Lords Sitting of 19 April 1977

Preamble
Reassembling after the Easter Recess, the House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

COMMON FUND NEGOTIATING CONFERENCE
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what conclusions were reached at the Geneva Conference between representatives of developed and developing countries on the proposal to establish a Common Fund.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the United Nations negotiating conference on a Common Fund ended on the 3rd April. The conference did not adopt a formal decision or resolution. Instead, the chairman made a statement summing up his understanding of the principal developments during the session, and inviting the conference to reconvene later this year. With permission, I will insert the text of
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the chairman's statement in the Official Report.
The statement was as follows:

1. This Conference was convened in pursuance of Resolution 93 (IV) for the negotiation of a Common Fund under the Integrated Programme for Commodities.

2. During the course of the negotiations the developing countries affirmed their unanimous commitment to the establishment of a Common Fund, to serve as the main instrument for attaining the objectives of the Integrated Programme for Commodities as embodied in Conference Resolution 93 (IV) and to function as the central source of finance for specific objectives and purposes as outlined in a preliminary way in Annex I to document TD/B/IPC/CF/8. In this context, the Group of 77 also submitted to the Conference the draft decision contained in TD/IPC/CP/CONF/CW/L.1.

3. China supported the proposals made by the developing countries. Some developed countries supported, or were prepared to support, the proposals made by the developing countries, while a number of developed countries also expressed their readiness to participate in and financially support a Common Fund.

4. Group B submitted a discussion paper in Annex I to TD/B/IPC/CF/6 and a provisional position paper in TD/IPC/CP/CONF/L.3.

5. The countries members of the European Economic Community agreed that there should be a Common Fund. Other developed countries stated that they were prepared to consider, with a positive and open attitude, the establishment of a common funding arrangement.

6. The countries members of Group D agreed in principle with the idea of a Common Fund in the framework of the Integrated Programme for Commodities.

7. Although it was not possible to proceed further at this session, it appears to me that there is a large consensus that a Common Fund should

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be established in accordance with Resolution 93 (IV) to serve as a main instrument of the Integrated Programme for Commodities. In the light of this, there is agreement that the Conference reconvene at a plenipotentiary level to complete its work.

8. Taking into account the urgency which the Conference attaches to this work and the timetable agreed upon in Nairobi it would seem desirable that the Conference should reconvene not later than November 1977. To this end the Secretary-General of UNCTAD is requested:

(1) to propose specific dates for the reconvened session of the Conference for approval by the Trade and Development Board at the second part of its sixteenth session;

(2) to make the necessary arrangements in the light of the decision of the Trade and Development Board;

(3) to conduct such consultations as may be appropriate in order to facilitate the work of the reconvened Conference, in consultation with the President of the Conference and taking into account the terms of reference and the programme of work of the ad hoc Intergovernmental Committee for the Integrated Programme for Commodities.

Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I am sure we all much appreciate that. May I ask the Minister this question? Is it not the fact that the representative of the 100 developing countries was rather disappointed with the result, blaming not only the industrialised countries of the West but the Communist countries of the East? Further, why does this difference exist between UNCTAD and the EEC, which almost simultaneously reached very hopeful decisions on this matter?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the developing countries expressed their disappointment that there was not what they would consider a more positive outcome to the conference, but we think that real progress was made in identifying practical issues. There is a distinct difference between the position which the European Community has reached in its discussions and that of the original UNCTAD proposal. That proposal envisaged a Common Fund independent from the negotiation of commodity agreements, whereas the position that the Community now adopts is that a need exists for a Common Fund which will bring together the financial resources of individual commodity agreements. That, I think, is the difference between the two positions.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him whether, as the developing
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countries hope, an agreement on this matter may be reached in November?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I should not like to forecast. We feel that the work done during this recent conference provides a good basis for further constructive negotiations at the end of the year.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord confirm that the British Government now support the principle of a Common Fund of some kind?
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords; as I indicated earlier, we agree to the principle of a Common Fund according to the description which I gave earlier.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we welcome distinguished converts?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord exercise his good offices to assist the United States to arrive at a similar position when reviewing its policy under the new Administration, preferably in time for the CIEC meeting in Paris next month?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, we shall be in continuous consultation with the United States Government, which at this time takes a different position from that of Her Majesty's Government and the European Community.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, can my noble friend say why so many organs of the Press sought to give the wrong impression that complete deadlock had been reached on this matter when in fact it had not?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, it is not for me to explain the motives of the Press; but it is true, as I have indicated, that in our view, at least, the conference was by no means a complete failure. Real progress was made.

GAS METERS AND METRICATION
2.41 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice has been given to the British Gas Corporation by the Secretary of State for Energy with regard to the replacement of existing gas meters by meters designed to read in metric units, as required by the EEC Directive 71/354.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, EEC Directive 71/354, as amended by Directive 76/770, is concerned with units of measurement and covers a very wide field. The British Gas Corporation have been advised that it does not require the replacement of existing gas meters.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that reply, which is helpful to a degree, may I ask him whether he would not agree that, even if existing meters are not replaced before they wear out, a situation will arise where there is more than one type of meter in use at the same time, perhaps even in the same building, and whether this is not likely to lead to very serious confusion?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, our interpretation of the Directive is that existing meters can continue to be manufactured and installed after 1979. With regard to newly-designed gas meters, this matter is under consideration.

CONTINENTAL SHELF: UK SECTOR DRILLING RIGS
2.42 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 how many drilling rigs are now operating in the United Kingdom Sector of the Continental Shelf and how many are British-owned.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, there were 13 drilling rigs operating from fixed platforms and 21 mobile rigs at the end of March. Of these, five fixed and four mobile were British-owned.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for
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that reply, may I ask him how he squares the figure that he has just given with the forecast of the Department of Energy two years ago that at least 40 would be operating?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, there were no UK rig owners at the outset of North Sea exploration. While we should be pleased to see a faster rate of growth in UK representation, there has been a steady penetration of the market.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, on the tempo of drilling for exploration and production, can the Government take this early Parliamentary opportunity to comment on the report last week that the terminal being built in the Shetland Islands, and due to handle about half the oil from the North Sea, may be seriously delayed for at least two years?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think that is a different question.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, can I not persuade the Government, and the noble Lord in particular, not to refer to our beloved country by two such derogatory letters?
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, will the Government use the opportunity afforded by discussions with the exploration companies on the drilling programmes under the fifth round of licences to press for the maximum number of British-owned mobile rigs to be employed?
Lord STRABOLGI: Certainly, my Lords, I may say that arrangements made by the present Government make this rather easier.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord did not answer my last supplementary question. Can he answer this one, which again is related? Would there not be more drilling in prospect if the allocations of the fifth round could be confirmed at an early date? These allocations cannot be confirmed until BNOC has negotiated no fewer than 22 joint operating agreements with different groups. Can the noble Lord give us any information on this?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think that that is quite a different matter.

SOUTH-EAST ASIAN REFUGEES
Lord MONSON: 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 are aware that, of the substantial number of political refugees who have escaped from South Vietnam in overladen fishing boats, many have already been lost at sea as a result of having been refused sanctuary elsewhere; and accordingly whether, given that 1,208 refugees from the extreme Right-Wing régime in Chile have been admitted into the United Kingdom since 1st March 1975, but only 424 refugees from the extreme Left-Wing régimes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, they will forthwith admit at least a further 750 refugees from these three South-East Asian countries.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, applications for admission to this country as refugees are considered individually and on their merits. Permission for refugees to come here is not normally granted in terms of filling quotas or balancing the numbers of one group against another. Where, however, an international operation is mounted, we may agree to accept a share of a known group of refugees alongside other participating countries. Thus we have for several years authorised the admission of refugees from Chile, and we have also agreed to accept 75 cases from Argentina as our contribution towards an appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We have also been prepared to consider any applications from Indo-China, and in response to another appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner have agreed to accept 116 Indo-Chinese "small boat" cases. To date only some 21 of these places have been taken up.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his slightly disappointing reply, may I ask whether he would agree that there are at least
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three reasons why particular help needs to be given to refugees from South-East Asia and their families: the first being that unlike the Chileans (who are relatively few in number and who in any case are always welcomed in Cuba, Mexico and behind the Iron Curtain) and unlike refugees from Cyprus, the Lebanon, Angola and elsewhere, these people have nowhere else to go and risk being shot if they are sent back to their countries of origin; the second being that the West as a whole, and not simply the United States, has a definite moral obligation to those whom it encouraged to come out openly on the side of the West and then abandoned when it came to the crunch; and the third and connected reason being that, while Britain may not be the next domino in line, it is none the less right that we should show in a practical and humanitarian way our sympathy—our solidarity, if you like—with the victims of Communist agression?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I would agree with the noble Lord in saying that the Government should approach this matter in a humane way. As I indicated in my reply, we are prepared to play a part in this difficult matter and have been of as much help as we can be to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. If any other approach is made to us, we shall do our best to help.

RHODESIA
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will repeat a Statement on Rhodesia.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make further provision with respect to the administration of justice and matters connected therewith, to alter the method of protecting mortgages of registered land and to amend the law relating to the interest of a surviving

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spouse in an intestate's estate. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

RENT BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Rent Act 1968, Parts III, IV and VIII of the Housing Finance Act 1972, the Rent Act 1974, Sections 7 to 10 of the Housing Rents and Subsidies Act 1975, and certain related enactments, with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP BILL
2.48 p.m.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, before moving this Second Reading, may I take the opportunity to express my deep sorrow and, I am sure, that of the whole House, at the death during the Recess of the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, who was a predecessor of mine as Chairman of Committees, and to send our sympathy to his widow and the family. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

NEATH BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
Lord ABERDARE Lord ABERDARE rose to move that the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
The Report was as follows:
1. PRAYERS FOR THE PARLIAMENT: SILVER JUBILEE
The Committee were informed that a special prayer will be read on 4th May before the presentation of an Address to the Queen.
2. LIBRARY
The Report from the Working Group appointed to review the House of Lords' Library was referred to the Library Sub-Committee for consideration.
A Report from the Library Sub-Committee for the year 1976 was laid before the Committee and agreed.
The Sub-Committee reported that they had unanimously agreed to recommend the appointment of Mr. Roger Morgan to succeed Mr. Christopher Dobson as Librarian from 1st June 1977. The Committee confirmed the appointment of Mr. Morgan and expressed their appreciation of the manner in which Mr. Dobson had carried out his duties and of the valuable years of service he had given to the House.
The Committee were informed of the appointment of Miss Hilary Tomei as Library Clerk.
3. PARLIAMENT OFFICE
A Report from the Sub-Committee on the Parliament Office was received.
4. DEPARTMENT OF BLACK ROD
The Committee were informed of the impending retirement of the Gentleman Usher.
5. DOORKEEPERS
The Committee authorised provision for lightweight clothing for Doorkeepers during hot weather.
6. SUPERANNUATION
The Committee sanctioned the payment of the following superannuation awards:—

(a) Revised pension and lump sum to Mr. P. A. Atchison, who retired after reemployed service as Clerical Officer on 12th March 1977

(b) Short service gratuity to Mrs. G. K. Baker, Personal Secretary, who resigned on 25th February 1977.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is only one point to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention, under the heading, "Library". Mr. Christopher Dobson will be retiring as Librarian from 1st June 1977. He has been Librarian since 1956, at a time when the demand on the Library has grown enormously, and I am sure it would be your Lordships' wish to express our great gratitude to him for

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the services he has given us as Librarian. I know that if the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who is chairman of the Library Sub-Committee, had been here today he would have especially liked to express his gratitude to the Librarian for his work. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CRIMINAL LAW BILL [H.L.]
2.51 p.m.
Read 3a with the Amendments.
Clause 1 [The offence of conspiracy.]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 5, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, it may be convenient, in moving this first Amendment, if I were also to invite your Lordships to consider Amendments Nos. 2 to 8, as they are all interlinked and interrelated. The main Amendment in this series, Amendment No. 2, adds a redrafted subsection to Clause 1 to replace the subsection which was removed from the Bill on the first day of the Report stage, with the Government's agreement. When we discussed this subsection on that occasion, I said that the Government were very ready to give further thought to the drafting of a new subsection in place of the existing one. In the light of comments made by noble Lords, I suggested a new draft which could be examined between Report stage and Third Reading.
The matter has been considered and discussed since then, and we have accepted several changes in the draft which were suggested by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. He has asked me to express his regret that, as he is sitting as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he cannot be with us this afternoon. We are very grateful to him and to the other noble Lords who have helped us with this difficult subsection.
I think that noble Lords will agree that the new draft is a considerable improvement on the Bill as introduced. As for the other Amendments, they are consequential on one of the improvement to the new subsection which was suggested by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, substituting the words "conspiracy to commit any offence" in place of "conspiracy in relation to any offence" in the various places where that phrase occurs. I beg to move.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I do not want to detain the House but, in the absence of my noble and learned friend on the Cross Benches, I should like to thank the Government for the trouble that they have taken. I think that the proposed Amendments are an improvement and justify the amount of time we took on this rather technical question, both on Committee and on Report stage.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for those kind words, and also for his assistance. I now observe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, wishes to speak and I will give way to him immediately, as I invariably do.
Lord MORRIS of BORTH-Y-GEST: My Lords, I was only rising also to express appreciation. Many of us know that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has taken a very great deal of trouble to produce words that are acceptable, as indeed these words are. We are all most grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. In particular, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has asked me to say in your Lordships' Chamber, being unable to be present personally at this moment, though he hopes to be present later, that he also wishes to express gratitude to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and satisfaction at the result.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 5, at end insert—
("(1A) Where liability for any offence may be incurred without knowledge on the part of the person committing it of any particular

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fact or circumstance necessary for the commission of the offence, a person shall nevertheless not be guilty of conspiracy to commit that offence by virtue of subsection (1) above unless he and at least one other party to the agreement intend or know that that fact or circumstance shall or will exist at the time when the conduct constituting the offence is to take place")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2 which, as I said, has already been considered.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Exemptions .from liability for conspiracy]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 3 to 8:
Page 2, line 21, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit")
Page 2, line 24, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit")
Clause 3, page 2, line 39, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit").
Clause 4, page 4, line 9, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit")
Clause 4, page 4, line 18, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit")
Clause 4, page 4, line 26, leave out ("in relation to") and insert ("to commit").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if, with the leave of the House, I put Amendments Nos. 3 to 8 en bloc. These Amendments have already been discussed. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 5 [Abolitions, savings, transitional provisions, consequential amendment and repeals]:
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 4, line 32, leave out ("cheat and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your Lordships' leave, I beg to move Amendment No. 9 and speak to Amendment No. 10 at the same time. I raised this matter at the Report stage when I indicated that since the common law offence of cheating was abolished by the Theft Act 1968, it is now customary to indict for conspiracies to defraud simply as conspiracies to defraud and not as conspiracies to cheat and defraud. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, indicated on Report stage that he wished to look into this matter. I understand
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the results of his observations have been entirely favourable and, in those circumstances, I say no more about it, except that I beg to move the Amendment.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, when the noble Lord moved his Amendments at Report stage, we undertook to look carefully into them. We have done so and are satisfied that they will improve the Bill. Therefore, I suggest to the House that we agree to the noble Lord's Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 4, line 35, leave out ("cheat and").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 5, line 5, leave out ("in issue") and insert ("charged").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was suggested to us by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, during Report stage. I am grateful to him for making the suggestion which, in our view, represents an improvement on the original drafting.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendments Nos. 12 to 14:
Clause 7, page 7, line 11, leave out ("and had reasonable cause to believe").
Clause 9, page 8, line 24, leave out ("and had reasonable cause to believe").
Clause 10, page 9, line 10, leave out ("and had reasonable cause to believe").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment. Perhaps I can also move Amendments Nos. 13 and 14. During the discussion of the Government Amendments to Clause 9 at the Report stage, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, raised points on the defence which are now to be found in Clause 9 (3). The noble and learned Lord and I have exchanged letters about this defence since the Report stage, and the Amendments to Clauses Nos. 7, 9 and 10 are the result of that correspondence. The noble and learned Lord pointed out, and the Government have accepted, that it is

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going too far to expect the defendant to satisfy an objective test, that is, that he had reasonable cause to believe something, as well as a subjective test, that is, that he had in fact believed it. The reasonableness or otherwise of the alleged belief will be a factor taken into account by the court in considering whether or not the defendant has proved a defence. We are grateful to the noble and learned Lord for taking up this matter and I hope the House will agree to these Amendments.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I do not want to detain the House, but I think this is an important matter. The Government have accepted, as I have myself, that this is a case where the burden of proof is put on the defendant to establish the absence of the mental ingredient in crime. As drafted, a defendant would have to prove not only that notwithstanding that his mind was entirely innocent, it was also a reasonable mind. That is going too far, and I am grateful to the noble Lord and to the Government for having accepted my suggestion in the interests of personal rights.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
3.2 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD Lord INGLEWOOD moved Amendment No. 15:
Before Clause 36, insert the following new clause:
Reciprocal arrangements regarding recognisances between England and Scotland
.—(1) Where a person charged with a summary offence appears or is brought before a court of summary jurisdiction in England or Scotland and such person has previously entered into a recognisance or bond or provided sureties to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour before any court of summary jurisdiction in England or Scotland, then a complaint may be laid before the court before which such person appears or is brought applying for an order to declare the recognisance or bond to be forfeited, and that court shall have power to declare the recognisance or bond to be forfeited and to order the payment of the whole or such part of such recognisance or bond as it shall think fit as if such recognisance or bond had been entered into or the sureties provided before that court.
(2) In this section, the expression "court of summary jurisdiction" has the same meaning as in the Summary Jurisdiction (Process) Act 1881.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 15 and I should like to say that Amendment No. 47 is purely consequential upon this one. The Amendment attempts to achieve greater uniformity and some fairness as between Scottish and English courts in a field where there is at present neither; some offender can appear in court in one or other country who has previously been hound over to keep the peace by a magistrates' court in England.
Perhaps I might explain why Amendment No. 15 appears on the Marshalled List for the first time on Third Reading. In fact, it was on the List at the Report stage but was covered up by some others. In my absence, when the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, so ably moved the Amendments dealing with the traffic offences, for which the Government showed great sympathy, I noticed that this point was not mentioned at all. It therefore seemed to me right to put it down again on the List, since no debate had been addressed to it. I also think it is tidier for this point to be moved as a separate Amendment.
Binding over, in layman's language—and I am rather shy about talking on a legal point in this learned company—is a kind of suspended fine. As an illustration, may I ask your Lordships to assume that two lads create a disturbance outside a pub in the North of England on a Saturday evening. Both are charged and, where neither has a record, as like as not they will be bound over to keep the peace with a certain sum for recognisance. A year later they both do it again but in different places: one in England and the other a few miles away just over the Border in Scotland. The lad who does his further exuberant drinking in England is likely to lose all, or most, of his recognisance by estreat as well as incurring a further fine. His friend, who was wiser and did his drinking just North of the Border in Scotland will do better, because the Scottish court is most unlikely to pay any attention to the previous binding over. I am not sure that it has any power to do so.
The sole purpose of this Amendment is to give the Scottish court the power to consider the previous offence in the same way as an English court would consider such a binding over. It would then be in

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the position where it could require the estreat of part or all the recognisance in exactly the same way as the English court would do. It is a very simple point and I would submit that nobody could say it is not fair. I hope the Government will be able to accept it.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, perhaps I might just say a word before the noble Lord replies. As my noble friend Lord Inglewood has stated, he could not be here on 10th March when these matters were discussed at the previous stage. On his behalf, as well as on my own, I moved and spoke to Amendments dealing with a related question. That was the question of the service of summonses in Northern Ireland for offences which are not punishable by imprisonment. Although this Amendment was on the Marshalled List, it was not dealt with at that time, and it is on a rattier different point from the point concerning Northern Ireland. Might I also say that, although my noble friend spoke of the associated Amendment as No. 47, I think he meant Amendment No. 20, which refers to Clause 47.
My noble friend has drawn attention to an anomaly, in that there is a difference in procedure North and South of the Border. It is a difficult administrative matter and I hope the Government will give it some thought. In Scotland we are proud of having Scots law and Scots procedure, but in important matters we have tried, as reforms have taken place, to adopt uniform procedures as far as we can over the whole country.
I should like to take this opportunity of asking the noble Lord, Lord Harris, whether he can give us a situation report about the question of the serving of summonses in Northern Ireland, because he was very sympathetic at that time and he recognised that there was a defect. Perhaps I might just remind the House of the position. There are very large numbers of vehicles coming from Northern Ireland and landing mostly at Stranraer. It is a traffic economically to be encouraged and it has increased a great deal recently. But the fact that a few irresponsible operators and drivers can commit traffic offences—for example, they can be driving vehicles which are dangerous and defective and can exceed speed limits, and yet do that with impunity
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because there is no way of bringing them to book—is causing more and more grievance. Also, of course, it affects the police and the public in the South-East of Scotland and in Cumbria in particular. These vehicles go all over the country, so this is a matter which affects every part of Britain as well. I know the Government are considering what can be done about this when this Bill reaches another place, and I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell us of the progress that has been made.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, dealing with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, as he said, we discussed this on the last occasion. It is a difficult matter, and certainly we are looking into it to see whether it will be possible to do something at a later stage of the Bill's progress through Parliament. I think I can say, without examining my words rather more carefully, that this almost certainly would have to be done in another place. I do not think I can give any further indication of our position on this than I did on the last occasion, save to repeat that we recognise there is a real problem here and we are anxious to do something about it.
Turning now to the point which is the subject of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, the situation is this. Although this Amendment seeks to establish reciprocal arrangements between England and Scotland regarding recognisances entered into before a court to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour, the powers of the courts in these countries to deal with situations involving breaches of the peace are fundamentally quite different. An English court may order a person who is before it, or whose case is before it, to enter into a recognisance or provide sureties to keep the peace and/or be of good behaviour for a specified period, without that person necessarily having been convicted of a criminal offence. That is the law in England. A person who refuses to comply with such an order of "binding over" can be committed to prison, and a person who is subsequently held to have breached an order may he ordered to forfeit all or part of his recognisance and may be imprisoned if he fails to do so. That, I repeat, is the situation in England and Wales.

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In Scotland, on the other hand, a court has the power to require a person convicted of an offence—not a person not convicted as can he the case in England and Wales—to find "caution", which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, will be able to confirm is pronounced "cay-shun ", for good behaviour for a period. This latter procedure is seldom used, but if used would involve the deposit with the court of a sum of money which can, if the person concerned is subsequently found not to have been of good behaviour, and if the court thinks fit, be ordered to be forfeited.
In the case of both the Scottish "caution" and the "bind over" in England and Wales, enforcement is a matter for the originating court. We are not aware that this limitation has given rise to any difficulties. I shall certainly arrange that the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, are considered further. But I must make it clear that at the moment the Government are not persuaded that there is a practical need for a provision along the lines provided for in this Amendment. Certainly, if the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, would like to come forward with any evidence of particular difficulties which have arisen, we will look at it. But I repeat that at the moment we are not persuaded that there is a real difficulty here.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that if my noble friend's new clause was accepted by the House it could not be applied? I ask that because, on the face of it, my noble friend's point was so clear, and carried With it so much fairness, that it may well be an experiment which we ought to try. But if the noble Lord is saying that there are reasons which he can show which mean that if we passed this new clause it could not be applied, then we should be wasting our time. However, if he cannot say that, and says that if we accepted this clause and it became part of the Statute it could be applied, then I should like a little more enthusiasm on the part of the noble Lord as regards looking at it in future.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I hope that I evidence enthusiasm
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when propositions are put before us, when it is argued that there is a real difficulty. I certainly recognise that there may have been difficulties. All I am saying is that the Government are not aware of any that have arisen. What I have also said is that we are talking about two totally different systems, which could not be dealt with in this Amendment.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I found the reply of the noble Lord discouraging, because he put all his emphasis on the historic arguments—that the two systems of law were different. I had never made any attempt to disguise that fact. What I was trying to submit was that there is a real problem here which I hoped could be greatly reduced, if not by an Amendment with these very words then by something similar. The noble Lord has invited me to produce evidence and I will try to do so. He will surely not believe that I dreamed this up in the night all by myself, without drawing on the experience of people who know more than I do. I cannot press the Amendment now, but before I beg leave to withdraw it I must say that I think it is a pity that directions on drinking should go out from this House to the effect that, if you are bound over in England and want to have further exuberant evenings, you are well advised to do your drinking North of the Border where it will be less risky than in your own home town. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 38 [Power to make rules as to furnishing of information by prosecutor in proceedings .for offence triable either way]:
3.15 p.m.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 28, line 37, leave out from ("make") to ("provision") in line 38.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, may 1, with your Lordships' leave, speak also to Amendment No. 18. These are Amendments to Clause 38, which clause was inserted in the Bill on Report, after a great deal of debate at various stages of the progress of the Bill. The clause was designed to give effect to the recommendation of the James Committee, which think was supported by every responsible body concerned with the administration

21
of the criminal law, that it was highly desirable when a defendant was being dealt with summarily at a magistrates' court, that he should have advance notice of the nature of the evidence to be given against him. That was felt to he desirable not only because it was fair, but because it might save very substantial expense in various directions. In particular, it might obviate the necessity for a defendant to ask for adjournments or, on occasion, to elect to go for trail simply in order to discover what was the nature of the case.
When Clause 38 was inserted at Report stage, there was given to the Magistrates' Courts Rules Committee a power to make rules involving the disclosure of evidence to a defendant at a magistrates' court, but it was limited to cases which were triable either way. The purpose of this Amendment and of Amendment No. 18 is to remove that limitation, and to give the Rules Committee power to make orders in relation to all offences that are dealt with summarily at magistrates' courts.
May I say at once that one would not expect the Rules Committee to give such orders at once on such a wide scale; one would expect it to proceed in stages. It may well be that it would wish to proceed first in relation to offences triable either way; perhaps to cases where a defendant was legally represented, and perhaps to cases where a defendant requested that that information should be given. But one would hope that in due course the power would be extended to cover all summary offences, and not merely offences which were triable either way. The result would be that a defendant at a magistrates' court would then have the same rights as a defendant who went for trial; and, indeed, the same rights as a motorist who, at the present moment, gets something in the way of a notice of the facts in a statement of the evidence which is given against him.
In those circumstances, it would appear to be unfortunate if we were now to legislate to prevent the Rules Committee from ever making any such orders without the need for further legislation. While expecting, as I would, that the Rules Committee would proceed slowly and carefully, and would no doubt begin by dealing with offences triable either way,
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I hope it would be thought proper that the general power should be given to it, in recognition of the fact that there are a very large number of cases triable summarily only, where it is of crucial importance to a defendant that he should know the nature of the case against him before he goes into court. My Lords, I beg to move.
3.19 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, we have already had a number of fairly protracted debates on this important matter, and I do not propose on this occasion to go through all the arguments yet again. Briefly, the stage which we have reached is that Clause 38 of the Bill now contains a power to make rules providing for advance disclosure of the prosecution case in relation to an offence which is triable either way. In fact, this is a fairly significant change which has been agreed by the Government and by the House, as a result of the discussions which we have had. What the noble Lord is now asking us to do is to go two stages further: first, by seeking to ensure that there will be no delay in making rules once the economic situation improves sufficiently to allow this to be done and, secondly, by seeking to extend the rule-making power to include all criminal offences, including purely summary offences. Indeed, the noble Lord made that point absolutely clear in his speech this afternoon.
During the debate that we had on the Report stage the noble Lord gave notice of his intention to put down either these or similar Amendments. I am glad that these Amendments recognise the financial implications which a formal scheme of advance disclosure involves and that the noble Lord is making no effort to impose a rigid timetable which, for the reasons I set out during our discussion on the Report stage, the Government would find wholly unacceptable in the present economic situation. However, although finance is, as I indicated then, the principal difficulty, it is not the only obstacle in the way of making rules. As I said on Report, no acceptable, ready-made scheme of advance disclosure exists at present. This is a matter on which we shall need to have the fullest consultations with all the interested bodies and organisations in order to devise the shape which rules

23
might take. The present position is that there are already informal arrangements for disclosure to the defence of the general outlines of the prosecution case, but these undoubtedly vary in different parts of the country. Indeed, that point was touched on by a number of those who spoke during our previous debates.
The issue is, therefore, not so much one of principle but of what are the practical considerations. All I would say on the matter today is that we gladly undertake to open discussions before the Summer Recess with those concerned. In other words, we shall not wait for the Bill to finalise its passage through Parliament; we shall open the discussions before the Summer Recess with those concerned, including representatives of the police and prosecuting solicitors, with a view to devising a workable procedure, even though we shall not be in a position for some time to implement any proposal involving substantial additional expenditure. These discussions will also cover the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, that there should be some clarification of the ethics of professional prosecution conduct as regards indication of the nature of the prosecution case generally.
The other effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be to extend the rule-making power to include all criminal cases, including those which are triable only summarily. This would indeed be a very great enlargement. I have already said that extending this provision even to the 400,000 or so cases triable either way would involve, according to our calculations, additional expenditure in the region of £4 million a year. However, if we were to go further, as the noble Lord invites us to do, we should be accepting—for the future admittedly—much greater cost implications than would be the position so far as the Bill as now drafted is concerned.
In addition, we are not persuaded that there is any real need for such a system, with all the cost implications which would be involved, bearing in mind that in the great majority of summary offences the case is dealt with on the first hearing and that where there is a plea of not guilty and the defence wish to elaborate their case—for example, to contend that pos-
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sibly there is mistaken identity—the matter could always be taken care of by asking the court for an adjournment. The situation is rather different where there is the possibility of exercising an option to be tried at the Crown Court and the defence requires advance information in order to decide how to exercise the option. This point has been made by a number of people, including, I am quite sure, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder.
For these reasons, it seems to the Government that there is no need for this great widening of the rule-making power and I advise the House not to accept the Amendment. As I have indicated, we have gone a substantial distance towards meeting the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and others during our discussion of this matter. All I would say to the House is that it seems to me to be going far too far at a time like this to write into a Statute a provision of the kind which now appears on the Marshalled List, which would carry with it very substantial cost implications when it was introduced. We have gone as far as we think it is right to go, taking into account the fact that some of the more serious offences will now be dealt with under this new procedure when it is brought into operation, and I hope very much that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
3.26 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, may I intervene at this stage. I am a little disappointed with the result of what the noble Lord has just said, although I would be the first to welcome the tone in which he said it. I think that the noble Lord's undertaking to examine the matter with the interested bodies is very valuable. Also, I think that the new Clause 38 which the noble Lord introduced at an earlier stage and which now stands in the Bill is very valuable. Therefore, I do not want to use harsh language about anything that the noble Lord has said today, but may I tell him why it is that I do not, on the whole, accept his argument.
This is a very important matter. When we started out on the Bill, we all started out with certain preconceptions, some of which have turned out to be wrong. Many people began by thinking that a magistrates' tribunal was, on the whole, less

25
favourable to defendants than a jury. This has proved, rather surprisingly, to be not borne out by statistics. Indeed, those of us who have held the office which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has held know how very careful we are to choose magistrates who have wide social experience, who are well balanced as between members of the same Bench and who take their duties as judges very conscientiously. Therefore, both the lay magistrates in this House and those of us who have professional experience in the matter rose to defend the lay magistracy against this general charge.
However, it emerged that there are three points—and there has been no dispute about this from any quarter of the House, not even from the Government—at which a defendant in summary proceedings is at a disadvantage compared with a defendant on an indictment. The first, and the one with which we are primarily concerned, is the question of prior disclosure of the nature of the prosecution case. This is not dealt with by the possibility of an adjournment; at least, in my experience it is not. To begin with, it is usually quite a small case. The defendant would have to go to the trouble and expense of coming again, perhaps with the case part heard. There would be the difficulty of reassembling the same Bench, if it is a lay Bench, and of remembering what the evidence was on the previous occasion, and inconvenience would be caused to all concerned. Incidentally, there would be a very natural reluctance on the part of the Bench to grant an adjournment in the exercise of their discretion. These points do not meet the case that we have made, and I personally attach a great deal of importance to this matter.
At one time I was contemplating the hideous prospect of making a speech on Third Reading about some of the inadequacies which have come to light during the course of consideration of the Bill. I think that this is the most important point that we can put right. The Government have quite rightly said that it will cost money. I have accepted that, and so has the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. Therefore, instead of trying to impose upon the Government either a timetable or an obligation even to do anything, we have accepted—indeed, originally I think we even suggested—that it should be dealt
26
with by a rule-making power. The result is that what is proposed, either in the Bill as it stands or in the form of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, will not cost a penny until the Government operate it. So the cost point has disappeared.
I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that questions of summary trial raise at least one different point of principle to questions of charges which may be tried either way because, as he rightly pointed out to the House—and it was a perfectly fair point as far as it went—when offences are triable either way you have to exercise an option at the outset as to whether you are going to be tried by a jury or tried by the Bench, and unless you know what the case is about you may not be able to exercise the option at all. Therefore, I absolutely accept from him that it is a perfectly valid point that it may be desired to bring this into practice in stages—first the hybrid offence (if I may still call it that) and summary cases later. It may well be that even after the lapse of a long period there are many summary cases in which you do not find it necessary to give prior disclosure and in some of the cases there may be quite a different type of scheme available to that which is made compulsory in the end for the hybrid cases. I quite concede that.
The point about this is that all we are doing, and all that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is doing, is to give a facility to the Government to take this action without coming back to Parliament for legislative authorisation, except in the form of a Statutory Instrument. That is to say, the rule-making power will be exercised by the Rules Committee. Having got to a certain stage in my life I can never remember the exact status of the Rules Committee, but I am fairly clear that it is organised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and it is quite unlikely to make any rules unless the Lord Chancellor says that it is in order for it to do so. The Lord Chancellor will not be allowed to do that by his Cabinet colleagues unless the Home Office is satisfied that the time has come to do it.
I am bound to say that my experience of the Home Office from outside has been that it does not fall over itself with premature and hasty legislation of this

27
kind. So we are not pressing the Government to err on the side of precipitancy; we are giving them complete control of the situation. All we arc doing is to say that we should let the Government have this power, and although I do not want to push them into any kind of straitjacket in the matter, I am persuaded in my heart that this is a valuable addition to the Bill and that the Government ought to accept it, and ought to accept it now.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, it is not always that I find myself in agreement with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, but on this occasion I do. As various noble Lords have said, this subject has been debated quite a lot, but I find myself unconvinced both as to the difficulties and as to the expense. When a summons is issued somebody has decided that that summons shall be issued. In order to make that decision something has been put before the policeman, the inspector or whoever it is who makes that decision, and what is put before the person who decides is the evidence available. Why in the world should there not be an extra copy of that evidence attached to the summons if it is issued? It does not seem expensive, it does not seem difficult. It is merely making available to the defendant that which has already been made available to the man who decides to prosecute. What is the difficulty in that?
The cost of an extra copy is surely not very great, but I believe that if the evidence were available for the defence there would be far more pleas of guilty because in many cases, if the defendant knew what the evidence was, it would not be worth contesting it, and in that direction I believe there would be a saving which would probably counterbalance any additional expense. I wish the Home Office and the Government would see whether this could be done in that very simple way.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I should like to support my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and other members of this House who are in support of the point of view which has been put
28
forward by very distinguished people. I do not wish to be impolite, but I like to speak my mind and 1 intend to speak it. I will put it in general terms. I sometimes wonder whether the Home Office, speaking through their Ministers—who may be very good Ministers and do what they are asked to do by the Home Secretary—know nearly enough about the administration of the law in detail in magistrates' courts, and so on. It may be a little rash, but I should like to ask the noble Lord who is dealing with this question on the Government Front Bench whether he has ever been a magistrate?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I am delighted to know that, but he must have been overruled by the hierarchy in the Home Office. I have never thought much of the Home Office, whether under the present Government or even my own Government, and their position seems to me to be quite ridiculous, when an Amendment of this kind is being discussed by very distinguished members of the legal profession who know all the facts. I was a magistrate until the years put me out of action. I could not help that—one cannot stop age—but I can still say what I think.
I agree about the expense, and naturally we should wish to support the Government when they have to deal with matters of expense, but some of the Ministers in the present Government tell us that we are going to be through all our difficulties before very long. I should like to know whether, when we are through our difficulties, the appropriate Minister (whoever he may be at the time, although I suppose the noble Lord cannot speak for another Government) would put the whole matter in order without very much delay. We could then have a Bill embodying the kind of alterations which we think are necessary and that could be put forward very quickly so that justice is done. I do not think it is being done at the moment.
I do not like the answer that was given. Although I enjoy being in this Chamber, what really annoys me is that we never seem to divide. I am all in favour of

29
dividing. Personally, I would not give way on all these matters. The advantage of being in another place is that one can divide far more often. I am greatly disturbed at the answer which was given and I should love to divide the House, but I should first like to hear what promise the noble Lord can give that the situation will be put right and that it will have priority in being put right. If he or any of his friends have to argue with the Cabinet, then let them do that, but let the Cabinet occasionally pay attention to what is said by distinguished people who know more than they do.

RHODESIA
3.39 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I shall repeat a Statement on Rhodesia made today in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House I should like to make a Statement on my recent visit to eight countries in Africa. My main purpose was to see whether it would he possible to resume progress towards a peaceful settlement of the Rhodesian problem. As the House knows, violence has been increasing, and while a long and bloody struggle might in the end produce an independent Zimbabwe it will do so only at grave cost. Many lives will be lost, the economy will be destroyed, there will be severe damage to the stability of the neighbouring States and it will leave a legacy of lasting bitterness between the races. We are all well aware of the immense difficulties of resolving this problem.
"I was encouraged to attempt a new approach by the support of the US Government, with which there has been the closest possible co-operation. It is our joint determination to work for reconciliation in Southern Africa, on the firm basis of majority rule, the fullest regard for human rights, and the ending of racial discrimination.
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"The starting point for the present initiative goes back to the Statement of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on 22nd March 1976 and the crucial achievement of Dr. Kissinger when Mr. Smith spoke of majority rule within two years. It is true that Mr. Smith's speech mentioned other conditions which were not subsequently realised, but I believed that his statements then and since suggested that he might be persuaded to accept the objective of majority rule in 1978.
"The Geneva negotiations stalled, not over majority rule, though there were doubts as to the extent to which this had been agreed by the Rhodesian Front, but on the powers and composition of the interim Government which was to draw up the independence Constitution.
"In March, on my visit to Washington with the Prime Minister, I suggested to the United States Administration that we should work jointly on a strategy to promote a peaceful transition to majority rule, and this they readily agreed to do. On my visit to Africa I was able to discuss the possibility of the United Kingdom and the United States co-sponsoring a conference to develop a clear timetable for achieving majority rule in 1978. Such a conference would draw up a Constitution protecting basic human rights and define an acceptable democratic process for an automatic transfer to an independent nation. It would also discuss the establishment of an international development fund to help promote the economic stability of an independent Zimbabwe, and encourage the minority white population to stay and contribute to the country's future. The Constitution would aim to be broadly acceptable to 6 million people, black and white, who would actually live under its provisions; but, as chairman of the conference, I would retain the final responsibility for bringing any constitutional Bill to this House for its approval. The British Government's proposals of January for an interim Government remain open for discussion. It may be that there is more likely to be agreement to a caretaker Government which would be responsible for the conduct of elections prior to the granting of independence.

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"If Mr. Smith's administration did not accept the Constitution and the arrangements leading up to it, no immediate progress would be possible, sanctions would continue and so would the war, but I suspect at an increased tempo. If there was agreement, Mr. Smith's administration would resign, the caretaker Government would supervise the elections, and anyone participating in the election would have to forsake violence; sanctions should also be lifted. I am convinced that many of the Africans who currently believe that the armed struggle is the only way forward are essentially men of peace. It is not difficult to understand the motives of those who feel they have no recourse but to arms. Much as we all wish violence to stop, we cannot immediately expect it to stop while the wall of scepticism and disbelief (which I met all over Africa) remains about the intentions of the Smith administration. Until those who currently carry arms are convinced that they will have majority rule, I regret that it looks inevitable that violence will continue. The reactions to this strategy have been sufficiently encouraging for me to feel it right, in close consultation and cooperation with the United States Government, to continue discussions with the various parties. I hope to be in a position fairly soon to inform the House whether we and the Americans feel it would be worthwhile to co-sponsor a conference.
"My visit to Africa lasted only eight days. But I am convinced even more than before I left of the urgent need to end the war in Rhodesia. Genuine concern about the dangers of the continued confrontation was clearly expressed to me by the five Front Line Presidents, by Mr. Vorster and by the Rhodesian leaders, black and white. I found a widespread belief in the necessity for a non-racial majority Government. There is, however, a desperate lack of trust, which must be rebuilt"
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
3.47 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, the House would wish to thank the noble
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Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for repeating that Statement. I think your Lordships on all sides of the House will welcome it and will wish to congratulate the Foreign Secretary on his visit. He started with very little prospect of success. All parties were saying different things and laying down all sorts of conditions. I know, because I met them all just before. And yet in a comparatively short time he seems possibly, to have managed to do three things: first, getting all parties to sit down together at a conference and to agree to not just a Constitution, but a way of getting to that Constitution; secondly, getting all parties to agree that all the other parties should be prepared to sit at this conference (and that looked very unlikely before the Foreign Secretary's visit); and, thirdly, he has continued to keep the United States Government involved, which I think is very important.
My Lords, of course we must all of us be sorry that the guerrilla fighting is going to continue, and would continue, I suppose, during the period of this conference, if it takes place. I am afraid that the truth of the matter is that whether or not we like it, the guerrilla fighting will continue, and it is a question of having a conference in these conditions or not having a conference at all.
My Lords, I think it should be said, and I think it is indeed implicit in the Foreign Secretary's Statement, that it will be necessary, after the caretaker Government is formed or whatever interim Government is arranged, for there to be, before independence, a free choice by the Africans of their own leaders in an election which is internationally supervised. I think it would be quite wrong and damaging to overestimate what has so far been achieved, because nothing has been achieved in that sense. We do not yet know whether a conference will take place, and we have all of us seen this kind of situation too often; indeed, we have seen it many times before. But at least, my Lords, there is hope, and we on this side of the House certainly share the objectives of the Foreign Secretary and the Government.
3.49 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, we must certainly all be grateful to the Minister

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for repeating this clear and very welcome Statement. Though there are obviously still very great difficulties in the way of successful transition to majority rule in Rhodesia, the situation is now clearly more encouraging than it was, thanks largely, as I think we must all admit, to the personal initiative of our new and very vigorous Foreign Secretary, to whom all our sympathy and good wishes must certainly go out in his most difficult task; and thanks also, I suppose, to the apparent willingness of the United States Administration to take part in and co-sponsor a conference. Have they in fact agreed to co-sponsor such a conference, or is it simply something that might happen in the event?
The attitude of Mr. Smith also appears to be slightly more forthcoming than it has been in the past, but we have had so much experience of this astute politician's habit of taking one step forward and two steps backwards that we cannot be too optimistic. It seems that one of the chief objects, if not the chief one of the forthcoming conference—if indeed it ever assembles—is to reach agreement on a caretaker Government. That is an essential feature of the landscape. Can we assume that both Mr. Smith and the Front Line Presidents, as they call themselves, favour this particular concept? I ask the Government specifically whether it would be a sine qua non that all Rhodesian political Parties should be suitably represented in this caretaker Government, if it is ever formed. Moreover, was that specifically accepted by President Neto of Angola?— because that seems to be an important point. Could we have any further information on what actually happened when Dr. Owen saw President Neto? Those are all the observations that I should like to make at present. I suppose that we shall have a debate on the matter in the near future?
3.52 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think that the House will wish to join me in expressing very great appreciation of the tone and content of the two statements to which we have listened. Both noble Lords generously and very appropriately extended congratulations to my right honourable friend for the undoubted success that has so far attended his initiatives. I particularly
34
appreciate that the objectives which he has in mind are shared by everyone in this House—by all Parties and by independent Members. I am sure that that is true of the other place and, indeed, of the country as a whole.
I noted with particular interest the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, which of course my right honourable friend will examine with great care. Similarly, I noted the speculative but important points about the nature of the caretaker Government, how it will be constituted and so forth, which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, raised. He will not expect me today to go beyond the limitations of the Statement made by my right honourable friend. However, I think that both noble Lords would wish me to be absolutely clear on one point. We have every reason to expect that the Government of the United States and the Front Line Presidents will co-operate in discussing how best to move on these lines—that is, the possibility of convening this kind of conference. No one can prophesy the success of this initiative. We are all cautiously hopeful that this may prove to be the successful way, but no one can be absolutely certain. However, we are certain of the promises of support and co-operation from the quarters which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, mentioned.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, although we can salute our Foreign Secretary for achieving what is really a small miracle, should we not beware of becoming dizzy with success? The Foreign Secretary is about to embark on the most difficult part of his mission—not only that of reaching an understanding with Mr. Ian Smith but of reaching an understanding with the black leaders. Because of all the guerrilla activity that is taking place they now have the taste of blood, and in some ways it will be more difficult to come to terms with them than with anyone else.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sure that my right honourable friend would agree with my noble friend. I thank her for her references to him personally and to his efforts. It is absolutely true that whatever success has so far been recorded is due to the

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absolute integrity and clarity with which my right honourable friend has impressed both black and white leaders in Africa.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, do I understand from the Statement that has just been made that the Foreign Secretary brought back from his visit to Southern Africa agreement from the heads of the delegations which were invited to Geneva that they would sit in at a conference that would be organised or chaired both by the United Kingdom and the United States of America? Secondly, do the Government believe that the precedent of the Turnhalle conference on South West Africa, where apparently agreement between all previously warring ethnic groups was finally arrived at, should or could be applied in order to achieve a similar result in Rhodesia?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord will not expect me at this juncture to deal with Turnhalle or any aspect of the Namibian question, except to note what he said about the possibilities of strengthening the delegatory nature of any conference on Rhodesia that proves to be possible in the future. I have noted what he said. I assure him that the comprehensive nature of the delegations attending the next conference, if it proves possible to hold one, will certainly not he less than that of Geneva.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that everyone subscribes to a worthwhile outcome of this preliminary discussion? However, for the sake of the record, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said that he hoped the astute politician, Mr. Smith, who was sometimes capable of taking two steps backwards and one step forward, is not just one-sided in his attitude. It may be helpful for it to be known that we are not naive on this matter. If any good is to come from these preliminary discussions, neither side there must want to take two steps forward and one step backwards in order simply to satisfy local aspirations. The two sides must genuinely want to reach a fair decision. We must not give the impression at this early stage that one side is more intransigent than the other.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that is fair enough. My right honourable friend went to Africa with an attitude of co-operative inquiry and suggestion to black and white equally and in no way in an abrasive and polemical mood. I am sure that that is the mood in which he would hope to move forward to a conference of the kind he describes in his Statement today.

CRIMINAL LAW BILL [H.L.]
Debate on Amendment No. 16 continued.
3.59 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I hesitate before asking the leave of the House to speak a second time. I am not sure whether anyone else wishes to address the House on the Amendment that we were discussing before we heard from my noble friend on the Rhodesian Statement.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I should like, briefly, to support the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for two reasons. First, because of the length of time during which we have discussed the Bill, we gather that there are two main reasons for it. The first is to reduce the prison population and the second is to reduce the number of cases going to the Crown Courts. From my experience on the magistrates' bench, if this Amendment is agreed by the Government—and I fully support it—it would make a great deal of difference to the number of cases sent to the Crown Courts under Clause 1. Under Clause 1, unless the defendant is defended in the magistrates' court—and he or she is not always defended—the defendant has no means of knowing what evidence the prosecution intend to call in the Crown Court. It is never given in open court. It is given in open court on Clause 2 committals, but not on Clause 1. On Clause 2 committals the defendant would always know what the prosecution evidence is but not on Clause 1 cornmittals. If this Amendment is accepted, there would be fewer Clause 1 committals going to Crown Courts. For this reason, perhaps among others, I support this Amendment.
4.1 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will reconsider this matter. We are being asked to give an opportunity for action to be taken at a later stage when there has been ample opportunity of fully considering the position in all its circumstances. Almost inevitably in our legal procedure we are accustomed to having absolutely fair treatment from the prosecution in so far as the defence is concerned. I am sure that my noble friend realises that in most cases if the defence wants to know what the prosecution has in mind it has very little difficulty—he will probably think that I am arguing against myself, but I will explain to him that I am not—in getting the prosecution to say what its case really is.
Anyone who has experience of procedure in the courts, particularly on the solicitors' side, will know that that is the case. Prosecuting counsel, or solicitor, or the police, or whoever is prosecuting, will almost invariably tell you what the case is in order to give you an opportunity of knowing where you stand. However, there are a few instances in which that does not occur, and if an Amendment of this kind were to be accepted, an instruction might even be given. I do not know whether I am correct in saying that it is possible for the Home Office to give an instruction, but in order to avoid the possibility of incurring any expense later on, an instruction or some kind of an intimation might be given by the Home Office itself that if the defence wants to know what the prosecution's case is, it is advisable to let them know.
There is no law against it. On the contrary, it is consistent with our system of justice and the administration of justice. I think the question of expense has been highly exaggerated. The noble Lord, Lord Paget, has given an intimation of how the expense could be reduced to a very small amount. The important thing is that there need be no expense, and this may not need to be put into operation at all if the people who prosecute are told that it is advisable to let the defence know beforehand. It is terribly important for the reason which has already been stated, but I do not think we should hesitate in emphasising the point that the time of courts could be saved, and honour saved.
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At the present time, in consequence of what I was saying a moment or two ago, counsel or solicitor having heard what the prosecution is going to put forward and what evidence they have, the courts and the country are saved a tremendous amount of expense, because counsel and solicitors are reluctant to defend a case if they feel that the evidence available is strong enough to make it practically certain that their client, in spite of whatever eloquent pleas they may put forward, will almost certainly be convicted.
One then advises the client that it is better for him to plead guilty for many reasons. One reason is that a court takes into consideration the fact that if a person pleads guilty, that to some extent mitigates the offence in so far as the sentence is concerned, because a person will not have committed perjury in addition to having committed the offence. Consequently, it is important for those who are defending to decide if there is a strong case against a defendant and that it is almost inevitable that it will succeed, so that they will be able to advise the client to put in a plea of guilty and to offer such mitigating circumstances as they possibly can.
I do not think that following such a course would do the slightest harm. On the contrary, my noble friend might achieve the object of saving expense in respect of the actual giving of the information if he were to adopt the suggestion. I say to him with great respect that if he would accept that suggestion the problem would be solved, and if there was a possibility of considering that type of procedure, it would give them an opportunity of avoiding any expense whatsoever.
Lord MORRIS of BORTH-Y-GEST: My Lords, I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and I am bound to say that I am left in considerable doubt as to what is his objection to this Amendment. As I understand it, the point is merely this: power is given by Clause 38 to make certain regulations. Is it desirable to leave that power a restricted power, or is there any objection to making the power a wider one? There is no obligation imposed. If this Amendment were carried, it merely means that the powers in the Act, if it becomes an

39
Act, are there to be exercised at such time as it is possible and thought desirable to exercise them.
I think that the debate in your Lordships' House has acknowledged that it will be desirable to give as much information to the defence as possible. The only objection to making provision has been that great expense is involved. If there conies a time when that difficulty can be overcome, is there any reason why the power should not exist in the Rule Committee to make the rule? What is the difficulty, what is the objection to having the power? Nothing is imposed upon the Government or the Rule Committee if this Amendment is accepted. I should have hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, could have explained to us the objection to this Amendment, and what is the difficulty if the power being there in a limited way now is, as a power, considerably more wide if and when it is possible and thought desirable to exercise it.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will, with the leave of the House, speak again on this matter. Inevitably this afternoon we have gone over some of the ground which was touched on in earlier discussions of this matter. Nevertheless, it is right that we should have had a quite protracted debate today on the subject, given the fact that this is one of those occasions when a major series of Amendments is being made to the criminal law and to our procedures. It is therefore right that Parliament should examine proposals of this kind to see whether it is appropriate to change the law in the way the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has suggested.
I will deal briefly with some of the points that have been made and then at the end come to the point of substance. As I understood it, the argument of my noble friend Lord Paget rested on the argument that it would in his view be a fairly inexpensive matter because the police or prosecuting authorities would simply make available the copies of statements made by witnesses to the defendant, who would then have the copy and there would be nothing more to it other than supplying an additional copy. That unfortunately is not the position. The James Committee indi-
40
cated—this was also touched on in our last debate and the debate which preceded that—that in many cases there would have to be an editing process, and that is what would cost the money. There would have to be a consideration as to whether the statements which were made by a prosecution witness or potential prosecution witness and which were irrelevant should be struck out. For reasons of this kind, we do not at the moment have a workable scheme even for the limited area of cases dealt with in the Bill as drafted.
There is an additional problem so far as summary cases are concerned. Some of the evidence which is put before a magistrates' court—I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree with me on this in view of her long service on the Bench—is never reduced to writing at any time. A man may be arrested one evening, he may appear in court at 10 o'clock the next morning and there may he no statement in writing to give to anybody. This kind of aspect is not a matter of absolutely no importance. When we are discussing a proposition as important as this, it is right that some of the difficulties should he recognised and, with great respect to some of the arguments that have been put forward, there is nothing to he said for pretending that real difficulties do not exist.
That brings me to some of the public expenditure implications; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, dealt with this. It is right, as Lord Morris said, that there is no immediate cost implication of this Amendment because it could be introduced only if the Government of the day thought it right and proper so to do. That is absolutely right, but we are all grown-up people in this House and we must recognise that once something is on the Statute Book, substantial armies form up behind propositions of this kind to press on the Government of the day the urgent need for their speedy implementation. With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Ward of North Tyneside, whose speech I enjoyed as much as I am sure everybody else did, I fear it does not answer some of the serious public expenditure questions which we have discussed simply to say that we must give it priority. The

41
question is: priority over what; priority over Health Service improvements, over housing, over education? With respect, that is not an answer to the real difficulties of making room for wholly admirable ideas from the point of view of public expenditure.
However, I recognise that there are no immediate cost implications and, although I have indicated some of our anxieties as far as this Amendment is concerned, I accept that the opinion of the House is overwhelmingly in the opposite direction. I therefore undertake that we shall in another place introduce Amendments which will give rise to this, but I would wish to reserve my position on the precise language of the Amendments.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, the Government have been gracious in acceding to the pressure throughout the various stages of the Bill in taking us as far as they have with the existing Clause 38. They have again been gracious and shown themselves sensitive to the observations which have been made in all parts of your Lordships' House by agreeing that Amendments to the effect of that now proposed will be introduced in another place.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, perhaps I might make it absolutely clear that I am dealing with the summary offences Amendment. That is the one to which I am addressing my mind and which we have been discussing.
Lord WIGODER: I appreciate that, my Lords. It would obviously not be appropriate in those circumstances to pursue this Amendment any further at this stage. However, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I add in the course of this discussion—this may save my having to move Amendment No. 17—that it may be that the argument about expenses has been unwittingly rather exaggerated. I have received a detailed communication from the prosecuting solicitor of a large and pleasantly litigious county who has analysed the figures involved and has come to the conclusion that to provide the information required by this provision would cost rather less than one-tenth the estimates which the Government have so far reached. I suspect that this is one of those situations where those prosecuting authorities who wish to provide this
42
information will find that it can be done at a very reasonable expense, while those who do not wish to do so will find that it will be inordinately costly. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his indication that Amendments will be moved in another place and in those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.18 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 19:
After Clause 39, insert the following new clause:
Inciting girl under sixteen to have incestuous sexual intercourse
.—(1) It is an offence for a man to incite to have sexual intercourse with him a girl under the age of sixteen whom he knows to be his grand-daughter, daughter or sister.
(2) In the preceding subsection "man" includes boy, "sister" includes half-sister, and for the purposes of that subsection any expression importing a relationship between two people shall be taken to apply notwithstanding that the relationship is not traced through lawful wedlock.
(3) The following provisions of section 1 of the Indecency with Children Act 1960, namely—
subsection (2) (competence of spouse of accused to give evidence);
subsection (3) (references in Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to the offences mentioned in Schedule 1 to that Act to include offences under that section);
subsection (4) (offences under that section to be deemed offences against the person for the purpose of section 3 of the Visiting Forces Act 1952),
shall apply in relation to offences under this section.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding £1,000, or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this matter was discussed on Report when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, introduced a new clause designed to fill a gap in the law of incest revealed by the Court of Appeal judgment in Regina v Whitehouse. At that time I indicated that it was undoubtedly an important matter but that the Government did not consider that the drafting of the proposed clause would be wholly appropriate, and I undertook that

43
if it were withdrawn we would at a later stage introduce Amendments to deal with the point in question.
The effect of the Amendment I am moving is to create a new criminal offence to deal with this lacuna in the law. It would be committed where a man incites a girl under 16 to have incestuous sexual intercourse with him. A man convicted of such an offence, which will be triable either way, will be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for up to six months or a fine of not more than £1,000 or both, or, if convicted on indictment, to imprisonment for up to two years. The mode of trial and penalties proposed are the same as those which another provision in the Bill provides for the offence of inciting a girl under 14 to commit an act of gross indecency.
This is a departure from what Lord Hailsham proposed in his original Amendment, which provided for the new offence to be treated like an offence of incest by a woman; that would have produced a maximum term of imprisonment of seven years, which the Government think would be too high for the new offence, which is concerned with incitement and which falls short of attempted intercourse. I hope Lord Hailsham will agree that the kind of conduct we are prohibiting here is more analogous to an offence under the 1960 Act than it is to the offence of incest. It is fair to say that there is widespread agreement on the desirability of a provision of this kind to protect girls between the age of 14 (at which time they cease to enjoy the general protection conferred by the Indecency with Children Act 1960) and the age of 16 from incestuous approaches, and I hope the House will agree to the Amendment.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for once again taking notice of a suggestion that I was bold enough to make at Report stage in response to a very broad hint from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division as reported in The Times. I feel that the penalties proposed are a little light and I only hope that the crime will not, as a result of my initiative, come to be known as "the abominable crime of Hoggery"!
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 47 [Provisions applying to Scotland]:
4.21 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) moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 36, line 38, at end insert ("Prison Act 1952 (in its application to persons for the time being in Scotland)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to say a word about Amendments Nos. 21 to 26. These Amendments all relate to Clause 47, which is the Scottish application clause, and are all consequential on Amendments made to Schedules 9 or 10 to the Bill at earlier stages. Subsection (2) of Clause 47 lists provisions of the Bill which are applied to Scotland. These are provisions which directly amend in Schedule 9 or repeal in Schedule 10 parts of Acts which at present apply to Scotland. A number of Amendments made earlier to Schedules 9 and 10 are to apply to Scotland and therefore need to be mentioned in Clause 47. In one other case—Amendment No. 22—the problem is the reverse; namely, that although the Amendments already in the Bill to Sections 26, 28, 29 and 39(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 apply to Scotland, the Amendment made to Section 12(1)—return to borstal institutions on reconviction—does not. It is therefore necessary to insert rather more detail than before into Clause 47.
Amendment No. 21 is consequential on the Amendment to the Prison Act 1952 which was introduced into Schedule 9 at Report stage. It provides, for the avoidance of doubt, that any persons released from borstal training in England and Wales who subsequently make their way to Scotland will be subject to exactly the same conditions as if they had been in England or Wales. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 36, line 39, at beginning insert ("sections 26, 28, 29 and 39(1) of the").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment disapplies for Scotland the amendment of Section 12(1) of the

45
Criminal Justice Act 1961. It is consequential on the introduction of an Amendment to that section of the 1961 Act for England and Wales at Committee stage. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 36, line 39, at end insert ("Housing (Scotland) Act 1966,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment which provides that a consequential Amendment to a Scottish Act which was introduced at Report stage into Schedule 9 shall be applied to Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 36, leave out line 41 and insert ("sections 3 and 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 and (in its application to persons for the time being in Scotland) section 63 of that Act,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is purely consequential. Clause 47 already applies the amendment of Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 contained in Schedule 9 to Scotland. Amendments introduced at Report Stage to Section 60 of the 1967 Act also require to be applied to Scotland. The Amendments to Section 60 (which deals with the release on licence of a person serving a determinate sentence) are so worded as to preserve the status quo in so far as Section 60 operates in Scotland, but, because of the way in which they are drafted, they require to be specifically applied to Scotland. The extension of the Amendment to section 63 of the Act is included for the avoidance of doubt. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 37, line 9, at beginning insert ("sections 26 and 28 of the").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a minor drafting Amendment which limits the repeal of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 in Schedule 10 so far as Scotland is concerned to those sections of the Act mentioned in the Schedule which have force in Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 37, line 12, leave out ("section") and insert ("sections 60 and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment extends to Scotland the repeal of parts of Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961. It is consequential on an Amendment made for England and Wales at Report stage. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 49 [Citation, etc.]:
4.27 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 38, line 41, leave out ("the Criminal Justice Act 1961,") and insert—
("(i) section 45 of the Prison Act 1952 (in its application to persons for the time being in Northern Ireland or in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man);
(ii) Part III and section 39(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1961; and
(iii) sections 60 and 63 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 (in their application to persons for the time being in Northern Ireland or in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man),").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential upon the Amendments in Schedule 9 to the Prison Act 1952 and the Criminal Justice Acts 1961 and 1967. The Amendment will ensure that offenders who are released in the United Kingdom subject to supervision and recall will continue to be subject to those conditions when they are in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man or Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Offences made triable only summarily, and related amendments]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 44, line 10, column 4, leave out ("was") and insert ("is").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a minor drafting Amendment to correct an error in the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Offences triable either way instead of only on indictment]:
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 46, leave out from beginning of line 27 to ("concealing") in line 29 and insert ("under the Criminal Law Act 1967—

(a) offences under section 4(1) (assisting offenders); and

(b) offences under section 5(1)")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the present Amendment and Amendment No. 30 are minor drafting Amendments involving no change of substance. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 46, line 38, leave out ("or") and insert ("except").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Offences made triable either way by virtue of section 16(1) or (2)]:
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 31:
>Page 49, line 26, leave out paragraph 25.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and Amendment No. 33 are designed to meet the main point made at Report stage by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, which my noble friend Lord McCluskey promised on behalf of the Government to consider without commitment. The effect is stated in the Amendment to Schedule 3, which provides in paragraph 30 that all indictable offences under the Theft Act 1968 are to be triable either way except those listed, and adds to that list burglary in a dwelling if any person in the dwelling was subjected to violence or the threat of violence. The Amendment to Schedule 2 is the mirror image of that to Schedule 3 because it states that a form of burglary which was formerly triable only on indictment is now to become triable either way; namely, burglary in a dwelling involving forcible entry but not involving violence or threat of violence to the person. The wording of paragraph 21 of Schedule 2 is necessarily more complicated to follow than that of the corresponding provision of Schedule 3, but its effect is the same.
The James Committee recommendation did not distinguish burglary in a dwelling which was accompanied by violence or threat of violence from other types of
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burglary. Consequently, the Bill, as introduced, also did not do so. On reconsideration, however, the Government agree with the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, that there should be such a distinction, and this is what the Government Amendments provide. I beg to move.
Lord MORRIS of BORTH-Y-GEST: My Lords, I should like to express gratitude to the noble Lord and to the Government for this Amendment, which I am sure meets a point that was very much in the minds of many people. There was great alarm at the thought of burglary where there is violence to the person in a dwellinghouse. I, in company with so many of your Lordships, heard the debate on Report stage when my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne raised this point, as I thought so persuasively, and many of us shared his view. On his behalf, as well as on behalf of many others, I wish again to thank the Government for meeting this point so splendidly.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 49, leave out from beginning of line 35 to ("concealing") in line 37 and insert ("under the Criminal Law Act 1967—

(a) offences under section 4(1) (assisting offenders); and

(b) offences under section 5(1)").

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 49, line 46, at end insert—
("(c) burglary in a dwelling if any person in the dwelling was subjected to violence or the threat of violence.").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Alteration of penalties on summary conviction of certain offences triable either way]:
4.32 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY Lord AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 52, line 33, leave out ("3 months or £500, or both") and insert ("in the case of offences relating to cannabis or cannabis resin, £500 or, for an offence committed after more than one previous conviction, 3 months or £500, or both; in the case of offences relating to other Class B drugs, 3 months or £500, or both.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at both the Committee stage and the Report stage we had fairly lengthy discussions on the question of whether or not penalties of imprisonment should be imposed for cases of simple possession of cannabis, and the arguments were so thoroughly rehearsed on those occasions that it is not necessary for me to recapitulate them here, but merely to refer very briefly to some of the things said by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, on the last occasion, on 24th March, when the matter was raised at the Report stage.
I have resigned myself temporarily to the fact that we are not going to remove imprisonment altogether in these cases, and the Amendment that I am proposing at this stage simply takes it out of—
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I apologise for intervening, but I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would agree to take this Amendment and the next one together. They deal with different points, but the two matters are so closely interrelated that it might be for the convenience of the House if we were to take them at the same time, if that is convenient to the noble Lord.
Lord AVEBURY: Certainly I should be happy to do that if that is what the Minister wishes, and I will develop the argument on those lines.
I was about to say that I have resigned myself to the fact that we could not persuade the Government at this stage totally to remove imprisonment, and I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, had given half an invitation to put down an Amendment that did not go quite so far when he said that he certainly did not believe in imprisonment for the first offence of possession, and he quoted with approval the statistics of what had happened in the magistrates' courts in 1974 and 1975. Speaking from memory, I think that in those years in one case and three cases respectively the magistrates had sent an offender to prison on the first occasion.
Then we ask, is it appropriate to send these people to prison for the second offence? The noble Lord did not commit himself on that, but he has the opportunity to do so this afternoon. But since we
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last discussed the matter there has been one development which I think is well worth mentioning, and perhaps the noble Lord can tell us a little more than I know about it. He said that the cannabis Working Group of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was in the process of reviewing the situation in the light of the debate that we had at the Committee stage, but at that time, on 24th March, there had not yet been an opportunity for the Working Group to report to the full Advisory Council. Therefore on that occasion the noble Lord was not able to tell your Lordships any more about the proceedings. I am given to understand that the advice given ultimately was that cannabis should be reclassified into Class C, which would not take it out of the imprisonment category altogether but would reduce penalties. I understand that as an alternative the Committee advised that the Amendment which was proposed at the Committee stage by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, should be supported. But it is too late for that now, unless the Minister is prepared to say that with the benefit of the advice he has now received he will be willing to include such an Amendment or to recommend to his colleagues that such an Amendment should be inserted when the Bill goes to the other place.
I rely on indirect information for my knowledge of what took place in the meeting of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which I am informed was held on 6th April, and it would be most helpful if the noble Lord could say a little more about this. One of the main reasons that he gave for not wishing to proceed any further than the changes that were already incorporated in the Bill, which reduced the penalties somewhat, was that the review was still taking place.
The second argument which the noble Lord advanced, with great emphasis, was that if the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, had been accepted it would have had what he called quite a remarkable effect; that was, that the possession of a Class B drug, cannabis, would not be an imprisonable offence in any circumstances whatsoever, whereas the possession of a Class C drug, which by definition is a less serious offence, would still subject the defendant to the possibility of imprisonment. The noble Lord said that he was

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surprised that those who joined with the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, had not considered this matter and taken steps to reduce the penalties for Class C drugs accordingly. So, as your Lordships will notice, I have taken the Minister up on this point. That was why I so readily agreed that we should discuss the two Amendments together, because Amendment No. 35 proposes reducing the penalties for possession of Class C drugs and takes that offence out of imprisonment altogether.
I should like to say a few more words on this matter. I am most grateful to the Minister, who agreed to have made a special computer run so as to ascertain the extent of convictions for possession of Class C drugs in the years 1973, 1974 and 1975. This information was not readily available in any published form, but I think that the noble Lord will agree, having looked at these figures, that it was well worth ascertaining this information. The figures have shown some ups and flats which were certainly not known to me, and so far as I am aware no one else had even the slightest idea of the trends which are here revealed.
The first important point to observe is that of all the Class C drugs that were originally mentioned in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the only one that has been made the subject of prosecution in the years 1974 and 1975 is methaqualone, which is more usually known by its trade name of Mandrax and is prescribed as a sleeping pill. If we look at the total number of people found guilty and sentenced in the lower courts in the years 1973, 1974 and 1975, we see, according to the table that has been so kindly supplied by the Minister's office from the computer print out, that the figure declined from 375 in 1973 to 210 in 1974, and to 96 in 1975.
I made some inquiries as to why there should have been this very welcome and significant decline, and I have been told that general practitioners are not prescribing Mandrax as frequently as they used to do, and therefore presumably it is more difficult for people to obtain the drug methaqualone and use it illicitly. If we were to do away altogether with imprisonment for the possession of Class C drugs it certainly would not make very much difference on the basis of the figures
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which have been supplied. By the way, it would have been interesting to have heard whether this reduction had continued in 1976, but I dare say that the figures are not yet available, or would not readily be available from the computer. But if one extrapolates the trend that has been revealed, then quite shortly there would he no prosecutions or convictions at all for possession of Class C drugs. That removes one of the main arguments that the noble Lord presented to the House for not accepting any watering down of the penalties concerning a Class B drug.
Then, finally, he said that we had this curious anomaly created by the Goodchild case; and he summarised that, if I may say so, very lucidly. He said that Goodchild was not guilty of possession of a Class B drug because that refers to the flowering and fruiting tops of the cannabis plant, that Mr. Kevin Goodchild was in possession only of the leaves and that he therefore had to be charged with the more serious offence of possession of a Class A drug; that is, cannabinol, which is in fact contained in the leaf. If I may say so with great respect to the Minister, I think this is a red herring, because if he wants to put the Goodchild case right then a separate amendment of the Misuse of Drugs Act to include leaves with the flowering and fruiting tops would very simply accomplish what is necessary, and no one in their right mind wants prosecutions for the possession of leaves to be taking place under the more serious part of the Act, which is the possession of a Class A drug. That would be quite ludicrous, bearing in mind that the leaves contain less of the active ingredient than the flowering and fruiting tops. So I do not think that to remedy the anomaly which has been revealed by the Goodchild case is a very complex matter, and I do not think it need interfere with the decision which we make this afternoon.
I therefore hope very much that, while the Minister was not prepared to go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, wanted and as most of us would have welcomed, and bearing in mind that it was a very narrow decision that your Lordships made on that occasion not to take the offence of possession out of imprisonment altogether, it would be possible for us now to agree that for first

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and second offences of possession only a fine should be imposed. My Lords, I beg to move.
4.43 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I hesitated before rising because I do not want to address the House on two occasions on every Amendment, but as this is one of the more controversial we are discussing to day it is right that I should, perhaps, subsequently ask the leave of the House to speak again if any other points are raised following my speech. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said, we have in fact discussed this matter on a number of occasions, both on the Committee stage and on Report stage, when various Amendments were tabled by the noble Lord himself, by my noble friend Lord Gifford, by my noble friend Lady Wootton and by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, all of which were designed to remove the possibility of imprisonment being imposed by a court of summary jurisdiction, either entirely or on conviction of a first or second offence of unlawful possession of cannabis or cannabis resin. On the first occasion, my noble friend Lord Gifford agreed to withdraw his Amendment on the undertaking that we would consider the points which had been deployed during the debate; and on the second occasion the majority of your Lordships supported the Government in resisting the Amendments then before the House after I had indicated that the Government would seriously look into the possibility of meeting their objectives as far as first offenders were concerned.
My Lords, I appreciate that the noble Lords and the noble Baroness whose names appear on the present Amendments do not wish to see the matter go by default; and, as the noble Lord has pointed out, the vote on the last occasion was a fairly narrow one. I also appreciate, particularly in relation to the second of the two Amendments to which the noble Lord has just spoken, that the noble Lords and the noble Baroness who have put their names down to them have gone a long way to meet some of the difficulties which I outlined during the speech I made on the last occasion on which we considered this matter. However, I am bound to tell the noble Lord that the Government cannot accept the Amendments as satisfactory for the purposes for which they
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are designed, for reasons which I will now put before the House.
I will begin, if I may, by dealing with the second Amendment first. This relates, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has pointed out, to Class C drugs, and would have the effect of removing entirely the penalty of imprisonment on summary conviction of unlawful possession of any one of the six drugs which are at present in this category. This Amendment would of course remove the objection to which I drew attention previously; namely, that the treatment proposed in respect of cannabis— which, as the noble Lord has rightly said, is a Class B drug—would leave the penalties for cannabis possession offences milder in some respects than those applicable in the less serious Class C drug cases. Before discussing the merits of that proposal, I should like to recapitulate briefly (because I think it is right to do this) the policy which lies behind the scale of penalties in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and the changes which are being made by the Bill.
The scale in the 1971 Act is designed to achieve two purposes: first, to distinguish between the more serious trafficking offences and the less serious possession ones; and, second, to distinguish very broadly between the relative seriousness of offences, whether trafficking or possession, involving different drugs. As regards the classification of drugs, it necessarily involves a broad-brush approach. The effects of drugs are infinitely various. The effect of a drug will vary with the individual and with what it is being taken in combination with, in some circumstances; and there may well be other factors, too. The classification is also intended to have some regard to the extent of the social mischief that a particular drug may currently represent. This is one reason for the power to move a drug from one category to the other. There is, of course, a limit to the precision with which a statutory scale of penalties can ever affect the kind of gradations of seriousness involved. The judgment in the individual case must be left to the courts.
The purpose of the scale in the 1971 Act, however, is to give the court and, indeed, the enforcement authorities as well, a broad guide to the appropriate

55
scale of seriousness so far as Parliament is concerned. This guide must of course also be read in the light of other, more general provisions concerning first offenders, suspended sentences of imprisonment, rehabilitation of offenders and the power to commit for trial or sentence.
In operating on these scales in the 1971 Act the Government did not seek (with one exception, which is relevant to the Amendment which we now have before us) to make any change of policy by the provisions in the Bill. Those provisions are designed to maintain the various gradations in the tariff of penalties in the 1971 Act while at the same time adjusting them to the new and the more rationalised code of powers proposed for magistrates' courts under the Bill. The 1971 Act powers were exceptional—and I think I should underline this—in giving magistrates powers to impose maximum sentences of 12 months' imprisonment for trafficking offences involving drugs in Class A and Class B and possession offences involving Class A drugs. In the Government's view, the reduction of these maxima and the corresponding reductions in the other maximum penalties of imprisonment available effected in the Bill do not represent any change in the seriousness with which these offences should be regarded having regard to the substantial increases and the maximum fines available which are being made at the same time. The emphasis is simply being shifted, within the broad discretion which is of course available to the courts, from the custodial to the financial penalty, and I think many of us welcome that.
The one exception to this principle is in relation to Class C drugs, where no increase has been made in the maximum fine for possession offences despite the reduction in the maximum sentence of imprisonment available from six months to three. The reason for this is that in the Government's view the tariff originally fixed in the 1971 Act did not go quite far enough in differentiating possession offences in relation to Class C drugs. Accordingly, we took the opportunity of the much wider scale of fines which will be available to magistrates in future to effect a real relaxation in the maximum penalties available for this offence.
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My Lords, I hope that what I have said already indicates that this Amendment raises a number of general policy issues. The first is the general penal policy. Under the Bill we are creating a new category of offences triable either way, of which possession of Class C drugs is one, to deal with which the magistrates will have wide powers available for any except really serious offences. For special reasons which I have sought to make clear, the magistrates' sentencing powers are specially tailored for offences triable either way under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, but the general principle is observed that the magistrates' powers are wide enough to deal with any cases except those serious enough to warrant committal for trial on indictment. This Amendment would create an offence triable either way in which the Crown Court would have power to impose up to two years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine, or both, while the magistrates' court would have the power only to impose a fine of £200.
It would, it seems to me, be fairly remarkable, particularly in the light of the rationalisation otherwise being effected in the Bill, to introduce such a major discrepancy between the powers available to the higher and lower courts in a field such as this one. It would be difficult to calculate what the effect would be on our courts and it is not a matter which we think should simply be left for the courts to worry their way through. It is a matter on which we think it right for Parliament to give some guidance.
Our general attitude to this question is that this is a matter, with the cannabis issue, where we think it would not be right for us to reach a decision without first obtaining the views of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Certain groups of that Council have had the opportunity of considering various versions of these Amendments because, as the House will be aware, we asked the Advisory Council to consider all these questions as a result of the discussions in this House on the Committee stage.
The full Council has met only this morning to consider this whole issue for the first time. I understand that at that meeting the Council discussed a proposition to the effect that imprisonment should no longer be available in relation to a person convicted by the magistrates of a

57
first offence of possession of cannabis or cannabis resin who had not previously been convicted of any other drugs offence. The Council were divided on this issue but a clear preponderance was in favour of changing the law on these lines. The Council did not address itself to the related issue of whether consequential changes might be needed in relation to the penalties available for offences of possession of other Class B drugs and of Class C drugs, the classification of cannabis and the penalties appropriate to Class C drugs generally. The Council felt that these issues required more detailed examination together with the difficult and fundamental issues thrown up by the case of Goodchild which we discussed in the House on the last occasion.
Accordingly, while the Council's response to the proposals made in this House has taken us some way forward, there remain a number of important issues unresolved on which decisions are essential before the character of any Amendments to the Bill can be properly considered. The Government have not set their mind against some amendments of the penalties provided in the Bill in relation to Class C drugs, but we think that much further thought needs to be given to the implications; that an opportunity to consider the views of the Advisory Council is needed; and that this proposal should be considered in relation to whatever is decided about cannabis. We will certainly consider the possibility of an appropriate Amendment when the Bill is considered in another place. But I must ask the House not to take the step proposed in this particular Amendment today. We must look at the total series of interrelated problems which are here involved. We have an Advisory Council which has been considering this matter and studying it with some care only today, and we think it would be quite wrong to make either of these decisions today on the basis of incomplete evidence. So much for the moment about the Advisory Council, and I shall be returning to that in a moment.
Having said that about the second of the noble Lord's Amendments, that relating to Class C drugs, I come to the first Amendment.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves Class C drugs, can
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he confirm the striking reduction in prosecutions and convictions for possession of Class C drugs and also the fact that these prosecutions and convictions for the last two years have related entirely to methaqualone and not to any of the other five drugs in this Class C?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, it is an interesting matter, and that is another reason why it seems to me that this particular issue should be considered by the Advisory Council. That is what we are proposing should happen.
I will now return to the first Amendment which would have the effect of singling out cannabis and cannabis resin in the list of Class B drugs and applying to them, but not to the other drugs in the list, the changes in the penalties available on summary conviction of unlawful possession which are proposed in the Amendment. These changes amount to removing the possibility of a sentence of imprisonment in relation to first and to second offenders. As your Lordships will recognise, this Amendment does not overcome the objection, to which I have previously referred, of introducing into the scheme of the Act the anomalous concept of having different penalties applying to different drugs within the same class. This is not just a question of tidiness; it is a matter of understanding (for the reasons I have already indicated) the reasons which led Parliament in 1971 to frame the Act in the way it did and how it was intended to work.
I am afraid that the Amendment is also defective in that it does not deal with the very important matter of defining what is meant by "previous conviction" for the purpose of this provision. The question is: a previous conviction for what? Is this intended to mean a previous conviction of an offence relating to cannabis or cannabis resin or any offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act or under previous drugs legislation; or a previous conviction of any offence at all, not necessarily related to drugs? The Amendment will not do as it stands.
As I have said previously, the Government will look seriously—and I repeat this—at the possibility of meeting the object of this Amendment so far as first offenders are concerned, and I can assure your Lordships that we are now actively

59
engaged in doing this. As I have already indicated, the meeting this morning of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was deliberately arranged to consider the matters raised in our earlier discussions and the position with regard to cannabis in general. The views of the Council will be very carefully studied as soon as they are available.
I should however say this. Of course, it will be for the Government to make their decision on the report of the Advisory Council—for the Council is advisory—but, nevertheless, it is the view of my right honourable friend that we must have its carefully considered views before reaching a decision on either of the two matters dealt with in the noble Lord's Amendment. The working groups of the Advisory Council will be meeting again very soon and the Council itself intends to meet before the Committee stage in another place is over so that it can examine the situation at that time and make recommendations to the Government, and through the Government, to Parliament. It seems to me that it would be wrong for us today to write either of these Amendments into the Bill. The Advisory Council is looking at this; it has done so today; and it will be pushing on with its work in this respect before the Bill's passage through Parliament is finalised. In the light of that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will not persist with either of these Amendments.
5 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I am perfectly sure that the House will be grateful to the Minister for his very careful reply, and I equally feel that he was right to intervene at this stage because, speaking for myself, I would have found it impossible to make any useful contribution to the discussion until I knew at what conclusion the Government had arrived. The more I think of the series of debates that we have had about this matter, the more certain I feel that whatever may be the truth about cannabis or drugs generally, it is a mistake to try to use this Bill as the vehicle for tinkering with the Misuse of Drugs Act. The questions of drugs have to be seen in relation to one another, and this Bill, which is an attempt to simplify the relationship between trial
60
on indictment and summary trials, and to harmonise penalties as between different categories of offence, is not the appropriate instrument to do this. I have felt this the longer these discussions have gone on, and quite independently of the merits of the various cases which have been put, and I have never concealed the fact that my own approach is somewhat different from and inconsistent with that of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.
There are various reasons why I do not think that this new attempt by the noble Lord is an improvement on his previous ones. If I do not repeat all the reasons given by the Minister, it is because I agree with them rather than because I do not think that they are important. There is a technical reason which arises partly out of one of the reasons given by the Minister which I should like to stress because it is a reason connected with penal policy generally. I do not want it to be thought that I think that imprisonment, except for very serious offences—which we are not discussing in relation to this Amendment—ought to be a penalty which is ever in the ordinary course applicable to what I may call first offenders, without prejudice to what "first offenders" may mean. I am coming to that in a moment. I would apply that not only to drugs but to the whole range of offences which come before the magistrates. Imprisonment ought to be a last resort not only for juveniles, where the law is fairly explicit on that matter, but also for adults, where the law is not so explicit but where I hope sentencing policy would be as explicit as possible.
However, I have always thought that it was a retrograde step to specify so much for the first offence and so much for the second. I can illustrate the kind of muddle one gets into if one tries it by an experience of mine in a previous Conservative Government. At that time Mr. Marples (as he then was) was trying to alter the penalties for road traffic offences and, being assisted only by the Ministry of Transport (as it then was) without the expertise of the Home Office, he found the Statute Book was littered with perhaps 50 or 60—not much less—different offences, each one of which said so much for the first offence, so much for the second offence and, sometimes, so much for the third or subsequent offences.

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The result was this. Supposing a man was convicted on one occasion of dangerous driving, on another of careless driving, and the third time of motor manslaughter, the previous offences of the other types of offence could not be taken into consideration. Each was treated as a first offence. This is a ludicrous situation. I mention it not because I am trying to impute the ludicrous view which it implies either to Mr. Marples, who was a valued colleague of mine, or to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, but to indicate that if one wants to introduce a rational and simple penal code—and that is what I should ultimately like to do, although I do not hope ever to live to see it done—one must avoid trying to be too specific about little bits and pieces such as what is a first offence, and a first offence of what? An appropriate maximum penalty should be provided for what is done. Then a coherent sentencing policy in relation to that should be sought. The attempt to spell out what shall be done for a first offence or, in this case, a second offence or third offence, is not the way forward. Therefore I do not regard the new thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as an improvement on his old ones.
However, I have—and I do not want to conceal it—a much more difficult difference with the noble Lord, and that is about cannabis as a whole. I have read Lady Wootton's Report and I am fairly conversant with the literature on the subject. I realise that this is a controversial subject and we have to face one or two rather simple issues about it. It may be that we or our successors at some time will come to the conclusion that cannabis, like alcohol and tobacco, whatever one may think about them—and people take different views about them—are so far ineradicable that they cannot be penalised at all either for possession or trafficking, except by the fiscal system. One recognises that, thanks to indoctrination from America or elsewhere cannabis has got a certain way towards that. But to think that one can suddenly go soft on it in order to gratify the increased use of it is to go about it entirely in the wrong way.
Let us realise this about cannabis. We are under an obligation to make it a crime at the moment. That is an international obligation by international agreement, and that has so far not been re-
62
cognised. It has certainly not been re-cognised that it is ineradicable in the sense that alcohol or tobacco are in this country. Therefore we have set ourselves to the task of repressing its use, repressing its possession and repressing its traffic. Every step we make towards the acceptance of this drug is a oneway street; we can never go back along it. We can never retrace our steps if we make an error, and therefore we must be slow to go soft on it. Indeed, so long as our policy is one of repression, we must see that the penalties, if at all, err on the side of severity rather than leniency. So long as we pursue this policy it is disastrous to those who may be tempted to use the drug not to realise that it is something which the law takes extremely seriously.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble and learned Lord? If this is how he feels, why did he not put down an Amendment to this Bill to retain the penalties in the Misuse of Drugs Act which are now being reduced?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I thought I made it clear that I did not regard this Bill as a suitable vehicle for this subject; and I thought I said that at the beginning of my speech. This is a Bill which deals only tangentially and not substantively with drugs. If I thought it desirable to deal substantively with drugs at this stage, I would have recommended an amending Bill to the Misuse of Drugs Act and not to try to use this Bill as a vehicle for it. I had hoped to make that clear at the outset of my speech.
What I was going to say when the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, quite properly sought my answer to that question, was this. Quite apart from the fact that this is a one-way street down which, if we wish to travel, we must travel deliberately, one has not yet faced the argument which is widely believed and which I certainly believe, both from what I have read and from experience, that the long-term effects of cannabis are not yet evaluated and may be extremely serious, and also that cannabis is an initiation drug which has led many a young person down the street which leads to the use of more serious drugs, such as LSD and heroin. If that be true, and I happen to believe that it is— and whether I am right or wrong, I am

63
not the only person to believe it—the idea that you are going to get a little popularity or a little wisdom out of going "soft" on cannabis is a very serious delusion indeed.
It may be, as I say, that I should turn out to be wrong about that last attitude. If so, let the Government, after taking advice which is being sought on this, introduce, not into this Bill but into the Misuse of Drugs Bill, a reasoned series of Amendments in which a new general policy is given regarding the penalties attaching to the use and possession of, and trafficking in, different drugs. I personally would probably oppose such a Bill. I do not think that every five or six years you can continue to tinker with laws about the misuse of drugs. I think they ought to be given a certain period in which experience of the new régime is obtained; but that is another matter. That is the way to do it if we wish to do that. But do not let us think that we can go "soft" on cannabis entirely by itself without very serious consequent implications for policy; and I beg of your Lordships not to think that it can more properly or usefully be done in a little law reform Bill like this, which has already reached a degree of complication which T can only deplore.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether I am right in thinking that the classification of drugs as between A, B and C does not require fresh legislation but can be done by Statutory Instrument? Would my noble friend confirm that?
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I should like very briefly to clarify a point. I added my name to these Amendments, at least, to No. 34, at previous stages. I did not take my name off the list of supporters, but I did not think I could possibly be here today. However, I have been able to re-arrange a very important engagement. That is the only reason why my name is not set down today as supporting Amendment No. 34. I should like once again to say very strongly that I never would condone the taking of any drugs, but in my view—and I am only one of many in your Lordships' House—to send somebody to prison for a first offence in connection
64
with a minute amount of cannabis—not trafficking, not possessing but of smoking a small amount of cannabis—is not right. A fine of £500 is a very substantial amount to anybody and the possibility of a magistrates' court being able to fine somebody £500 on a first offence would be a sufficient penalty, in my view. Magistrates can always, as has been mentioned, send somebody to the Crown Court if they feel a prison sentence is warranted. I would support Amendment No. 34, as I have done in the past, for those reasons.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, if I may just deal with the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, it is a very common belief that the use of cannabis leads on to hard drugs such as heroin and LSD; but if the noble and learned Lord would care to look at the literature, there is no proof whatever that this happens. I am referring, for example, to page 10 of Drugs, Society and the Law, where there is a detailed examination of the allegation that the use of cannabis leads on to the use of heroin or any other drug. The most one can possibly say about this allegation is that it is not proven. If the noble and learned Lord wishes to believe it, then it is a purely emotional and not a logical belief, and it is totally unsupported by any scientific reasoning.
The noble and learned Lord also said that if you reduce the penalties at all in connection with the possession of cannabis —and I would ask your Lordships to remember that we are not talking about any other offence in relation to this drug except possession—you are going along a one-way street. But he weaved and ducked when I asked him why he had not opposed the reduction of the penalties already provided for under this Bill, as compared with the Misuse of Drugs Act. No one in your Lordships' House has objected to the fairly substantial reduction in penalties provided for under this Bill. One would have thought that if they felt so strongly that we were going along a one-way street they could have put down an Amendment to restore the penalties originally provided for in the Misuse of Drugs Act. The fact that no one has bothered to come forward with an Amendment restoring those penalties indicates that they do not feel that strongly about the one-way street argument.

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Nor is it correct to say that we are suddenly going "soft" if we remove imprisonment for the first and second offences in connection with possession; and even if we went back to the original Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, we should not be going "soft" because we are retaining some fairly substantial fines for this offence. So I do not think that those arguments ought to be allowed to stand without some refutation.
With regard to the speech of the Minister, I was very encouraged to hear what he had to say about the proceedings of the Advisory Council, although hoped, and indeed was under the impression, that they had gone somewhat further than he told the House. As he spoke, I was wondering whether it would not be more convenient, from the point of view of the discussions which are bound to take place on this matter in another place, for the noble Lord to make arrangements for the relevant advice to be published. I do not know what the position has been in the past regarding advice given by various groups to the Advisory Council or as regards advice given by the Advisory Council itself. Obviously I am not asking the Minister to give me an answer at this stage. I am simply making the point that I have no doubt the Council and its various Working Parties have given the matter very thorough consideration. Whatever they have to say to the Minister would be equally valuable to Members of another place when they come to consider the matter. I very much hope it will be possible at least to remove imprisonment for the first offence, and that the advice which the Advisory Council have given can be taken in another place. I feel, in the circumstances and because of the fact that the Advisory Council have reported only this morning, it would be inappropriate for me to take the feeling of the House at this stage. So with—
Lord HALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down—because I think I have exhausted any right I might have had to "speak without speaking" by leaving it until the noble Lord replies to his own Amendment—would he press the noble Lord on the Front Bench to answer the question which was put by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, which is an
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extremely important one in this connection?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, if I may say so, it was answered by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He confirmed that the noble Baroness was right, and in fact he had already said so earlier in the debate.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, perhaps the Minister would stand up and say that. I think he only nodded his head.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am always delighted on any—
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord HALE: My Lords, I also wanted to know whether the noble Lord would check on some information which apparently was given in another place and was published in The Times only yesterday morning. It came to my notice during the day, and was to the effect that up to 1975 about 700 people were being sent to prison without the option of a fine—the figures were given for three years—for cannabis offences. Admittedly, they include very grave ones, although one does not know how many. But, certainly, these figures seem to give a disparity of information to what we have had at previous hearings.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, in another place Mr. Speaker has always deplored interventions on interventions, but I do not think I have ever seen four interventions, one on top of another. It is a unique experience. But in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hale, I can give him only the figures of convictions for simple possession in the year 1975, which were quoted on a previous occasion. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, will correct me if I am wrong, but I think there were 517 cases of persons who were given sentences of imprisonment for simple possession.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, that includes Crown Court convictions.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I believe that it included Crown Court convictions. But I cannot tell the noble Lord the total

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of imprisonments in relation to offences involving the use of, or trafficking in, cannabis and it was obviously higher than that. But I think the noble Lord will agree that the figure of 517 is a fairly substantial one, and unless we can make a start with reducing the prison population by removing from the penal system minor offences such as the possession of cannabis, which are no longer seen by very many people in this country—indeed, I would almost go so far as to say most people in this country—as being of a criminal nature, we shall start to build up a more serious situation in our prisons. I am sorry that we have not been able to take the opportunity, while
Page 54, line 27, at end insert—

("PROTECTION OP ANIMALS ACT 1934 (c.21)

Offences under section 1(1) (prohibition of certain public contests, performances and exhibitions with horses or bulls).

Section 2.

£100.

£500.")

Page 55, line 19, at end insert—

("CINEMATOGRAPH FlLMS (ANIMALS) ACT 1937 (c. 59)

Offences under section 1(1) (prohibition of films in production of which suffering has been caused to animals).

Section 1(3).

£100.

£200.")

Page 57, line 13, at end insert—

("DOCKING AND NICKING OF HORSES ACT 1949 (c. 70)

Offences under section 1(1) (prohibition of docking or nicking horses).

Section 1(3).

£25.

£200.

Offences under section 2(3) (offences in connection with importation of docked horses).

Section 2(3).

£25.

£200.

Offences under section 2(4) (making a false statement).

Section 2(4).

£25.

£200.")

Page 58, line 9, at end insert—

("COCKFIGHTING ACT 1952 (c. 59)

Offences under section 1(1) (possession of appliances for use in fighting of domestic fowl).

Section 1(1).

£25.

£200.

DOGS (PROTECTION OF LIVESTOCK) ACT 1953 (c. 28)

Offences under section 1(1) (owning or keeping a dog which worries livestock).

Section 1(6) (as amended by Schedule 3 to the Criminal Justice Act 1967).

£20 for a first offence and £50 for a second or subsequent offence in respect of the same dog.

£200.")

Page 58, line 16, at end insert—

("PESTS ACT 1954 (c. 68)

Offences under section 8(1) (restrictions on unlawful spring traps).

Section 8(2).

£20 for a first offence and £50 for a second or subsequent offence.

£200.

Offences under section 9(1) (open trapping of hares and rabbits).

Section 9(2).

£20, or, if the offender has been previously convicted as mentioned in section 9(2), £50.

£200.

Offences under section 12 (spreading of myxomatosis).

Section 12.

£20 for a first offence and £50 for a second or subsequent offence.

£200.")

Page 58,line 32, at end insert—

("ANIMALS (CRUEL POISONS) ACT 1962 (c. 26)

Offences under section 1 (offences in connection with use of prohibited poison for destroying animal).

Section 1.

£50.

£200.")

this Bill has been passing through this House, to make a start in relation to the possession of cannabis. But I am hoping that, with the benefit of the Advisory Council's Report to the Minister, another place may complete the job. Therefore, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 6 [Increase of fines for certain summary offences]:
5.22 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendments Nos. 36 to 44:
Page 60, line 27, at end insert—

("AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) ACT 1968 (c. 34)

Offences under section 1(1) (prevention of unnecessary pain and distress to livestock).

Section 7.

£100 for a first offence and £200 for a second or subsequent offence.

£500.")

Page 61, line 24, at end insert—

("CONSERVATION OP SEALS ACT 1970 (c. 30)

Any offence under the Act, except an offence under section 11(7).

Section 5(2).

£50 for a first offence and £100 for a second or subsequent offence.

£500.")

Page 62, line 26, at end insert—

("CONSERVATION OF WILD CREATURES AND WILD PLANTS ACT 1975 (c. 48)

Any offence under the Act.

Section 11(1).

£100.

£200.")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will with permission move Amendments Nos. 36 to 44, and ask for them to be treated en bloc. These Amendments fulfil the undertaking which I gave during the Report stage to the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that I would look at the drafting and penalty levels in various pieces of legislation concerned with, cruelty to animals. As I explained then I felt that some of the increases which he proposed were disproportionately high and these we have adjusted. I have also taken the opportunity, encouraged by the enthusiasm of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, to remove where appropriate higher penalties on second or subsequent conviction. I hope that the House, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, will find these proposals accept able. I should mention that there is an extra offence included in the list of Amendments. We are increasing to £500 the maximum fine for an offence of causing pain or distress to livestock under the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968. Although this was not one of the noble Lord's candidates for an increase, the offences are so closely linked that it is sensible to keep the penalties in line with one another and to provide an adequate maximum fine. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord most sincerely for moving these Amendments. I think that they are a vast improvement on my own. But what I did was well worth doing, in order to get the Government to do something.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should also like to express my appreciation to the Government and to use this opportunity—I am cheating here—in order to ask them to consider a little more carefully, and a little more happily, if I reintroduce a Bill dealing with animals in another connection. Since they have been magnanimous on this occasion, I hope that they will think again about some other little animals which are not named in this series of Amendments.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I should like to add my word of thanks to the Government for removing all this nonsense about second and subsequent offences We must try to simplify the law and get out of these old-fashioned practices, which only complicate it.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
5.25 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendments Nos. 45 to 52:
Page 62, line 28, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("Paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 4.")
Pafe 62,line 30, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The Table in Part 1 of Schedule 4.")
Page 62,line 34, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The said Table.")
Page 63, line 5, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The said Table.")
Page 63, line 8, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4") and insert ("The said Table.")
Page 63, line 12, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The said Table.")
Page 63, line 16, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The said Table.")
Page 63, line 18, column 2, leave out ("Schedule 4.") and insert ("The said Table.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be to the convenience of the House if I move Amendments Nos. 45 to 52 en bloc. At Report stage, the Government accepted an Amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, to increase penalties for summary offences under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975. The purpose of this further Amendment is merely to improve the way in which the penalty revision is expressed. I have corresponded with the noble Earl on this matter and I am glad to report that he has welcomed these further Amendments. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend I should like to thank the noble Lord for the trouble which he has taken to meet our wishes in this matter.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 8 [Amendments of Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975]:
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 53:
Page 72, line 11, at end insert ("Metropolitan Police Act 1839").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is put down to ensure that the fine, which is increased in Schedule 6 to the Bill, for offences under this Act, which applies only to England, shall not extend to Scotland. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 72, line 20, at end insert ("sections 8 and 9 of the Pests Act 1954").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a similar Amendment, because the Pests Act 1954 does not apply to Scotland. It is therefore necessary to make sure that the Amendments to this Bill do not apply either. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendments Nos. 55 and 56:
Page 90, line 47, column 3, after ("to") insert ("section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839,").
Page 90, line 55, after ("1951,") insert ("the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these Amendments are necessary consequentials to the increased fines for offences under these Acts, provided for in Schedule 6.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
In the Title:
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE moved Amendments Nos. 57 to 60:
Line 7, leave out from ("circumstances;") to ("to") in line 11 and insert ("otherwise to amend the criminal law, including the law with respect to the administration of criminal justice;")
Line 12, leave out from ("limits;") to ("to") in line 16.
Line 19, leave out ("road traffic,")
Line 20, leave out ("to abolish certain offences;").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, by leave of the House may I move Amendments Nos. 57 to 60 en bloc. These Amendments have the laudable objective of shortening the Title of the Bill, and think will meet with no objection. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, can I obtain confirmation from the Government that the new Title is sufficient to cover their own Amendment No. 19, as I was advised by the Table at an earlier stage, when I proposed what has become the new Amendment No. 19, that a change in the Title was required and it certainly was not this particular change.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am advised, Yes but I will confirm.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
An Amendment (privilege) made.
5.30 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. This is the eleventh day on which the House has considered this Bill. I think that it has, in many respects, improved the Bill to a significant degree. The

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Government have moved some 190 Amendments to the Bill since we began our work upon it. About 75 of these Amendments were on points of substance, while 33 of them were in relation to points which had been raised by noble Lords sitting in various parts of the House. By the end of our deliberations today the Government will have accepted some 15 Amendments which were put down by noble Lords, not counting the two which were carried against the Government.
So much for the statistics of our work. I do not think that it would be right or, indeed, gracious of me not to end by thanking very much all those who have participated in our discussions. This is an important Bill, and I think that in many respects we have improved it quite significantly. I thank in particular the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and, indeed, many others who have devoted so much time and attention to the Bill and who have at all times been reasonable in their approach to it.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
5.31 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge the last words of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and not to reciprocate them. This has been an extremely pleasant, if arduous, set of discussions and I hope that we have sent the Bill down to another place in a form in which it will ultimately reach the Statute Book. Having had experience of both Houses, I do not think that it is going to be an easy Bill to discuss in another place. A former Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell, who was a Lord Chancellor in the last century and a considerable law reformer in his own right, once said what I believe to be true: that law reform is either by consent or not at all. By this he did not mean that contentious changes were not desirable but that if you introduced a law reform Bill—and this is a law reform Bill—you ultimately generated so much discussion among so many sources and so many kinds of people that the passage of legislation became almost impossible. I hope that this Bill will not meet with that kind of fate. The demise of the late
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lamented devolution Bill may make it easier for another place to digest this particular piece of legislation. I hope that it will not founder by the wayside.
I want to say just two things which have been on my mind for some time. We began this Bill in an atmosphere of almost excited controversy. It is difficult to remember that now. However, I can remember the speeches, particularly from the Back-Benches behind the Government, of those who thought that the rule of Magna Charta and trial by jury was being brought to an end—I am thinking in particular of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—because of the Government's then intention to implement the James Committee on the subject of small thefts. I admit, and I admit without regret and hesitation now, that I was among those who advised the Government to give in on that point. I think I was right to do so; all the heat has been removed from the Bill by that very wise concession, because public opinion is not ready for that kind of amendment. However, I now want to say, in the cool of the evening, that I think that the James Committee and the Government's original intentions were perfectly right. We shall come to them in the end, particularly when the Amendments which we have been discussing this afternoon, to improve procedure before the magistrates, have been brought about.
I believe that we make a great deal too much of petty thefts. I do not think that they are so serious as people pretend. I know that the noble and learned Lord on the Cross-Benches, my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, made a great speech about the Ten Commandments. When I tried to discuss the matter in my Party Committee at the other end of the corridor they spoke about it having only recently been a felony and once punishable by death. The sooner we get out of that frame of mind the better. Adultery is against the Ten Commandments, but nobody suggests any more that it should be tried by jury. Indeed, it is not an offence any more. As for covetousness, which is also against the Ten Commandments, it is part of the religion of Socialism! Therefore I think that we must forget about the Ten Commandments in connection with the modern penal code,

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although I am the last to reject them as a basis for moral life or, indeed, as a basis for jurisprudence in general.
There is something else which I want to say to the Government. The more I reflect upon our criminal law and procedure the more I become convinced that something much more general and deep probing will ultimately have to be done about it. We heard of the rough ride that Lord Edmund-Davies's Criminal Law Reform Committee proposals on the right of silence took; it has become totally unlegislatable. But have we not a number of sacred cows and ought not some of them to be slaughtered? I am thinking in particular of those elaborate trials for City and commercial frauds.
First we set up a distinguished body of inspectors, consisting of a chartered accountant and usually a silk. It takes them 18 months to report and they report that certain offences have been committed. Then the police have to get into their 18th century wagonette, with their blunt pencils, and fit this modern report into the straight waistcoat of our 18th century rules of evidence. Finally, seven or eight years after the alleged offences were committed, oral witnesses have to be called before a jury in order to ascertain that the case is proved. People know that their memories have gone by that time. In the Rolls Razor case it was 13 years after the alleged incident—this was partly due to the fact that he had absconded—before the man was arraigned. Then people complained of a plea bargain. Virtually the case was untriable.
If you have three or four defendants in the box and each one of them exercises his right of peremptory challenge, you can pack your jury with people who do not understand what the case is about. I remember that some years ago before I was Lord Chancellor it was my painful duty to prosecute a man for one of these offences. It was a simple case which took only a fortnight; it was a company fraud. Mr. Hooson was defending and the jury were unaccountably out for about five hours. I did not know why, except that I must have presented the case very badly. However, I found out afterwards that they convicted—it was an absolutely open and shut case—only because there was a chartered accountant on the jury
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and he had talked the others round to understanding it.
I wonder whether this is the right way to run a railway company, or any kind of rational case? I know that there are members of the judiciary, although they are probably not free to admit it, who think that we might experiment with alternative methods of trial on indictment, particularly in these complicated fraud cases. It is not sense, in our present system, to allow seven years to elapse between the incident and the arraignment. It is not fair to expect 12 people to devote anything up to six and sometimes, in exceptional cases, nine months of their lives to sitting de die in diem in the Old Bailey for nothing more than a little compensation in order to try them. When there are several defendants it is not sense to allow counsel for the defence to pack the jury with illiterates in order that nobody shall understand what the case is about.
Is it not possible for the wit of man to think of a more rational way of conducting criminal trials for that kind of case on indictment? I should have thought that the answer was, Yes. I am passionately convinced—and I am not the only member of the profession so to be convinced—that a tribunal, consisting of a High Court judge and two or three laymen with some experience of commercial matters, with an unlimited right of appeal, to the extent that appeal is unlimited in civil cases, and with an obligation to give a reasoned judgment and not a plain verdict, would give the defence a better chance ultimately of escaping and the prosecution a better chance of getting a convicton in reasonable cases.
I want to say a word or two, if I may, about the controversy which has taken place in various circles connected with the criminal law in which Sir Robert Mark, a man I greatly admire, played a prominent part, and members of the Bar Council also entered the lists with great vigour. This matter is so often discussed from the point of view of whether you want to get more convictions or more acquittals. The truth is that you may want to get more of each; that is not an incompatible attitude to adopt. You want innocent people, or rather people not proved guilty, to be acquitted; but

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you want people who have been proved guilty to be convicted. It may be that we are letting off a number of people who are guilty and ought to be convicted on the evidence, yet convicting a certain number of innocent people—I hope very few—who ought to be acquitted. They are not inconsistent propositions.
This leads me to the last remark I want to make. I do so in the presence of the Lord Chancellor, although of course I do not expect him to comment because I have given him no notice of it. I have become a little concerned about the actual number of cases in which people have been convicted and their appeals have been dismissed—and, I may add, on the rules of the game as they exist at the moment, perfectly properly—but who, at some later stage in their careers, have proved their innocence. If there are some people who prove their innocence at a later stage, sometimes years after the original conviction, there must be other people who are in fact not guilty, or who ought to have been found not guilty, who have not been able to prove their innocence. These cases are listed and they can sometimes be categorised. The cases which came up for discussion a little earlier in the life of this Parliament were related to mistaken identity. One was very widely publicised in the public Press this weekend and related to confessions. I believe Sir Harry Fisher is advising the Government about it at the moment.
When these things come to light they are usually discussed by the enthusiasts for civil rights through demands for greater safeguards for the innocent. That is perfectly intelligible, and within certain limited parameters perfectly right. My belief is that if you look only at the safeguards of the innocent you will ultimately make the present methods of trial wholly impossible from the point of view of convicting the guilty. That must be true of confessions, and I suspect it is true of identification. I am suggesting that the viewpoint from which this ought to be looked at is whether our present system of evidence and our present system of trial is really rational in some respects, and, if it could be made more rational, whether it would not be possible to avoid a certain number of perverse acquittals and at the same time, and not inconsistently, avoid a number of false convictions.
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I do not believe we have heard the last of this matter. I think that wise heads in the Government—and in spite of their politics some of them have relatively wise heads—ought now to be considering with the Judiciary and the profession whether our present methods of criminal evidence, criminal procedure and trial on indictment, and not only trial before magistrates, really match up to the needs of the twentieth century. Having said that I should like to repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for the extremely courteous and reasonable way in which he has dealt with the Opposition during the course of the Bill. I wish the Bill a pleasant journey through the other place.
5.45 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I do not want to follow the more theological observations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, but I should like to express my own gratitude both to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and their respective Departments for the extreme care and patience and courtesy which they have shown at all times in the course of dealing with a large number of written communications, apart from a number of interventions and observations made in the course of the debates. Invariably their replies have been persuasive and at times compelling.
As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has indicated, we leave this Bill considerably improved. That is not to say that there may not be some scope for further improvement when the Bill goes to the other place. For example, we have failed to solve the problem of how to eliminate the wholly unnecessary commitals for trial where there is no case disclosed on the evidence. We have discussed it at length but failed to come to any real solution. We have not dealt in any way conclusively with the problem of whether assaults on the police are a species of offence which ought to be triable either way. That would require a very careful analysis of waiting times at Crown Courts and at magistrates' courts, information on which is not so far available. However I believe we have improved this Bill. I think in many respects we have made the criminal law simpler. I hope we have made it more effective and at the same time I hope we have managed to preserve the

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essential rights of the individual who may find himself standing trial.
I do not want to follow in detail the other observations made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. I would respectfully agree with him that many of our procedures are unnecessarily complicated and unnecessarily time-consuming and that those procedures might properly be looked at. Indeed, I think many of them would not require legislation in order to be resolved. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, talks about the long and complicated City fraud that occupies so much time at the Old Bailey (as indeed it does), very often as I listen to it I wonder not whether it is desirable that the method of trial on indictment should be changed but whether it would not be relatively simple to make the apparently long and complicated fraud very much easier to comprehend and very much shorter if only those who were taking part in it felt that it was practicable to deal with it in that way. Over the last few years there has grown up a tendency for cases to become quite unnecessarily long and complex and to get away from the main point at issue. I hope that we might deal with that problem in a practical way and not by trying to devise wholly new modes of trial or trying to eliminate the system of jury trial which, on the whole, has served us so well in the past.
The only other matter I wish to mention is that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, has referred to a series of miscarriages of justice. Indeed there have been some, particularly in cases involving identification, and as your Lordships know there have been proposals to deal with that matter in the future. But I hope your Lordships will not always believe everything that is written, particularly in the Sunday newspapers, that alleges a miscarriage of justice. There is nothing easier for a so-called investigative journalist to do than to sit down after a trial in which there has been a conviction and to point out that the conviction only depends on the word of two police officers and there was only the defendant's written statement of guilt, there was not other supporting evidence and the defendant's mother is firmly of the view that the defendant is innocent,
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and that therefore yet again there has been a miscarriage of justice.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord. I wholly agree with what he is saying, but in the particular case to which I was referring the conviction has in fact been reversed.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I was not going to suggest for one moment that a miscarriage of justice is not possible. I hope we can recognise that, under our system, miscarriages of justice take place with remarkable rarity and that our system as a whole is one of which we ought to be proud, and we should be very slow and very reluctant to tamper with it.
5.50 p.m.
Lord MORRIS of BORTH-Y-GEST: My Lords, may I be allowed on my own behalf, and I think on behalf of some others from these Benches, to add my word of appreciation and admiration of the way in which all our suggestions and Amendments during the passage of this Bill have been considered. I think some of us who have had some little contact with the law have felt that in considering the various matters that have been before your Lordships' House one has had to be very alert, to have in mind the relevant Statutes, provisions and principles. I, for one, have been full of amazement and wonder at the way in which those in charge of this Bill have at all times been able to deal with very difficult matters.
As regards the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, he, of course, is well familiar with all these things, but as regards the noble Lords on the Front Bench who have borne the heat and brunt of' the day. in particular the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, I have been full of admiration for the way in which he has, over many days, over many Amendments, been able to help us and to deal with the points. My Lords, I wonder what would have happened if the noble Lord had decided to become a barrister. I cannot help thinking that other barristers would have found that they had a very formidable competitor indeed, and perhaps what the Bar has lost your Lordships' House has gained. We do thank him for the way in which he has dealt with all matters.

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This is an important Bill, and I hope it will be thought by all those in charge of the Bill that all our suggestions and all our Amendments have been made with a desire to help. There have been certain questions of principle. I think one of the questions of principle related to the suggestion that in cases of theft there should be no right to trial by jury, though generally there would be, where the amount was only small. I think there was a point of principle there, and many of us were very grateful to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for the gracious way in which he heard the arguments and then came to a conclusion. I am sure there was great feeling, not only in the legal profession but throughout the country, that it was not, on the whole, the best decision to make a change and withdraw those particular cases from a jury.
This afternoon the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, to whose speeches I always listen with infinite joy and profit, ranged over a very wide field, and there were many matters that could profitably, as I think, be the subject of separate debates. I am bound to say that I think there are many who have an enthusiasm for and belief in the jury system, not only those experienced in the law hut members of the public, Which was not very specially marked in the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham.
This Bill was brought in mainly to deal with two very painstaking reports, the report of the Committee under Lord Justice James and the report of the Law Commission. I think your Lordships can feel that in the main the chief recommendations of those two committees have been implemented. As regards the James Committee, it was appointed to consider the distribution of business between the Crown Courts and magistrates' courts. The great majority of the recommendations have, I think, been implemented, and it will result in great advantage in that there will be a saving of time in the Crown Courts. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor at a very early stage gave us figures indicating that it would be in the public interest if the weight and volume of work in the Crown Courts could somehow he reduced. I think it will be as a result of the passing of this
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Bill, if it is passed in its present form or nearly in its present form. We show our confidence in the magistrates by this Bill, because we are asking them to assume a greater volume of work than that which up to now they have had to accept.
Many of us who have taken part in these debates have wished to stress our faith in the magistrates' system and in the work done by magistrates. They will have more work to do. It is bound to result from that, if they have more work to do, that there are likely to be a few more appeals, and that in turn will involve some work for the Crown Courts. But in the main there will be relief, and that was the main recommendation of the James Committee, and that in substance is now within this Bill.
One of the main recommendations of the Law Commission in regard to conspiracy was that, for the future, conspiracy should only be an offence if there was an agreement to do something that itself was an offence. There had to be one or two exceptions. There had to be the exception of conspiracy to defraud. There are other offences which have generally been regarded as common law offences, but very often it has been found that they were common law conspiracies because the substantive conduct was itself an offence. In the main, without, I think, losing too much, the chief recommendation of the Law Commission has been accepted.
My Lords, the debates have shown that it will be a very long-term policy to reduce the whole of our criminal law to statutory form. The debates have also shown that we should approach with some circumspection any policy which is designed to sweep away all common law offences, for the common law with all its flexibility has been developed over the centuries and on the whole has served the country well. Resisting the temptation to say a little more about some of the topics advanced in such a very interesting way by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, may I in conclusion say that I think this Bill is achieving a useful purpose. It is in the main implementing those two reports. I hope that all of us who have taken any part in the debates have been thought to be helpful and constructive, and again I express my admiration and

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thanks to all the noble Lords in charge of this Bill for the way in which they have dealt with all our points.
5.59 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, it is rather like breaking up for the summer term, except that we have just returned from the Easter Recess. Nevertheless, in the happy mood in which the House now finds itself, let me conclude by once again thanking all those who have participated in our debates and the three noble Lords who have just addressed us. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, has rightly said that we owe a great deal of gratitude to the work of the late Lord Justice James and his Committee, and it is only right that we should bear him in mind particularly. Of course, I know how highly he was regarded by his judicial colleagues.
This Bill will ensure that the distribution of criminal business will henceforth be far more rational than has been the situation up to the moment, and it will have the additional advantage of relieving the Crown Courts of what in London and the South-East, but also in other areas of the country, has become an almost intolerable burden of work. We must also thank the Law Commission for its work, which now forms a major part of the Bill. I doubt whether any measure coming from the Law Commission has been scrutinised quite as carefully and as rigorously as the recommendations which form part of the Bill. That is right; it is good for the Law Commission and for Parliament.
With perhaps one or two minor exceptions, the Bill emerges in an altogether more attractive form than when it first appeared. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, for his personal remarks which I deeply appreciate, and also the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for their remarks. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, made an exceptionally interesting speech, if he will forgive me for saying so. I shall certainly ensure that his words are studied by my right honourable friend and his colleagues, who are responsible for dealing with these matters. I am quite sure that this will
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repay very careful analysis. I think that my colleagues will look at it with even greater pleasure, given the fact that the noble and learned Lord, rather uncharacteristically, if I may say so, was kind enough—I shall not say to make some flattering observations about the quality of the members of the administration—to indicate that on some occasions they were rather more rational than perhaps on others. Nevertheless, coming from the noble and learned Lord they were gracious words, and I am sure will be appreciated by all those who were intended to be at the receiving end. Once again, I thank all concerned. The Bill is a great deal better than when it first started life.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

WATER CHARGES EQUALISATION BILL
6.2 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Although the Bill before the House is modest and short—unlike the Bill with which we have just dealt—and designed to bring water charges in different parts of the country within a narrower range, it is also, I fear, a very complicated measure. Water, being a force of nature which sparkles in prose and in poetry and which so often forms a wonderfully romantic setting, should be simple to dispose of, use and enjoy. However, alas! life is not like that. Once we no longer gather water individually and directly from a natural source, finance immediately lifts its controversial head. As noble Lords may recall from our deliberations on the Water Charges Act last year, any measure dealing with water finance seems fated to come cloaked in complexity. Before I outline the major provisions of the Bill, it might be helpful if I explain why the Bill is necessary.
The 1973 Water Act placed responsibility for the water services in England and Wales on 10 large water authorities. The water authorities are organised on the basis of hydrological boundaries; that is to say each authority is responsible for the management of the complete water cycle within one or more river basins: this is for water supply, severage and sewage

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disposal, the prevention of pollution, land drainage, fisheries and recreation. Although this Government cannot claim to be enamoured of each and every feature of the 1973 Water Act, we do support the principle of integrated management of river basins. Water is unfortunately a natural resource that costs money to provide in the right form and at the right place, so there have, alas! as I have indicated, to be water charges. Further, one of the results of water reorganisation was to reveal a quite remarkable variety of different charges. Before reorganisation there were 160 separate water supply undertakings and the water authorities found themselves with a range of charges from 2p in the pound in some areas to over 20p in the pound in others. It was clear then that the reorganisation of water charges was one of the early tasks facing the new water authorities.
The new water authorities thought, quite rightly, that this range of charges could not be allowed to continue, and all of them set to work—eventually—to rationalise the charges they had inherited from their predecessors. Most authorities embarked on a deliberate policy of equalising their charges; that is, of reducing charges to a narrower range by increases in areas where they were low to finance decreases in areas where they were high. Although different authorities went for different types of equalisation, I am pleased to say that most authorities took our advice that equalisation should be gradual and moderate. Sharp and sudden variations in charges must be avoided—and this Bill is fully consistent with our advice that equalisation should be moderate. The policies adopted by the water authorities show that there is no dispute about the principle of equalisation. Therefore, if it is right to narrow the gap between charges in Nottingham and Birmingham, it must also be right to narrow the gap between charges in Birmingham and Swansea. The principle is the same in both cases.
It is no secret that water charges have gone up substantially since reorganisation —we can see that from our accounts. The water authorities have a statutory duty to raise sufficient income from their charges to break even; so if costs go up so must charges. People have rightly been concerned about both the levels of charges and variations in the charges made by
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different water authorities. There has been particular concern in Wales, where charges have been well above the national average. I thought that that would please my noble friend Lady White. This concern led the Government to set up the Daniel Committee to look at the whole question of disparities of charges between England and Wales. The Committee reported in March 1975 with the main recommendation that:
"Early action should be taken to reduce the difference in average water charges between the Welsh National Water Development Authority and other authorities".
The Government responded to the Daniel Report by bringing forward their promised review of the water industry with particular reference to the question of variations in charges. As a result of preliminary work on the review, the Government published a Consultative Document in March 1976 which announced a firm commitment to a national measure for the equalisation of charges between different water authorities. The Bill before us today provides for an equalisation scheme on the lines of that discussed in the Consultative Document.
We said in the Consultative Document that:
"Equity and fairness require that domestic average bills be brought within a range more consistent with the need to provide water services at a relatively reasonable cost and without differences of the order that now exist".
Noble Lords may be surprised by the sorts of differences that exist at present. As the slow progress of this Bill in another place means that equalisation cannot take effect in the current financial year, this year there will be a variation in average domestic bills for water supply from £25·40 in Wales to £15 in the Thames area. In percentage terms this means a range between 43 per cent. above the national average to 15 per cent. below. Variations like this in the price of a basic human need for every family are quite intolerable, particularly since the domestic householder cannot influence the size of his water bill by changes in his own consumption. The variations are very much wider than those for, say, electricity, where the range is from about 4 per cent. below the national average to 6 per cent. above; or for gas.
The national equalisation scheme contained in this Bill would smooth out the

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peaks and troughs of variations around the national average. We estimate that, had the Bill been able to affect charges in 1977–78, it would have reduced the range in average bills to one of 24 per cent. above the national average to 10 per cent. below. That of course is in domestic bills. In cash terms, this would have meant at one extreme that the average householder in Wales was paying about £22 and at the other extreme that the average householder in Thames was paying £16. I am sure that many people, particularly those at the higher end of the scale, would have still thought that their bills were too high. but for reasons that I shall explain the Equalisation Bill is deliberately framed as a moderate measure that falls a long way short of a complete and full equalisation of bills.
I should like now to set this Bill in the context of national water strategy. The drought of last year brought home in a forceful way the importance of planning water resources for the country as a whole. Indeed, I think it is the first time for several hundred years that we had to think along these lines so far as water was concerned. It showed the interdependence of water authorities and the need for areas of relative plenty to help areas of relative scarcity. Indeed, a substantial programme of works is now in progress to provide new links between sources. If I may adapt John Donne:
"No authority is an island, entire of itself; every authority is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. Ask not for whom the Bill tolls!"
I am sorry, that is awful. It sounded better before I wrote it down.
A sensible national water strategy must be based on transferring water from areas of surplus to areas of shortage. For understandable reasons, the major concentrations of population—and therefore where there is the greatest demand for water—are not those areas where it is best to build reservoirs or abstract water. Water has therefore to be moved about. Transfers of water between authorities are already a familiar feature in the water world: It is apparent that the North-West-Severn-Trent and Welsh authorities are interdependent. There are also numerous small-scale transfers, for example from Severn-Trent to Anglian. More transfers
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are inevitable in the future, for example from Northumbria to Yorkshire and on to Anglia, and from Wessex to the South West. Indeed, the old Water Resources Board suggested that, if the Craig Goch project was completed in good time, the best choice for providing a major addition to supplies for the South-East from about 1984 onwards would be by transfers from the Severn to the Thames.
If every water authority tried to be self-sufficient, there would be a very real danger that too many small uneconomic reservoirs would be built in the wrong places. This would mean a substantial waste of scarce resources, environmental damage and, above all, higher bills for everybody. The alternative is to aim at a sensible national strategy. But in developing this strategy it is of cardinal importance that authorities should be able to obtain water from other areas at no more than the price it costs to store and convey the water. The Government's policy is that all water transfers should be made on a "no profit/no loss" basis, and we intend to see that this remains the case. The fact is, however, that there is a genuine sense of grievance in Wales about high levels of charges. We have concluded that if the "no profit/no loss" principle is to be maintained some action is necessary to reduce charge disparities.
Full equalisation of water bills—that is, a standard water bill for everyone—would remove the incentives each water authority now has to manage its own affairs in the most efficient and economical manner. Authorities could in that event simply spend in the knowledge that others would have to foot the bill. There would in fact be good reason to be inefficient because keeping bills below the national average would mean paying money over to other authorities. So for this reason we have deliberately confined our scheme to affect only that part of an authority's costs which is largely outside their control: that is, its legacy of past capital expenditure in the shape of depreciation and interest charges. The scheme is confined to the area where the need is greatest: unmeasured, mainly domestic, water supply.
The Bill does not extend to sewerage charges because standards of this service

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are nothing like as consistent in different water authorities as are the standards of water supply. Moreover, there is not the same interdependence between authorities for sewerage as there is for water supply. No one transfers sewerage across boundaries. Nor does it include metered water supply because while domestic consumers are a captive market, industry can reduce its bills by using less water. It is important to retain incentives to save water by ensuring that industry pays the full cost of its supply. Moreover, it is in domestic charges that regional variations are most inequitable.
The scheme is, as I have indicated, a complicated one. But broadly what it does is to reduce to a common unit cost for each unmeasured supply the financing charges which each authority is now having to meet as a result of capital expenditure incurred before 31st March 1976 for the provision of unmeasured water supply. We first work out a national unit by adding together all the qualifying financing charges for all authorities and dividing the result by the total number of properties which get an unmeasured supply in the country as a whole. We next work out for each individual authority its own regional unit cost. Regional unit costs are then compared with the national unit cost, and authorities with costs below the national average pay an equalisation levy while authorities with costs above the national average receive an equalisation payment. The size of the equalisation payment or levy is proportionate to the variation of an authority's unit cost from the national unit cost. This complicated process—and I have done no more than outline its most basic features; I can assure noble Lords it is, in reality, far more complicated than that when one gets down to the detail—requires only a computer.
What this means is that, after taking account of the transfers between authorities, each authority has to meet the same average cost for this part of their expenditure. But, of course, they are still responsible for meeting their own costs in other areas—the cost of wages and salaries for example, and the cost of financing capital expenditure undertaken after the qualifying date of 31st March 1976. And because these costs vary between authorities, there will still be differences between
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the charges which the consumer has to pay in order to cover the authorities' expenditure. As I have already said, if it had come in this year it would still have left a wide range in average bills, but it would still have narrowed the gap substantially, as indeed it will do next year.
The scheme will be self-balancing: payments in by some authorities will be balanced by payments out to other authorities. No Government money is involved. It is an unfortunate fact of equalisation that while some bills go down, others must rise to finance those reductions. The authorities who stand to benefit from the national equalisation scheme are the South-West, Anglian, the Welsh authority and Northumbrian; all other authorities will have to pay into the pool, particularly, I am afraid, Thames.
The effects of the payments will steadily diminish as new spending after 1st April 1976 forms an increasing proportion of authorities' revenue requirements. I must repeat that this is a modest Bill, even if rather complicated and long-winded. If it had come in this year transfers would have totalled less than 2 per cent. of the authorities' revenue requirement, and would have cost the average householder no more than 2½p a week in any water authority area. The benefits to consumers in the areas which will gain under the Bill would have been much greater than this.
During debate on this Bill in another place, there was concern expressed that it did not extend to the private water companies, who supply about a quarter of the population of England and Wales. My right honourable friend agreed that he would like to include the companies within the scheme and explained they had not been included only because the Government regarded it as impractical to do so—particularly if the Bill was to achieve the rapid progress necessary to bring it into force for the present financial year.
For reasons which I shall not delay the House in pursuing it is now too late to achieve that and my right honourable friend undertook to consider the possibility of including the companies in the scheme. This is not an easy matter: the water companies, as private companies, have very different financial arrangements from those of water authorities. My officials

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are still engaged in discussions with the companies and I do not yet know what the answer will be. But I can assure your Lordships that it is the Government's wish to bring the companies in, as it was the wish of all parties in another place, and I hope to be able to bring forward suitable Amendments at a later stage.
My Lords, I hope that I have made it clear that this measure is essential to the development of a sensible national water strategy, and that it brings some elementary justice to the vexed and difficult subject of water charges, and I commend it to your Lordships.
Moved, that the Bill be read 2a.—(Baroness Birk.)
6.20 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for explaining the background and purpose of the Bill. I am also sure she is right to recognise that water is an inflammable political substance. Nevertheless, I am glad to welcome the Bill, but not because it has any merits. I welcome it because it exposes and demonstrates with such striking clarity the prejudices, follies and ineptitude of Her Majesty's Government.
It really is amazing that so much can be achieved in six short clauses. The Bill was of course supposed to have had the Royal Assent by February and to have been effective before the current financial year began. Lady Birk did not go into the details of why that has not happened. It does not matter; it has not and the Bill is not effective. It therefore falls to us to be exposing its absurdities in the weeks immediately before the local elections, knowing that it faces the outright opposition of the London Boroughs Association, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils and the Association of County Councils, an almost unparalleled line-up.
We are of course immensely grateful for the political opportunity which is handed to us on a plate. It is also useful to be having such a bad Bill before Parliament during the run-up to a General Election. However, these are windfalls for which it is right to express our gratitude
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before going on to say more about what we think of the Bill itself and what I think we should do about it. We must send it back to the other place for them to reconsider extensively, and for several reasons: first, because as everyone knows, and Lady Birk said so quite candidly, the Bill is part of the political devolution package for Wales. That is off and it is only right to say so.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I interrupt the noble Lord in the hope that he will stick to the facts. There is no direct connection between this Bill and the devolution proposals.
Lord SANDFORD: I will not say more than Lady Birk herself said, my Lords. She explained exactly why, in the interests of relations between England and Wales, this Bill has to be presented at this moment, and the attempt was to get it effective this financial year.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, 1, too, am sorry to have to interrupt the noble Lord, and I had intended to deal with that point at the end of the debate when dealing with some of the other extraordinary remarks he has made. My noble friend is right in the intervention which she just made, and the noble Lord is now dragging me into it by saying that I said something I did not in fact say. What I said—I said it several times, I thought with some clarity—was that Wales had been put in an inequitable position so far as water charges were concerned. It has nothing to do with devolution; it is to do with a water authority. My noble friend is right about that. If the noble Lord intends to make political smears, would he please keep them to water; in other words, would he keep that part inflammable and leave the rest alone for this debate?
Lord SANDFORD: Certainly, my Lords. But Lady Birk went a great deal wider than the inequity between charging. She went on to point out, and rightly, that if we are to proceed on the exchange of water between England and Wales on a no-profit, no-loss basis, there must be a sweetener in the package, which is what this Bill is. Clearly, devolution was on the table when the Bill was being discussed, and it is now not on the table. That alone is an occasion for reconsideration.

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Furthermore, now that the Labour Government rely on the Liberals for their continued existence in another place, it is only right and reasonable that we should give them both the time and the opportunity to develop their concerted approach on these matters. This accord is obviously not going on tonight and it does not appear to have been developed much during earlier stages in another place. I wonder why we are not hearing anything from the Liberal Benches tonight? Perhaps it is because on this Bill in another place four voted in favour, three against and six abstained. Anyway, I am sure that the Labour Government as much as their Liberal supporters would now want to appear in the public eye to be in step on an issue such as this, so we must provide them with the opportunity for reflection together.
I shall have something more to say about the arbitrariness of the Bill, but there are some important principles, I think mostly Socialist principles, behind it. In another place Her Majesty's Government seemed somewhat lacking in conviction about their principles. In fact, they allowed a free vote and some of the voting, so it seemed to me, depended on whether constituencies were to gain or lose under the Bill. I see no reason for us to follow suit and I hope that we will vote according to the weight of the argument, which will I believe be largely on Party lines, and I think we should give the other place another opportunity to do so too. I should have thought that with their present composition, their future prospects, coupled with the fact that the Bill has already "missed the bus" which I do not think it could ever have caught, the other place may now prefer to drop the Bill altogether, and we must give them an opportunity to think about that.
I turn from the present political context of the Bill to its original economic justification. It was, as Lady Birk clearly said, to benefit the water consumers in rural areas, particularly Wales, at the expense of other consumers elsewhere who pay less for their water. All of us on this side are in favour of coming to the aid of the disadvantaged and those who bear unfair burdens, provided the adjustment is properly made and fairly balanced. Our contention is that the method chosen by the Government in this Bill is not fair
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between either consumers or regional water authorities; that it is arbitrary through and through and that, in addition to imposing further burdens on people least able to bear them, such as low income families in the inner city, it will be damaging to the water industry itself and will increase and perpetuate pettyfogging interference by civil servants and Whitehall Ministers in an industry which is striving to become efficient and more answerable to local democracy.
If, taking all these things together, Ministers conclude that Wales or rural Wales is hard done by and its burdens should be eased, then they can be eased by way of the domestic element in the rate support grant. Having read through the proceedings in another place, it seems to me that Ministers were hard to convince that this could be done. I find that strange because the Daniel Committee, quite clearly and explicitly, explained at length how this had been done, was still being done and, I understand, is being continued in 1977/78 at a differential rate between England and Wales of 17·p in the pound. We shall need to find out later from Lady Birk what is wrong with this established way of giving relief, if relief continues to be justified.
We can begin to judge that by seeing average domestic bills for water in the various regions. I was grateful for the two she mentioned, but I shall be tabling a Question after this debate asking her to furnish us with the most recent figures for all the regions so that we may compare them. The other place had the benefit of figures relating to the previous financial year, and I am sure the noble Baroness would want us to debate the matter on the basis of the latest figures; now that the new demands for the current year have gone out, it should he possible to use those.
Of course we must go further before coming to a proper judgment about these inescapable domestic burdens on the householder in one region as compared with another, because we have to add the prevailing general rate and the prevailing water charges together and then see how the burden falls. I am grateful to my honourable friend the Member for Hampstead for the calculations which I shall quote and which are based on the charges for 1975/76. These were prepared for the Committee stage in another

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place. I shall summarise rather than quote his argument. The average composite bills for that year—that is, the sum of the general rate plus the water charges—were as follows: in Wales, the average domestic bill was £77; in the English metropolitan districts, it was £107; in the English shire districts, £114; and in the London boroughs, £165. This was more than double the average bill in Wales. Are these really circumstances which justify putting an extra, unrebatable, inescapable levy on every London household, including those with the lowest incomes, in order to relieve every household, rich as much as poor, in Wales? That is why we shall need to go into this matter in much greater detail later on.
However, this is unfair not only as between households in the inner city and the Welsh countryside but also as between regional water authorities. Under the arrangement now proposed, the water authorities that have been thrifty, prudent and efficient, and have in the past provided themselves with proper services and paid their debts from revenue and appropriate charges as they went along, are now to pay again to benefit those that have made less provision and have met their bills mainly by borrowing. There is an unfairness there which the present Bill positively accentuates. Also, the system is not only unfair but is wholly arbitrary too because the equalisation is not comprehensive. It applies only to unmeasured supplies of water and the capital assets—in so far as they can be identified—for providing these. As the noble Baroness explained, up to this moment—we do not know whether or not there will be a change—the water companies, which supply a quarter of all the water which is supplied, are out of the equation. As a result, if one happens to be supplied by them one will be exempt. Her Majesty's Government were quite unable to convince Members in another place that there was any proper way of sorting out these arbitrary distinctions between different assets, different consumers, different rates of appreciation. However, if the noble Baroness can do better, we shall be delighted. We shall certainly give her every opportunity of going into these important details.
Those are the broad objections to the Bill: that it is unnecessary because whatever equity may be needed can be
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better achieved through the use of the rate support grant—the domestic element: that it is unfair because those thought to need help are to be helped by those who need help even more; and that it is arbitrary because only a few of the relevant factors are ascertainable with certainty and precision. However, I am afraid that we consider the Bill to have several inherent defects of detail on top of these objections of principle. First, it is mistimed. It was the intention of Her Majesty's Government that their equalisation ideas should be in operation during this financial year, but the Bill has only just arrived in this House, about a month after the Budget. To have been effective during this financial year, the Bill would have had to be on the Statute Book by February, several weeks, if not months, before the financial year began, and I do not see how that could possibly have been achieved. This is because the charges proposed by the regional water authorities now have to go to the Price Commission, which will take a month to review them. They will then have to go to the local authorities to be billed with their rate demands and, of course, the rate demands have to go out promptly.
The Bill has "missed the bus" and I do not believe that it could ever have caught it. Now, however, it remains mistimed because, in the unlikely event of the Government surviving the autumn, a White Paper and yet another more comprehensive Water Bill will be upon us before this Bill can be effective in the next financial year. It would, of course, be far better for this Bill, objectionable and without merit as it is, to be incorporated in the wider Bill which is still to come. I am sure that the noble Baroness will tell us as soon as she can when the White Paper which will be the herald of that Bill is to be published.
Secondly, the Bill is incomplete. The noble Baroness admitted that in her last remarks, but she did not make at all clear the obscure reason why in devising the Bill the Government overlooked the water companies, I believe that the Government now recognise their existence and the anomaly of leaving them out. One wonders whether there may be so many anomalies that this one does not matter, but to introduce as an afterthought the element of the water industry which is responsible for nearly a quarter

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of all water supplied is a most extraordinary blunder. We must welcome the belated attempt to correct the error and hope that it will be successful to the extent of allowing us to see some Amendments in time for us to consider and consult upon them before the Committee stage. However, the other place can legitimately deplore the fact that its only chance to debate this aspect will occur on some Lords Amendments if such Amendments are produced and approved.
The third specific effect which occurs more than once in the Bill—though we shall probably not get on to this until we get to the next stage—is the excessive discretion given to the Secretary of State to delve into and interfere with the internal affairs of the regional water authorities. The noble Baroness called in aid the experience of the drought last year as an example of the need for a national water strategy, but I believe that she will find when the drought report is published fairly soon that the National Water Council will state fairly clearly that the only effective way of managing water supply in drought, as at normal times, is by way of a regional structure, not a national strategy, though I would not rule out certain exchanges between some authorities.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I am trying to follow the argument because we are all interested, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for giving way. May I ask whether the noble Lord is objecting to a national strategy for water? I understand that, whether we like it or not, Welsh water comes into the strategy. But I do not call Wales a region; I call it a nation. Some form of national strategy will be needed one day even to bring water from Scotland. I hope that the noble Lord is not objecting to some ultimate formula like that.
Lord SANDFORD: I think I am, my Lords. Many people who talk about a national water strategy almost immediately go on to talk as though a national water grid were a feasible proposition, as it is with gas and electricity. That is really not so and that is the reason why, so far—it is conceivable that it might happen one day—water from Scotland, which is in abundant supply, is not transferred to England and Wales. It is not practical to
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do so. However, I freely admit that certain transfers are possible, and one is the transfer of Welsh water to Liverpool and Birmingham, which have always been very grateful for it. However, I do not believe that the possibility of certain regional transfers should lead us to adopt illusions about a national water grid.
I now wish to return to the point I was considering. I was talking about what I regard as a defect in the Bill in the form of the excessive discretion given to the Secretary of State at many points. In 1973, speaking on, I think, the Third Reading of the Water Bill of that year, the present Minister of State, the right honourable Member for Birmingham Small Heath, waxed passionate about the need for regional water authorities to withstand interference from Whitehall, to be accountable, he said, to their consumers, to be democratically controlled by elected majorities. He got so passionate that he overlooked that that was exactly what we had arranged.
Now the Whitehall mice seem to have been at it and they have prevailed, and the same right honourable Member supports a Bill—in fact, presents a Bill—in which the civil servants have found a way, or rather several ways, of retaining a large staff in the Department to obtain all kinds of information from the regional water authorities, to give all kinds of directions to the regional water authorities, and generally to get up on the backs of an industry well capable of managing its own local affairs, under its own local management, for the benefit of its own local consumers. We look forward to the Committee stage with some relish, and we will do our best to overcome these defects and to return the Bill to the Commons with plenty for them to think about.
6.41 p.m.
Lord PEDDIE: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Birk indicated several times that the Bill is short but complicated and she gave eloquent demonstration of the complications in it. I do not like the Bill at all. At first reading of it I was tempted to suggest a sub-title of "Much Ado About Nothing". But after calmer reflection I think that something will result from the Bill—or the Act, if it

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becomes an Act—but it will be vastly different from what the authors had in mind. It has already been stated by my noble friend that the water industry, a massive, mammoth, natural monopoly, has been subject to massive reorganisation. It has been a traumatic experience for those working within the industry; and I know something of this because for some years I have been a director of a water company, and I have had the opportunity of lecturing at a number of seminars for authorities on the subject of pricing within the public sector. I know that the industry itself is very fortunate indeed in having a most dedicated staff, and I believe that if they can be freed from artificial restraints and undue intervention those within the industry will handle this matter of reorganisation and we shall have a better water industry in consequence.
There is no doubt that any large-scale administration—and, goodness knows, the water industry itself is a large-scale administration—inevitably generates a trend towards waste and inefficiency. The bigger you get, the greater is the danger of that coming about, and therefore to stop that trend demands the highest possible skill. What does it need? In the first place, it needs strict financial discipline; that goes for the water industry as much as for any other nationalised industry. This is a factor that has been recognised by this Government on more than one occasion in their consideration of other nationalised industries. Secondly, it needs effective public accountability, and thirdly, it needs the encouragement of initiative and standards of comparison.
I believe that within the water industry—which is what we are talking about—there should be, so far as possible, built-in standards of comparison. That is vital. Yet what do we get? Here we get a Bill which, for a variety of strange reasons which I could not follow—and those that I could follow I w ill deal with—is a step, admittedly a short step, towards deadening uniformity. It makes absolutely no contribution at all to greater efficiency. I do not know how many thousands of clerical hours must have been spent on preparing the Bill, or the endless discussions that must have taken place with everybody, except the water companies, or the amount of management time that has been concerned with the Bill. My
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noble friend has stated the complications involved, yet according to the Bill itself the effect on public service manpower would be none. I regret to say, but it must be said, that there is an element of political gimmickry in the Bill, and I do not like it for that particular reason.
Let us examine the background to the Bill. My noble friend mentioned the Consultative Document on the Review of the Water Industry, of March 1976, and I will take the liberty of quoting from it. I cannot quote a more authoritative document. I will refer to where it deals with the general principles concerning equalisation. At paragraph 62 it states that:
"Proponents of equalisation point to water services as a basic necessity of life"
That we accept.
"They emphasise that the costs of supply include financing costs which result, in part, from the accidents of past levels of prices and of interest rates at the different times at which loans were raised."
The word "accidents" in itself reflects a very strange philosophy. There is no accident in financial investment policy, whether it be that of a water company, a water authority, or anyone else. Therefore, to consider that any benefit that has flowed from a water authority because of its investment policy was an accident is to my mind a very dangerous philosophy indeed.
But then the same paragraph of the Consultative Document goes on to deal with the arguments against equalisation. I quote from the document itself:
"It could result in misallocation of resources (both nationally and within regions) because the direct link between costs and charges in a given area would be severed. The salutary discipline on an authority of answering to its own consumers for its own actions would be"——
not "could be"—
"eroded; there would be"—
not "could be"—
"less incentive for it to conduct its affairs in the most efficient and economic manner."
That is what the document on the review, which was published in March of last year, says. Yet despite that we have this Bill.
In addition to that statement the water authorities themselves were consulted, and I wish to quote from the comments of the Southern Water Authority which was

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asked to comment on the review. This is what that authority said about equalisation:
"In considering equalisation, the Authority recognises that most forms of equalisation between Regional Water Authorities will lead to some erosion of financial discipline but the method proposed is possibly the least damaging of all those considered.
"It is noted that, by basing the equalisation adjustments on historic debt, the effects of the scheme will, in any case, lose significance with time as the financing costs of the Authorities' own capital schemes increase and eventually overtake the cost of financial debt which was outstanding at 31st March, 1976."
My noble friend herself made comment on that particular point, which indicates that there is all this commotion and yet within a short space of time it will be completely negatived.
Lastly, my Lords, in relation to the quotations, I will refer, if I may, to the comments of the water companies. They drew attention to a matter which I think is exceedingly vital. They drew attention at that time to Section 30(4) of the Water Act 1973, which requires water authorities to fix charges with regard to the costs. That was imposed upon them by the Government—to determine the charges made according to the costs. It therefore seems strange that, in the light of such an incredible indictment of the proposal itself, the Government have proceeded. I would therefore ask the question: Why did the Government proceed in the face of this evidence? On what grounds did they reject the evidence that appears in their own review? Secondly, I would ask the question: Why do the Government reject, as they do in this Bill, the directives that are laid upon most nationalised industries, if not all, that charges should relate to costs?
An important principle is involved here, and I am concerned with it in other industries as well as the water industry. I want to know which road the Government are taking on this matter, because a vital principle is involved. Is the principle to be discarded in other industries? Does it mean that the enforcement in the past of directives which demand that charges should relate to costs is going to go out of the window under some equalisation scheme for electricity, gas or what-have-you? I do not know, but I should like an answer to that particular question, because that is the point of principle that intrigues me in this Bill.
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The further criticism, of course, has already been referred to, and that is that, at least in the initial stages, water companies will be left out, which will mean that 12½ million of the population will be left outside. If you are going to have any equalisation at all, it is a strange sort of equalisation which means that you leave out 12½ million people and 22 per cent. of the entire water that is supplied. But I am glad indeed to learn from my noble friend that this matter is under further consideration, and I understand that discussions are taking place. I believe that some good can come from it.
My Lords, I have drawn attention to one or two points of principle. In fact, fundamental principles are involved in this Bill which can escape, can slip through, unless somebody focuses attention upon it. The water companies, of course, render a very useful service, and always have done. They were pioneers in this particular field. But, more important than that—much more important—wherever possible I want to see in this nationalised industry, as in all others, the development and supplement of standards of comparison, so that one is able to compare one district or one activity with another, and not a monolithic organisation where it is impossible to tell whether or not it is truly efficient. However, I am glad that this matter is being dealt with, and I would say that, although I do not like this Bill, if it is to become an Act, as no doubt it will, then, if there be an equalisation scheme, at least let it be truly national.
6.55 p.m.
Lord SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, I must first declare an interest in this matter as I am a director of a water company, the East Anglian Water Company, which is one of the 28 water companies forming the Water Companies Association. As your Lordships have heard many times, these companies supply in total a quarter of the population of England and Wales. When the Green Paper, Review of the Water Industry in England and Wales—A Consultative Document, was published early in 1976, one of its proposals was that the historic financing costs attributable to the provision of unmeasured water supply should be equalised. It was also stated that for the time being equalisation could be

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applied only to the charges of the water authorities themselves, but that as soon as water companies had been brought into the public sector it would be extended to include those consumers who are at present supplied by them.
In its response to the Green Paper the Water Companies Association dealt at length with the decision that the water companies should be nationalised by illustrating, for example, how unnecessary and how unproductive this would be. Not a drop more water would be produced, and something of the order of £350 million would be transferred from the private to the public sector. The Association also commented on the proposal for the equalisation of water charges by stating that, while such a measure could not satisfactorily reflect the cost of supplying water, it could in fact be applied to the water companies without nationalisation but subject to certain specified conditions. The Bill, however, was laid before Parliament without any form of consultation with the water companies, and this was wholly unacceptable. Any policy which seeks to make a major change in the charging arrangements for water cannot reasonably ignore the effect or non-effect it will have on the 22 per cent. of the population supplied by the companies; yet this is exactly what the Bill does.
The water companies, pioneers in the water supply industry in this country, form an integral part of the industry. They work efficiently and harmoniously with the regional water authorities in whose regions they operate. They make an effective contribution to the manning of national and regional committees dealing with the salaries and the conditions of service of the whole industry, including sewage and river operations. They participate in water research and in training, and they bear their full share of the cost of these important functions. During the recent drought none of the companies had occasion to operate standpipes in the streets; and, as full members of the club, they were content to make their proportionate contribution to the cost of the National Water Council's nationwide campaign for saving water, to the tune of about £100,000 of the £450,000 expended on that campaign. Their existence cannot be ignored, and yet the Bill
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as drafted seeks to do just that. The intention to bring them into the public sector and then extend the equalisation scheme to include the consumers they now supply may take longer than was originally intended. It may even not come about at all. Certainly it will not if the companies themselves or their many supporters have anything to do with it.
The only reason yet advanced by the Government for their nationalisation is that there is a need to correct the anomaly created by the Water Act 1973 in leaving them substantially untouched. This is pure political dogma. How much more would this alleged anomaly be argued if the companies were to be excluded from the effects of this Bill! The claim would be advanced that they were so different from the rest of the industry that they could not even be included in the national measure for the equalisation of water charges, and that wholesale nationalisation of them was the only answer. What would be the effect of this? There would be no additional water, higher public expenditure and no yardstick for comparing charges with the regional authorities. There would be just more nationalisation—and have we not had enough of that by now?
I am glad to hear from the noble Baroness that discussions are taking place to see whether this matter can be satisfactorily resolved. The water companies feel that if some form of equalisation is to take place, they can and should be included. To leave them out would be illogical and unethical, and I hope that means may be found to permit them to maintain their present roles as full participators in the water supply organisation of this country.
7 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I must apologise for intervening without having put my name on the list of speakers. I had not intended to speak. I have missed one train to Cardiff and I am prepared to miss another simply because I felt incensed by the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, to this matter. He and I have worked very co-operatively together in many spheres; but from the initial remarks that he made on this Bill I would suggest that he should either have renounced his peerage or disclaimed it—he can still, I think, disclaim it—and

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stand for election to the other place, because I do not think it is helpful in your Lordships' House for hereditary Peers to take the kind of political line which he allowed himself to indulge in. I am moved to make these remarks because many of us have been touched by the attitude of the eldest son of the late Lord Merthyr, Trevor Lewis, who has stated within the last few days that he is not going to take his seat in this House because he does not feel that the hereditary principle is an adequate basis for taking part in our discussions. Although I personally value the contributions of many of our hereditary colleagues, I must say that when one has a contribution such as that we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I am disposed to sympathise even more strongly with my friend Trevor Lewis.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships for long. I had not intended to speak and, although I took a considerable part in the proceedings on the Water Act 1973, I have not brought myself up to date in this particular matter. Still less would I wish to discuss the position of the water companies. I can understand my noble friend Lord Peddie and the noble Lord, Lord Somerleyton, taking advantage of the opportunity to push out a boat for the water companies with which they are associated; but this Bill is not one that affects—
Lord PEDDIE: My Lords, may I say that I am pushing out no boat for the water companies. I have mentioned the water companies and I am proud of the fact of being associated; for that gives me the experience that permits me to speak with some degree of authority on this subject.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I am not going to argue the pros and cons of leaving the water companies as they are or of changing their status. I understand that discussions are continuing, hopefully in a helpful spirit, between Her Majesty's Government and representatives of the water companies, on the matter which is included in this relatively narrow Bill.
I just wish to say, so that there is no doubt whatever about the politics of this, that if we had never had any discussions on devolution, if we had never
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had discussions about a referendum, there would still have been this feeling in the Principality that water is one of our natural assets. It is a renewable one but we must suffer the wet weather which makes it renewable. It is our valleys which are drowned and our farming population which is affected; it is our rural areas which in the past had the, on the whole, benevolent paternalistic intrusion of Liverpool and Birmingham. It has been only recently that we have escaped from the situation in which a large English corporation could promote private legislation in Parliament which gave it powers to regulate the environment, the surroundings and the local life of areas of the Principality without our having any say whatsoever.
There is a long history to this matter. I would not wish anyone in this House to be in the slightest doubt that regardless of one's feelings about the political devolution question—and there is a whole range of opinion in the Principality; there are those of us who would like some form of devolution and who might have some reservations about the measure which was placed before the other House, and there are those who would not want to have anything to do with devolution at all—I think you would nevertheless find that there was (if not universal) a very considerable majority of opinion in the Principality feeling that we should be able to take some advantage of one of our very few natural advantages. That is really the basis of the quite understandable emotion—and we are an emotional people—when we who are within sight of the very reservoirs from which the water is abstracted have to pay considerably larger amounts for our water supplies than do the citizens of Liverpool and Birmingham many miles away. This seems to us to be basically inequitable. It may be a simple philosophy; but there it is.
My noble friend Lady Birk, I am sure, will appreciate that these are among the reasons why there has been pressure from the Welsh authorities that something should be done to rectify this situation.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, may just interrupt the noble Baroness—not to have any discussion with her about whether hereditary Peers and Life Peers should adopt a different political tone,

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but to say that we all recognise that point; and I think that I recognised it in my speech. But the point I was making was that if it is so, and if there is a political judgment to reflect this feeling of Wales, why not go on doing it by way of the domestic element of the rate support grant? It has been used before. It is being used now and is going to be continued. It seems fairer to do that than to produce a Bill which has the effect of "caning" the Thames Water Authority and the lower income families in London to meet a grievance felt by Wales. This seems to be quite absurd.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, we have some low income families, too. It depends partly upon whether one regards water as a commodity or as a service. I was interested in the attitude of my noble friend Lord Peddie. He is a tremendous authority on the affairs of the Post Office. If you regard it as a service rather than as a nationalised industry (which I think is what most of us would do) then, for example, I should have thought that my noble friend Lord Peddie would have been more sympathetic to the proposition that it should be available to citizens in any part of the country at the same level of cost, possibly for the same amount consumed. It is another matter whether or not one should have metering of domestic supplies, and one which would raise a number of other problems.
The philosophy which could be advanced, that there should be differentiation between groups of consumers in different parts of the country, does not seem to me necessarily valid. One might say that because it costs more to deliver a letter to my cottage because the postlady will have to walk a little further, my correspondents should have to pay more in order for that letter to be delivered. If you look at it as a service rather than a commodity there is a great deal to be said for equlisation all over the country for something which we consider to be a basic necessity of civilised existence. My Lords, I have no interest to declare. I pay no water rate. My water comes from a stream. I do not use the sewerage system. I can take a fully objective view.
Lord PEDDLE: My Lords, I am sorry to have to intervene again but I have no
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alternative because of the point put by my noble friend. I would point out that the Post Office is one service. If one is delivering a letter, it relates to the whole service. The Government themselves make it clear that they do not favour cross-subsidisation; so that even within the Post Office there is no cross-subsidisation because of the belief by all concerned that cross-subsidisation of any kind tends to undermine morale and interfere with efficiency. I do not think that there is a parallel case in the Post Office.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, we can argue that on another occasion; but there were remarks made, including those of my noble friend Lord Peddie, about water authorities being answerable to their consumers. Well, what about the suppliers, my Lords? I am not at all touched by the notion that one should be necessarily answerable to separate groups of consumers in different parts of the United Kingdom who are not self-contained for supply, and who are dependent on those areas where, in the providence of the Almighty, the water appears. So this pseudo-democratic argument that there is some mystic relationship between the water authorities or the water companies and their consumers, as the case may be, does not impress me.
Standards of comparison was another phrase used by my noble friend. Again, I repeat that the Almighty, in his wisdom, has arranged things on an inequitable basis so far as water supply is concerned. So far, at any rate, we do not manufacture, and we have not found a substitute for, natural water. We are dependent on natural supplies. Therefore, this notion of standards of comparison does not seem to me to be valid.
My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House; time is proceeding and I should like to catch my next train to Cardiff. But I feel it would be unrealistic not to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that there are many in the Principality —and I am glad to have at least two compatriots present—who would support me in this historic argument about Welsh water. It is as much a fact as any of the physical facts that we are discussing. It cuts right across political allegiances in the Principality. You may call it a bit

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of Celtic emotional aberration, but it is there.
7.12 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, replies, I protest at the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady White, for whom I have great respect. She used the excuse that she had to jump up and speak for one moment—and she spoke for over 10 minutes—because my noble friend Lord Sandford was a hereditary Peer and had dared to speak his mind in this House, as if in some way hereditary Peers should be treated as emasculated Peers and should not speak their minds. I hope that this will not find an echo in any other part of the House. I should like to make my protest to the noble Baroness, Lady White, for having taken 10 minutes of the time of the House on an excuse for jumping up to protest at an hereditary Peer daring to speak his mind honestly.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I was more concerned about Welsh water than even about the hereditary Peerage.
7.13 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I think my noble friend answered very ably for herself. To he fair, she said this had triggered her off, but she then went into the substance of what I thought was an extremely valuable contribution. In order to avoid missing her next train to Cardiff, she may be excused from listening to my reply.
This Bill, which I described when I introduced it as a "modest measure", has caused a reaction which has shaken me. To say that it has been a torrent of adverse water supply against it would he an understatement. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, amazed me. Even on something which is not as exciting as a rather lively novel one does like to feel that one's words, or at least every other word, are listened to. I had the feeling when the noble Lord spoke that he had not listened to a word I had said—or at least certainly not more than half of it. He seemed to be speaking just in spite of it or obviously to make his political points.
In fact, he rowed us through every irrelevant river there was, he steamed up every trivial stream and tributary and,
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in the end, he canoed up every controversial creek—and, inaccurately. I can only say that the coming local elections have absolutely gone to his head. I will not say he has water on the knee, but certainly something has happened to him. I think that it was this change from his usual measured, rather grave approach and usually extremely accurate comments, that moved my noble friend to speak. Maybe it is a form of spring fever and perhaps I should not loiter over that.
There is one point that I must make early on: when the noble Lord referred to a free vote in the other place, I took it—and this is why I did not interrupt—that he was referring to his own side, so to speak, who had a free vote and, in the event, divided right down the middle. If that is what they want to do here, let us hope that some of the other side of the middle will be here as the Bill proceeds. We, the Government, certainly did not have a free vote in the other place, and are not having a free vote here. This is a Government Bill, but I hope that the noble Lord will find that some of his colleagues do not agree with him and therefore will vote with the Government on the Committee stage.
I do not intend to take up all the points that have been raised. On the whole, they were either Committee points or some of them were "non-points". The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, raised with my noble friend Lady White the rate support grant. We ought to get that clear. I must say categorically that no account is taken of the incidence of water charges in the determination of the scale and distribution of the rate support grant. In the rate support settlement for 1976–77 and 1977–78, there has never been any question of relative water charges being taken into account by the Government in their decisions on levels of domestic relief. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, knows this perfectly well, because the Conservative Government took the water services away from local government, and the rate support grant has nothing to do with the water charges.
It is true that there may have been some confusion in that in the exceptional circumstances of the 1974–75 rate support grant settlement with reorganisation of both local government and water authorities an element of additional domestic

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relief was given to Welsh domestic ratepayers, but this is entirely different. The noble Lord rather disappoints me about this. I am sure that he would not be confused about something as crystal clear as this point. So I want to get that one out of the way.
The noble Lord also referred to there being too much discretion for the Secretary of State. He made rather a meal out of that, but that is always good for a meal in any Bill. It was made repeatedly plain in the other place that it is absolutely essential in a workable scheme that the Secretary of State must have power to make the necessary apportionments. This is general, it does not only apply to this Bill or to water, and it applies to all Governments as well, because circumstances change.
It is also absolutely ludicrous to suggest that the Bill is some Machiavellian attempt to extend the power of the civil servants. It is a small Bill and the vast majority of the information that we will require from the authorities will in any event appear in their annual accounts. As I explained—at rather tedious length I thought, although I was trying to keep it as short and clear as possible—this Bill is about finance. Where the noble Lord slipped up completely and showed a basic confusion was when he was talking about national strategy and trying to contrast national strategy with regional organisation of water. These two matters are not mutually exclusive. He talked as though it was an "either/or" situation. When he brought in the drought to support his case it became even more absurd.
The Green Paper put forward the need for a national water strategy as the main justification for a national water authority. This was not disputed by anyone. I have never heard anyone else dispute the need for a national strategy. He did, as a throwaway line, mutter something about the national water grid. We went through that when we were discussing the drought legislation. What was quite clear was that the problem of a national water grid was one of great expense, and what has happened now is that the reservoirs have filled—largely due, no doubt, to the magical works of my right honourable friend the Minister responsible for water
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resources—so that it was lucky that we did not extend a great deal of unnecessary money on a water grid. But to have a national water authority together with efficient regional water authorities is a proper mixture. This is a national strategy: they are not contradictory to each other.
My noble friend Lord Peddie did rather disappoint me. I thought he might have some questions and reservations, but I was extremely surprised that he came out so strongly against this Bill. Quite frankly, the Bill is not a gimmick. If one wanted to put up a gimmick one would put up something more interesting, eye-catching, vote-catching and easier to absorb than this. Rather uncharacteristically, I think my noble friend was rather unfair in the way he quoted from the Consultative Document. He was extremely selective in his quotation from paragraph 62, where he quoted the arguments against equalisation. Of course, it is absolutely right and proper that when one is putting forward a Consultative Document, one puts the arguments for and against; and there we put strong arguments for, so of course there are arguments against.
Finally, in paragraph 70, which my noble friend omitted to quote, one comes down, as is the usual process, to explaining that the Government decided that the aim of bringing the average domestic charges within a narrower bracket can best be achieved by an interim equalisation scheme based on historic debt. That is in fact what this is all about. My noble friend declared an interest as being a member of a Southern water board. It is understandable that the Southern area may be self-sufficient but, of course, not all the areas are. It is perfectly true, as I explained, that there will be some who will have to pay out and others who will get payments in. From a point of self-interest, the Southern area of course gets the thicker edge of the stick. However, I should have thought that my noble friend, being a Socialist, would have accepted that equalisation was the fair, equitable and just way of dealing with this extremely difficult problem.
As with other forms of resources, it is true that nothing can be exactly just for everybody, and some people get the thicker end of the stick while others get a better deal. But what this Bill does is to

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make the situation fairer all round. It makes the balance very much better than it is at the moment. The amount by which the cost to the average householder will go up is something in the nature of 2p per week. So I really think that he was making a great deal of fuss about this and I hope that, on reflection and when we get to the next stage, he will agree—although he may not like the Bill, as he said—to accept the equity of it. Although the medicine may taste worse in one part of the country than another, at least this is a fairer way of dealing with the matter. It is important to keep the Bill in perspective. The Bill is, as I said when I introduced it, a modest one. The total transfers will amount to less than 2 per cent. of the authorities' revenue requirement, and, as I have said, the average householder's bill will be increased by about 2p per week.
The noble Lord, Lord Somerleyton, raised the question of the water companies coming into the scheme. I am not able to lift the veil from those talks. I am not trying to practise any great secrecy or mysticism, but it is too early to add to what I said earlier in the debate. There are still a great mass of unsolved complications. The water companies are very different financial animals, as I know the noble Lord appreciates, from the water authorities. It is perfectly true that it would further complicate the existing scheme if we brought them in. However, my officials have made considerable progress in their talks. What remains necessary is to ensure, first, that all new conventions and apportionments are fair to both the authorities and the companies —that is obviously being watched and argued out on both sides—and, secondly, to ensure that the scheme continues to be one which does equalise. I can repeat my earlier assurance that if it proves practical to tailor the scheme in a way that is fair to both the companies and the authorities with acceptable results, we shall bring in the companies. It was helpful to hear the noble Lord's view on that particular point, since the talks are now going on.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether I might interrupt the noble Baroness. While she is talking about water companies, can she say how it came about that this Bill was drafted
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and presented to another place without consultation with the water companies in the first place? I know why they have been consulted now—because her honourable friend was pressed so strongly to do so—but why were they omitted in the first place?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, they were not. They knew all about it and, as I understand it, they were consulted. The reason they were omitted in the first place was not because it was taken for granted they would be omitted for ever but because it was really felt that this Bill would be able to be got through in time for this financial year, and there was not then time to work out the very complicated arrangements, of which the noble Lord, Lord Somerleyton, is very much aware. It "slipped" for this financial year because of the time it took to get through the other place. When the noble Lord asks me why, again I do not want to make political points out of this, because in a democracy everybody has the right in Parliament, quite correctly, to argue and string things out for as long as they like. However, it was some colleagues of the noble Lord in another place who kept the thing going in Committee, and it kept on losing ground until now we have got it here at this late stage. That is why it was impossible to bring the water companies into the Bill as it now stands.
I think I have now explained this about three times, and since I have given very firm assurances that the consultations are going on and that discussions are being actively engaged in, and that there is a very strong possibility of my bringing in Amendments at Committee stage, I think that enough has been said about this. I think we have worried this particular little dog to death over that. It has had a pretty solid reception, I think, and there has been a lot of heavy weather made of this measure. I wonder whether, if things had been left without the Bill, we might now have heard voices opposite saying how grossly unfair it is that people in different parts of the country should continue to be paying such extraordinarily varied charges for their water. Surely when something needed to be done, the least you could expect would be that a Labour Government would make it more equitable. This is what we are doing.

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I have never pretended, and will not pretend now, that everyone will gain from equalisation. But there will be substantial benefits in those areas which are being treated unfairly at the present time, and I think it a not unreasonable price to be paid by those authorities which up to now have had the advantage.
I must say that we have had a livelier debate—which made it more interesting—than I had expected on this Bill, and I hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading. We can then go on to the Committee stage and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will not keep to his promise. He always keeps to his promises but I shall release him from this one, because when he began it sounded as if he was going to give me a really hard time. But perhaps, having got all this off his chest, he w ill see that there is a great deal to be said for this measure and will help to give it a speedy passage through the House. Otherwise, we shall slip again. There will probably be more complications with the water companies, and I think he will find that any obstruction is counter-productive.
Lord PEDDLE: My Lords, before my noble friend resumes her seat may I say this: I must apologise for this further intervention, but if she was disappointed with my comments I was equally disappointed with her reply. I say that just in passing. I should still like an answer to the question which I put, which was whether, in the light of the decision within this Bill, the Government are likely to proceed with varying the directives that are laid upon most nationalised industries, that charges should relate to costs? Does it mean that this principle will be extended to other industries, because if we want equalisation we can get it in many areas.
Secondly, in regard to the criticism that was made of me, may I say that my quotation was made without omission or addition. It was exactly as printed in the review—neither more nor less. Lastly, I was equally disappointed with my noble friend's reference to my Socialist commitment. I have yet to learn —and I should be glad to have my noble friend's views on the matter—that acceptance of a Socialist philosophy means complete equalisation in all matters relating to one's personal
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affairs. How far does one carry equalisation? I should like to have an answer to that.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, on the first point I thought that I had answered my noble friend. I thought it was clear that this is not a nationalisation Bill. This is a Bill to equalise the charges for water, which have become very out of gear. This is not a Bill to nationalise the water industry. I know my noble friend is very much aware that, for example, gas and electricity have nothing like the same regional variations as water supply charges. They are quite different. This was also found by the Daniel Committee. So I think that we are discussing—or, I hope, perhaps arguing amicably—differences. We are not discussing like with like.
On the second point, I certainly did not in any way mean to be offensive to my noble friend. When I talked about being selective, I did not mean that he chose the words in that paragraph and I apologise if he took it in that way. I was pointing out, in making the case for the Government and quoting their case, that I felt that paragraphs 62 and 70 were very closely woven together, and that after having weighed up the different sides, both the pros and the cons, the Government came down in favour of what is now in the Bill before us. I felt that my noble friend was, perhaps quite unwittingly, giving the impression that in the Consultative Document the Government were giving a very strong against case, and then in the Bill, somehow out of the blue, coming down with the case for equalisation.
As regards my noble friend's last point, I do not think he should take me too seriously. What I was saying was that to try to get a more equitable distribution of water charges seemed to me to be a process which, in this quite small area, was along the lines of Socialist or Labour philosophy. I accept the right of my noble friend and anybody else to have different views, but it is the view of many of my colleagues, both here and in another place, and myself that this is a way of introducing greater fairness and social justice in charging for water, and I should have thought that this had some tie-up with Socialist policy.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION BILL [H.L.]
  UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
  Report from Her Majesty's Attorney-General received and ordered to lie on the Table.
KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Petition against, from The Brewers' Society and the Master and Keepers or Wardens and Commonalty of the Mistery or Art of Brewers of the City of London (commonly known as The Brewers' Company) and the British Hotels, Restaurants and Caterers Association, withdrawn.
FIDELITY TRUST BILL [Petition for Bill]
Examiners' Certificate that the Standing Orders have not been complied with: Referred to the Standing Orders Committee.
RETURNING OFFICERS (SCOTLAND) BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendment agreed to.