survey during the financial year just ended amounted to £23 ½ million. Only one-third of this was recovered in receipts from sales from maps, mapping services and receipts from fees: the remaining two-thirds are borne by the Exchequer. Clearly, any restraints on prices could only have the effect of transferring the burden to the Exchequer; that is to say, from the purchaser or user of the Survey's services to the taxpayer.
Ministers are very conscious of this problem and, as a Government Department, the Ordnance Survey are subject to the disciplines imposed on Government prices and charges. These disciplines are analogous to the Price Code and require that price increases must reflect increases in costs. Constant attention must be paid to ways of decreasing inflation and cutting costs, and the Ordnance Survey have tried to adhere to these disciplines. In a time of severe financial restraint, we cannot have it both ways. There must be some move towards recoupment of costs. As I said, Ministers are very conscious of this problem and an examination is being made of the Survey's costs and revenues, so that fuller guidance may be given on pricing policy. For the time being, I can assure the House that the Survey are expected to take full account of the impact of increased costs with the particular aim
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of containing their already very substantial dependence on Exchequer support.
The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, to whom we are all grateful for having raised this subject tonight, mentioned the question of the effect that the new copyright charges have for the map publishing industry, and put several very cogent points. In commenting on this subject, I should explain that as well as the general increase of Ordnance Survey prices and charges to which I have already referred, there has been a restructuring of royalty charges for map publishers. These two changes were for rather different reasons. The general price increases were designed to contain the rise, due to increased costs, in the Survey's dependence on Exchequer support. The royalty restructuring was intended to produce a fairer balance of charges between different classes of user, and, in particular, to eliminate the former anomaly whereby there was a relatively high copying charge for small numbers of copies, but progressive discounts leading to minimal per-copy charges for very long print-runs.
Under the former system, the Survey were by no means obtaining a fair reward for the work put in by their surveyors and cartographers. The new system more fairly reflects the value of the Survey's material, and is more in accordance with the normal commercial practice in relation to copyright royalties in that a flat per copy rate is charged, and not a rate which reduces with quantity.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? When did the Government decide to make a charge for the work of the surveyors? My noble friend will be aware that this is the major charge. If she looks at the report of the Select Committee in the Commons and the Treasury Minute, she will see that there was no charge for the cost of the survey, and the charge was only to,
"…take into account the cost from the printing stage onwards ".
When was this change made?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I regret that I am not able to give my noble friend an answer to day. I will inquire into it and write to him. This is a cogent point in this instance. What we are trying to do is to recover a fair charge

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for the services which are provided, and I should have thought that included surveying as well as printing.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting so soon after the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, but surely that is one of the questions of which I gave prior notice. I asked the noble Baroness to let us know what charges the increased royalties were supposed to cover. The map publishers acknowledged that printing costs would be covered, but we want to know what is the situation now.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I will do my best to answer as I proceed, and if I have not fully covered the noble Lord's point I will take further advice about it and write to him again.
Lord SHACKLETON: And we will have another debate.
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; we will have another debate which will include hydrography at the same time. The new system may have given rise to substantial increases in royalty charges when expressed in percentage terms, but this is only the case because the former charges were unrealistically low. The new charges are themselves quite small ; in most cases, only a few pence. May I take, for example, a typical oil company map where it is not unusual for as many as 100,000 copies to be printed? Such a publication would have qualified for the maximum discount under the former method of charging, and the royalty payable per copy would have been less than 1p.
These maps are compiled from the Ordnance Survey quarter-inch map of which there are 17 sheets covering Great Britain, currently retailing at 80p per sheet. A typical oil company map printed on both sides of the paper would cover an area equivalent to about three Ordnance sheets. Under their new arrangements, the Ordnance Survey are charging a royalty of 2.6p for such maps—true, an increase of over 300 per cent. on the previous charge, but is 2.6p really so unreasonable for a map based on a great deal of Ordnance Survey material ?
I was asked by my noble friend Lord Shackleton about the charging of royalties on a print-run basis and collecting them in advance.Under the new scheme,
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although charges are assessed on a print-run basis, they may by arrangement be collected in six monthly instalments over a period of two years. The Ordnance Survey have no objection in principle to a sales-related basis of collection, but, in the course of the negotiations which we had prior to the implementation of the scheme, the publishers stated a preference for the print-run basis on the grounds of economy in administration. Rebates are allowed against publishers' claims for spoilage, et cetera, and the Ordnance Survey are currently considering whether it is possible to introduce an alternative sales-related basis of collection for those publishers which prefer it. My noble friend was a little harsh in his comments about my Department and I know that he would not expect me to accept the charge either of maladministration or of malice within the Department. I have seen copies of the correspondence between my noble friend and the former Secretary of State. I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend the new Secretary of State to the comments to see whether we have anything further to add, and also to my noble friend's suggestion that an inquiry might be set up. Also, I will certainly read tomorrow in Hansard what my noble friend has said and draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for saying that she will draw the attention of her right honourable friend to these points. Will she also ask him to interpret the paragraph that I quoted?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I will certainly do that. It has been pointed out that the maps which the petrol people use are redrawn and that they contain a substantial element of the publishers' own work. Again this is indeed the case, but the Ordnance Survey have taken this fully into account in devising their new structure of charges. They allow a reduction of about 80 per cent. from what is called the facsimile rate; that is, the rate chargeable for an exact reproduction of the Ordnance Survey map.
In addition, the Ordnance Survey have also devised a new scheme to supply publishers with copies of all their most up-to-date revision material. The charges for

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this service will be no more than the normal costs of making paper or film copies of the revision information. Publishers availing themselves of this new revision service can now obtain information more up-to-date than that available on the latest edition of most Ordnance Survey published maps.
Turning to other specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and other noble Lords, I was asked whether the costs of the national survey were included in the fees charged and in the prices of published maps. If by this is meant, are the costs of the national survey covered by the fees and map prices ? the answer is, No. As I have already mentioned, only one-third of Ordnance Survey costs are recovered through map sales and copyright fees, whereas work on the national survey accounts for about 70 per cent. of these costs. If, however, the noble Lord is asking whether any part of the survey costs is recovered through prices and fees, the answer is that there is a contribution towards the survey. This would seem reasonable, since all maps are to some extent dependent on the survey and some, indeed, are wholly derived from it. These issues are being considered in the examination of the Ordnance Survey costs and revenues to which I referred earlier.
We were asked why we had not waited for the Whitford Report. The Whitford Committee is considering possible changes in the law of copyright and is expected to report later this year. I cannot give a more firm date than that. The new Ordnance Survey royalty structure for the publishers has been designed within the framework of the existing law and therefore has no particular relevance to the work of the Whitford Committee which is considering possible changes in the law of copyright; and Ordnance Survey have submitted evidence to the Whitford Committee.
I was also asked whether all map publishers are subject to the regulations set out in the rather complicated leaflet No. 23. I can give a positive assurance that this is so and I believe that the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey wrote to the publishers concerned to this effect last December. There may be a few exceptional cases of special agreements entered into earlier with individual publishers which are still in force. If there are
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any cases where the rules seem to operate especially harshly, or where there are grounds for believing that there has been some misassessment I am sure that Ordnance Survey will be glad to look into it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, asked what further increases were expected in 1977-78. There will be increases for redrawn commercial maps only, from approximately 2.6p for a typical oil company map to 3.2p in 1977 and 3.6p in 1978. These prices are subject to any additional sum that may arise from any overall increase in prices or charges during that period, but for facsimile and near facsimile there will be no further increases.
The next point referred to the possibility of the conferment of trading fund status on Ordnance Survey. I have read the long debate in which my noble friend Lord Shackleton played a major part when this possibility was discussed before I became a Member of your Lordships' House. I know that this is a question that caused concern to many noble Lords when the Government Trading Funds Bill went through this House in 1973. In this context, I should like to say that a full system of trading accounts is in course of introduction in the Ordnance Survey and this is proving to be of considerable assistance to management in their analysis of the costs and revenues related to particular activities. But, until we have had a longer experience of the working of these accounts, it would be premature to consider whether a formal trading fund ought to be instituted.
Reference has also been made this evening to the particular problems of educational textbooks. These are the books which contain for educational purposes extracts—often facsimile—of Ordnance Survey maps, and because of this they are subject to the facsimile copying rate. In certain cases the application of this rate can bear quite substantially when there is a large amount of material.
I have listened carefully to what noble Lords have said this evening and I will ask the Ordnance Survey to examine this matter again in the light of what has been said in your Lordships' House. But I should say that in recognition of the special needs of schools the Ordnance Survey has for many years supplied schools direct

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with maps, giving them normal trade discount terms.
Finally, I should like to emphasise that the Ordnance Survey are very conscious of the wide diversity—
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, on the point of the Ordnance Survey giving trade discount to the educational establishments, would the noble Baroness also bear in mind that the map publishing industry has supplied schools with products which the Ordnance Survey could not produce, and which are not subject to the same discounts?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I was not intending to be ungenerous to the other services that have been provided for education, and I acknowledge those. Every speaker tonight has referred to the wide range of mapping interests. In order to ensure that the resources we can afford to devote to the Ordnance Survey are used fairly and effectively to meet these many varied needs, consultation machinery has been built up in recent years between the Ordnance Survey and many bodies representative of map users. The interests represented range from public administration, business and professional users, education, academic and scientific interests to a very wide variety of recreational interests. The educational requirements for mapping are regarded as being so important and specialised that it has been decided to establish separate consultative machinery in this area under the auspices of the local education authorities.
My Lords, we have had an interesting and detailed debate tonight, although a very short one. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, for giving us an opportunity to air this. I have certainly learned a lot from it. I have a renewed interest in the Ordnance Survey and their work and I hope that I may continue to maintain that interest and perhaps be more helpful to your Lordships on some future occasion.