LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 15 November 1976)

§ Lord WELLS-PESTELL
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 14, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 15. The Commons do not consider that the fact that facilities or services are provided from a person's home justifies permitting discrimination when they are made available to the public or a section of the public.
This is the third occasion on which we have considered this, and recently I have written at some length to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, trying to set out in detail the Government's point of view. The Amendment says, broadly speaking, that a person who provides in his home facilities and services should not be within the scope of Clause 20. I think nobody will disagree that the Bill should not interfere in essentially private and personal relationships and this, of course, is why the Amendment is, at any rate at first glance, attractive. It carries the suggestion that, unless it is made, the Bill will blunder into 1078 private and personal relationships in the home. However, this is not the case, as I shall try to explain.
The issue is basically this. Should a person who provides facilities or services in his home be excepted from Clause 20? Leaving aside for the moment the limitations which have been built into the exception, the answer of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is in the affirmative. The Government's answer is also in the affirmative, but only where the transactions involved are in fact of an essentially private character. The Amendment is not necessary to secure an exception for these transactions because the result is achieved by the limitation of the clause to persons concerned with the provision of goods, facilities or services "to the public or a section of the public".
I am fully aware that on three previous occasions I failed to persuade your Lord ships that the Amendment was not acceptable and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, was certainly disinclined to accept the argument that this limitation in Section 2 of the 1968 Act had worked satisfactorily for the last eight years. I am sure that if the noble Lord is familiar with that Act he will know that these words have been lifted almost entirely from it. The Government's view is that it has worked very well indeed during that period. I beg to move.

§ Lord SOMERS
My Lords, I have had the privilege now of sitting for 23 years in your Lordships' House and this evening 1079 is the first time that I have ever heard the House insist upon one of its Amendments which has been questioned by the other place. I had an idea that there must be an unwritten Standing Order that we should never do so but I am very glad to have heard the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, break that impression this evening. I feel that this Amendment No. 14 is even more important. I should like to read to your Lordships some words which were spoken in the other place by the right honourable gentleman Mr. Patrick Mayhew when they were discussing this Amendment on 27th October. He said—and I quote—

§ Lord STRABOLGI
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I think he is out of order in quoting from the speech of a Member of the other place who is not a Minister.

§ Lord SOMERS
My Lords, if it is out of order, of course, I shall not do so.

§ Lord WIGODER
My Lords, I think it is in order for the noble Lord to paraphrase it, is it not?

§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE
My Lords, I think if the noble Lord on the Cross-Benches takes out the inverted commas and does not quote ipsissima verba he will be in order.

§ Lord SOMERS
My Lords, I will so as well as I can in that way. The right honourable gentlemen was implying that we would be losing all sense of reality if we felt there was some uncertainty as to whether one had the right to say who should or who should not enter one's own home, and I entirely agree with him. If we lose this privilege of saying who shall or who shall not enter our homes then it seems to me that the last vestige of freedom will have gone. Therefore I sincerely hope that the House will insist upon this Amendment.

§ Lord MONSON
My Lords, I am glad to tell my noble friend Lord Somers that I intend to try to persuade the House to insist upon this Amendment, for six reasons. First, there is the question of the sanctity of the home. I take the view that a person's home is essentially sacrosanct. The noble Lord, Lord Wells- 1080 Pestell at the Report stage, in the letter which he so kindly wrote to me later, and again this evening took a partially contrary view, if I am not being unfair. If I may try to summarise the gist of what the Government were getting at, it was that the home was normally a private place but once you started providing facilities or services to people, however infrequently or for however short a time, it became temporarily a public place. I think that fairly sums up the attitude of the Government. I quite accept that the Government hold these views just as sincerely as I hold my views, but I am fortified by the belief that were there to be a referendum on this point at least 95 per cent. of the population would support my interpretation of the sanctity of the home.
The second reason is that the Commons Reason is actually inaccurate because the Commons Reason numbered 15 is given as follows: Because the Commons do not consider that the fact that facilities or services are provided from a person's home justifies permitting discrimination…". I said nothing about permitting discrimination from a person's home. I am not talking about self-employed plumbers or electricians who receive a telephone call and go out in their van or pickup truck to repair somebody's plumbing or fuses. I am talking about facilities provided in a private part of a person's home. The third reason is that both in the letter written by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and in another place as the issue of doctors and dentists was brought into the Government's reasoning, I believe that a doctor's surgery and a dentist's waiting room are in fact public places and not private: also, I know it was pointed out in another place that a doctor had the right to decide who should or should not be on his list. If I may say so, I think this is a little bit of a red herring. Solicitors were also mentioned; I suppose there may be a solicitor who occasionally operates from his home but it must be a very rare thing indeed.
Far more important is the misunderstanding of human nature which comes very surprisingly, if I may say so, from the Labour Party; because on 27th October the Minister of State—and I take it I am allowed to quote him—at column 564 of the Official Report said: 1081 If a piano teacher or anyone else advertises lessons to a wide section of the public it is repugnant for a little coloured girl who goes along for her first piano lesson to be told, 'I am having 25 or 30 other pupils and you are coloured and cannot come in'. Really, if one thinks of all the people in this country who are unlikely to use such offensive language, surely music teachers of all people are the least likely to speak in that way. I am sure my noble friend Lord Somers would confirm that.
None of us wants people to talk in that way; but there is inconsistency in the Government's attitude, because it is specifically provided in this Bill that a man wanting to employ a cook is perfectly entitled, in the Bill as it left the Commons, to say, "I am not going to employ you; I do not want a Pakistani cook"—or a Venezuelan cook or a Bulgarian cook, or whatever it may be. The secretary of a club of 24 people is perfectly entitled to say, "I am not having Asians or black people in this club". One of the partners in a partnership of under six people is perfectly entitled to use such offensive language, if he feels inclined to do so. Then there is the landlord or the landlady of a small boarding house who can say, "No blacks". I think very few people use that sort of language, but if anybody does I am sure it is far more likely to be the landlady or the landlord of a boarding house than the unfortunate music teacher. I am sure that argument is not in accord with reality.
The final reason is that this Amendment was not considered, as were other Amendments, by another place for any length of time; and for that reason I suggest it ought to be returned to them in order that they may have another look at it and give it further consideration. If they reject it a second time, all well and good. It did not go to the Standing Committee, although there were 13 sittings of the Standing Committee; it did not go through the Report or Third Reading stage in another place because it originated in this House as recently as the 12th October and although it was not supported by the Opposition Front Bench in this House it received support from all quarters—from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby from the Labour Benches and from the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, from the Liberal Benches as well as from the Cross-Benches and from the Conservatives.
1082 Now that the other place has had an opportunity of considering it, it is a fact that an honourable and learned Member on the Conservative Front Bench in another place thought that it was a worthwhile and sensible Amendment and consistent with the scheme of the Bill as drafted and with a pattern of exemptions from liability which it already contained. The Conservatives went on to say that they were happy to support it and, if truth be told, rather wished that they had drafted it themselves. Every Conservative present, including Mr. William White-law and other distinguished Conservatives, supported it in another place and I hope your Lordships will agree that it ought to return to the Commons for further consideration.

§ Lord WELLS-PESTELL
My Lords, I do not think we shall be able to take this much further tonight. As I said earlier, we have been over the ground three times. In a lengthy letter I have tried to explain the Government's point of view. The only thing I can say is that one must have in the forefront of one's mind whether the transactions are of an essentially public character. As I understand the Amendment of the noble Lord, if this were to go through, then it would mean that a good many services which are essentially of a public character would become impossible. The noble Lord has quite rightly mentioned that we have talked about solicitors, doctors and dentists, many of whom operate from their homes, from the places where they live. I suppose most dentists do, for that matter, and also a large number of doctors. We are concerned as to whether the person is publicly providing facilities and services. We recognise that within the privacy of the home, certain things come outside this.
Let us take the situation of a man who is retired; I have in mind a man who perhaps has been a tailor. He has retired and does not want to engage in work, but obviously he is prepared to help out his friends when they need help with repairs, alterations, perhaps even to the extent of making a suit. But he is operating simply for his next door neighbours and friends. In my view, and in the view of the Government, this is not supplying services and facilities for the public. We are saying that immediately that man is prepared to offer these facilities over a much wider field to the public at 1083 large, then he comes within the scope of Clause 20.
I do not think I can add more to it than that. The noble Lord has to see that there is a clear dividing line between the privacy of the home, the private side of the matter, and the public side. If the Amendment of the noble Lord is carried, it would completely eliminate a large number of services to which I have referred which, of course, would be disastrous.

§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE
My Lords, I must say again that I am completely unconvinced by all this. I think that the noble Lord who has just spoken has greatly exaggerated the number of cases to which this could possibly refer, both as regards the dental and the medical professions. It is just another example of how race relations will he damaged by this Bill.
In my time, I have known lots of old ladies, having been the representative for various constituencies. Some old ladies are convinced that all Irishmen are wicked, lascivious and drunken—and I daresay the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has confirmatory evidence of that from his previous experience as a Minister. Others think that all Indians have unpleasant characteristics. I daresay that if an old Hebrew lady offered me lessons in Hebrew, when she discovered what an un-Kosher name I once had, she would not have me in the house—which only goes to show what rubbish this Bill really is. I fancy that there is only a minute number of cases where this kind of situation can exist, and although I think it is another example of the nonsense that the Government are making of race relations by this idiotic legislation, this is not one to fight on.

§ Lord MONSON
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say three things in response to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, because he is always very reasonable about these things. I do not agree that a dentist's waiting room or a doctor's surgery is a private place. It is not what I was getting at: the proviso covers this. I do not think the other place has had a chance to really study it. They spent only about 45 minutes on it in another place. The fact that they have not comprehended it—

Several noble Lords
Order! Order!