Lords Sitting of 9 May 1977

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

THE POST OFFICE: LORDS' QUESTIONS
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state the criteria they are currently applying with regard to Questions on the Post Office in this House, in distinguishing whether such Questions are matters for themselves or for the Post Office; and whether these criteria reflect the Government's policy as outlined on Second Reading of the Post Office Bill in this House on 12th June 1969.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, in answering Questions on the Post Office, the Government follow the rules and practices which govern Parliamentary
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Questions about the affairs of all nationalised industries. These reflect recommendations by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, on which the Government's policy towards Questions, as outlined on the Second Reading of the Post Office Bill in this House, was based.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he does not agree that the statements which were made in this House on 12th June 1969, when the Post Office Bill was going through Parliament, indicate that the type of Questions which would not be answered are the very detailed ones, such as one on the collection of letters from some particular street; and would he not agree that such a major matter as the ending of the Sunday collections is a subject suitable for reply by a Minister in Parliament if Parliament is to monitor the workings of this Act?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords; in trying to get the rules defined as best I can, I would say that that matter comes within the functions exercised under the powers given by Parliament to the Minister, which are conferred upon the responsible Minister by the Post Office Act 1969.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him whether he would not further agree that it went against the entire spirit

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of the Act to wind up the Sunday collections before the Carter Committee had reported?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as I seem to remember saying not so long ago, unfortunately nationalised industries cannot wait upon committees. The Carter Committee will in fact be reporting, or may already have reported, to the Government, and your Lordships will be in a position to debate their recommendations in the not too distant future.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, do Her Majesty's Government not think that time has proved that it was a very great mistake to stop the Post Office being a branch of the Civil Service with a Minister answerable in Parliament for every action they took?
Lord HALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that when I first entered another place we asked Questions freely about the village postmistress and about every day-to-day operation, usually with very considerable benefit because Members exercised that restraint which one would expect from the House of Commons, and it enabled them to call attention to grievances? Can the noble Lord say whether or not the repayment of £7 to telephone subscribers is part of the day-to-day business of the Post Office, and how many staff he has in the Ministry dealing with Post Office affairs and what they do? And will he bear in mind that the increasing tendency shown by Ministers in this House to try to restrict information (such as the price of cement, for example) is really calculated to undermine public confidence in the Government?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I could not agree with a number of the points that my noble friend has made. So far as the £7 is concerned, that is something which must be considered as part of the commercial policy of the Post Office.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, while I am not directly concerned with confidence or lack of confidence in the Government, there will never be any confidence or efficiency in the nationalised industries until both Houses of Parliament stop trying to interfere with the management of these industries?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I have been tempted, but have resisted the temptation, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who made, I think, a definitive statement on this point in another place in 1960 when he said:
"…may I say that we must adhere to the view that Ministers can answer Questions only on matters for which they have a recognised responsibility. Otherwise, they would inevitably find themselves encroaching upon the managerial functions entrusted to the nationalised boards." —(Official Report, Commons, 25/2/60; col. 577.)
That was the view of Mr. Butler (as he was) then, and is the view of Her Majesty's Government now.

BRITISH AIRWAYS: AIRCRAFT PROCUREMENT
2.41 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is true that British Airways, owing to their increased air tour business, are going to buy Boeing 737s instead of BAC 1–11s thereby doing harm to the British aerospace industry.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I am informed by British Airways that no decisions have been taken on future aircraft procurement for the airline's air tour business.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that discussions have gone on for the purpose of British Airways buying six aircraft for their air tours, and is he aware that the 1–11 has a very similar performance to that of the 737; that the 1–11 is almost half the price; and that Dan-Air, B. Cal and Monarch, who run air tours of the same type as British Airways' air tours, all use 1–11s? Further, would he not agree that if this decision to buy American aircraft is taken it may be the thin end of the wedge for the purchase of further foreign aircraft by British Airways?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I take note of the comparisons that the noble Earl

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has made. I would say that the purchase of new aircraft by British Airways is primarily a matter for the commercial judgment of the airline; but in approving any purchase the Government will naturally take into account the interests of the British aerospace industry. That will be done.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer, and should like to ask him one more question. Is he aware that there are three secondhand BAC 1–11s available for operations by the spring of 1978, which is when they will be required?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I was not aware of that, but I am sure that people in my Department are aware of it.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, having regard to the similarity between the 1–11 and the 737, as described by the noble Earl, can the Government say whether British Airways will be exempted from Customs duty on the Boeing 737s if that is the type upon which they decide?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I am afraid that I should need to have notice of such a supplementary question.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to say whether the question of the purchase of American aircraft of this type will be considered by the Government in the context of the EEC attempts to build up a European aircraft industry?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I indicated that the Government in considering any such question—if it arises; and it has not yet arisen—would certainly take into account the interests of our own airspace industry. I have no doubt that these interests will be considered in the context of the European situation to which the noble Lord has referred.

DARTMOOR STAFF: CONDITIONS OF SERVICE
2.43 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement regarding the present conditions of service, including accommodation, of the prison officers at H.M. Prison, Dartmoor.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, all prison officers in England and Wales have the same rates of pay and general conditions of service, and staff at certain establishments, including Dartmoor, receive additionally an allowance to take account of the inconvenience of the locality. Officers are entitled to official quarters or, if quarters are not available, a rent allowance. The staff at Dartmoor have recently been engaged in industrial action in support of their claim for improvements to their official quarters, but I am glad to say that they have now suspended their action and are resuming discussions on a programme of improvements put forward by the Home Office.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for that reply and say that I am glad to see that some action has been taken? Does he realise that this is an exceptional prison in a very difficult area and that the accommodation is often surrounded by mists for weeks on end or snowed up in winter causing difficulties for the families in the older type of accommodation? Does he agree that it would be a good idea for some of the prisoners to be allowed to do some of the repairs, and that that would save money?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, without notice, I cannot say whether the prisoners at Dartmoor are used for that purpose. Certainly, at a number of prison establishments they carry out work under the supervision of the, works department of the Prison Service. I am aware of the special problems so far as Dartmoor is concerned. Nevertheless, it is only right to say that, although there is a special agreement with the Prison Officers' Association under which staff may be allowed to transfer at public expense from Dartmoor after five years' service, on April 1st this year there were 86 officers who had served there for five years or more, of whom 80 had expressed no wish to move. There was a waiting list of 21 officers wishing to transfer to Dartmoor.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us who heard on the radio the statements made by the wives of these prison warders were very distressed that the conditions of some of the men who guard the prisoners are not as favourable as those of the prisoners themselves? Is he also aware that we are delighted to know that something is to be done about it?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I accept that conditions are not satisfactory. That is why the Government have put forward proposals for public expenditure of £100,000 to deal with the situation. So far as comparison with the inmates' conditions is concerned, no more money is spent on prisoner accommodation than is justified by considerations of humanity and necessity.
Lord FLETCHER: My Lords, is it correct to say that in the last 35 to 40 years no improvements have been made to the accommodation for Dartmoor prison staff?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, without notice I could not give an answer to that supplementary question. I should be sceptical with regard to the suggestion that no work had been carried out for 35 years; I find that hard to believe. There are nationally agreed standards which arise as a result of agreement between the Prison Officers' Association nationally and the Department; and the programme of work which has now been put forward by the Home Office takes into account these national standards. We hope to carry out this work as soon as possible.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, in view of statements made, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will not agree that these officers are first-class officers, that because of their devotion to duty and the years they have spent there they have an understanding of the prisoners, that this is why the prison runs so well, and that they should receive extra consideration in respect of their years of service?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, certainly we want to be as reasonable to the staff as possible. We are applying the full national standards to
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Dartmoor. That is what the programme of work is all about and we shall get on with it as soon as possible. There is no disposition whatsoever on our side to delay this matter.
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a general impression that more concern is shown for the comfort of the prisoners than for the wellbeing of the prison officers?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I have heard that view expressed, but I am rather surprised that the noble Lord should see fit to repeat it. Our desire, so far as all prison establishments are concerned, is to treat prisoners with humanity. Anyone who has seen the conditions in which a very large number of them have to spend their lives would find it difficult to believe that they are being particularly well-treated at the moment. There are nationally-agreed standards for prison officers' accommodation. The proposed programme of work takes into account these nationally-agreed standards, and we hope that we can get on with this.

POST OFFICE: SUNDAY COLLECTIONS
2.50 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will exert pressure on the Post Office to advertise where limited Sunday collections are made.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a matter for the Post Office which recently announced that it intends to do what the noble Lord wants.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask whether he could be a little more forthcoming and tell us if some of these facilities are available?—because nobody seems to know.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the Press notice of 4th May from the Post Office said that the Post Office is to extend its existing limited facilities for securing Monday delivery for first-class letters posted into sorting offices on Sunday evening, or early Monday morning, where this can be done without adding significantly to costs; that is, that the service is being extended and the new facility will be advertised in the region, or the Post Office area, where it is about to be introduced. I am certain that this will be a growing service which will be advertised locally.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that answer. May I take it that the Post Office will publicise the location of these sorting offices so that the general public will find them?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords. I am certain that the publicity facilities of the Post Office will enable it to give publicity to the collections when they are available.

THE DOWNING STREET SUMMIT MEETING
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 the Downing Street Summit Meeting.
PRESUMPTION OF DEATH (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1ª, and to be printed.
LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Committee on Unopposed Bills.

FARRIERS (REGISTRATION) (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
2.53 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second
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time. The Farriers (Registration) Act came into being on 22nd May 1975. Its purpose was:
"to prevent and avoid suffering by and cruelty to horses arising from the shoeing of horses by unskilled persons; to promote the proper shoeing of horses; to promote the training of farriers and shoeing smiths; to provide for the establishment of a Farriers Registration Council to register persons engaged in farriery and the shoeing of horses; to prohibit the shoeing of horses by unqualified persons; and for purposes connected therewith".
With the passing of that Act and the subsequent registration, this NN as the first time that the farriers themselves had begun to be organised. The initial stage was to try to get together a head count which was starting completely from scratch. Obviously there were shortages of farriers in some areas. No one knew how many there were; some farriers were better than others, but there were perhaps too many "fly-by-night" ones.
There have been serious gaps in the past years for the proper training of young and potential farriers. Moreover, anyone could call himself a farrier and perhaps lame horses, and so take away the livelihood of the more qualified but perhaps less businesslike members of the craft. Nobody wants excessive legislation, particularly those who live in the countryside. They hate laws, anyway. Nevertheless, all the organisations connected with horses approved the original Act and supported it, for without some knowledge of the national pattern of farriers there was no basis from which to improve their lot.
When the Act came into fore, the horse population was believed to he growing. I would submit to your Lordships that with petrol prices increasing, car taxes higher and the enormous inflation that we have seen over the past two or three years, there is quite a good chance that horses may be used more and more. So it is even more important to keep the craft of farriers a flourishing one. Horses are vital and they are going to be more so; but a very important part of their function is their ability to move, so their feet come into this rather strongly. Necessarily it is a skilled job to remove shoes, prepare the feet and fit new shoes. There is a growing need to ensure for the future a continuing supply of farriers.
In the period since the Act came into being the Farriers Registration Council

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has had time to assess the manpower situation in farriery. Broadly speaking, a list of 2,000 farriers has been compiled, with an estimated number of 1,500 who were active practitioners. In quality they varied from excellent craftsmen to the casual free-lance operator picking up odd fees here and there. These latter are often a menace to the horse and to the reputation of the craft, if their work is unsatisfactory.
In quantity there are just about enough farriers to shoe all the horses in the country. But—and this is very important—a significant number of them are nearing retirement and, in addition, geographically the distribution leaves something to be desired, even with the portable forge which is often carried in the car boot. The main need for the craft is an injection of young, well-trained recruits, and I am glad to be able to report to your Lordships that, so far as is known within round numbers, there are 150 apprentices in training formally and many others learning informally.
With experience it has been found that many fairly qualified, active and practising farriers could not comply with the timetable as laid down in Section 7 of the Act. Some competent men could not take advantage of the provisions of Section 7(7) because they did not comply with all the conditions therein. This situation has arisen from a very worthy attempt to insist on the highest standards, but too quickly for the registration. It must be remembered however that as with the dentists' registration, when the registration actually starts one has to include all those who are practising and allow them to continue.
Nevertheless, in spite of this amendment the objective of the main Act remains completely valid. It is necessary to include as many practising farriers in the registry as soon as possible, so that Section 16 of the Act, which makes it unlawful to be unregistered, can be brought into force as early as possible, particularly in those areas where there are known to be enough farriers. Let us not forget that there was very little information available in 1974 and 1975, when the Act was originally started. Some noble Lords may very well be tempted to say, "I told you so". If they do that, I am most grateful to them for saying so; they
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can preen themselves justifiably. I did not think anybody could always be right, and I personally did not expect to be. As I said before, we were trying to do the job correctly. So this amending Bill will extend the qualifications for registration to ensure that all those practising can register. It will provide a simplified certificate, not a statutory declaration, for veterinary surgeons to support the applications from owners. It will admit other evidence if a certificate from a veterinary surgeon is not available, and it will reserve to registered farriers the description "farrier and shoeing smith".
In this context, I should like to mention that at Committee stage there will have to be one small amendment made to Clause 2(2)(b) of the amending Bill, to the timing of registration and the description "farrier" or "shoeing smith". The Amendment will seek to change to 6 months the 12 months' period for making it an offence to call yourself a farrier or shoeing smith. It is thought to be ample time for people to get organised and become registered, and to avoid calling themselves a farrier or shoeing smith if they are not properly qualified. This has been suggested after discussion with the Home Office.
Once this amending Bill has been passed, the Council will undoubtedly turn its attention to formulating an educational programme so that—if your Lordships will excuse a pun—a stable career will be available which young men can fairly be encouraged to take up. The programme will be based on the training and examinations of the Worshipful Company of Farriers and the Association of Master Farriers. Apprenticeship must remain the prime means of training entrants, but increasingly that will be augmented by formal training courses at technical colleges, if enough masters are not ready to take on apprentices.
There are two proposals awaiting study for setting up a national school of farriery, which will give immense encouragement to recruiting and will ensure that there is a sufficient supply of craftsmen of the highest quality in future. Discussions are also taking place with the Educational Advisory Service of the Manpower Services Commission with a view to financial assistance being made available from the

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Government to assist farrier students in their training. Those of your Lordships who have looked at this new Bill will notice that there are other minor adjustments, but they are included only to remove doubt or to simplify the original Act. None of them is otherwise of great consequence.
It is as important as ever to get the registration of farriers completed, and without this Bill it will not be possible to do so. May I remind your Lordships that the original Act was supported by all the major horse-connected organisations. When registration has been completed it will enable the Council to continue its good work. May I say that already one complaint has been received by the Council in respect of bad farriery, and it is being looked into.
The registration that will ensue will make sure that an accurate list of farriers will sort out the genuine people from the imposters and will assist in the formation of better training facilities. It will also encourage young people who want to become farriers. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Newall.)
3.2 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I intervene at this stage because it might be helpful to give some idea of the Government's attitude towards this Bill. If I say that the Government welcome the Bill, I do not want to be misunderstood. There has not been a collective conversion in our attitude to the statutory registration of farriers. Some of your Lordships will remember that when the 1975 Act was before your Lordships' House there were certain reservations on the part of the Government, and I think it fair to say that the main one was that the Bill sought perhaps to achieve too much.
The noble Lord, Lord Newall, has made it clear that the Act to which Parliament gave its approval in 1975 has proved unworkable. Perhaps I might say that I do not think one can lay the blame for that at the Government's door, and of course the noble Lord did not attempt to do so; but in view of the history of this measure, if we were to advise that the turn of events provided an opportunity for
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second thoughts, that would be a precise indication of what has happened. It has been possible to have second thoughts about the working of the 1975 Act, and that is a view which the noble Lord, Lord Newall, has quite properly taken. The Government bowed in 1975 to the pressure of those who supported this measure and we continue to stand by that decision. Since experience has shown that it in fact contained defects which are incurable except by amendment, the Government welcome a Bill which will put those defects right and enable the work of the Farriers Registration Council to be carried out in the way it was originally intended.
Whatever the Government's view may have been at the time on other aspects of the Bill which became the Farriers Registration Act 1975, we did not question those provisions which set out the various qualifications which would entitle a person to register with the Farriers Registration Council. We assumed, perhaps incautiously, that the Worshipful Company of Farriers and the Bill's sponsors in both Houses, in consultation perhaps with agricultural and equestrian bodies likely to be knowledgeable in such matters, had fixed on reasonable and attainable standards of experience and skill. I can understand that the supporters of the idea of registration should have wished to set their sights high. Unfortunately, however, farriers were, and doubtless still are, an amorphous body of men (and, I ought to say, women, because I do not want the noble Baroness to correct me on that) whose experience has been acquired in a variety of ways, and whose practice of the craft varies considerably, in frequency and regularity.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newall, has explained, up-to-date and accurate information on the subject came to light only when the newly created Council set about the business of finding those who would be affected by the requirements of the 1975 Act and examining carefully their applications for registration in the light of the criteria specified in the Act. It seems, if I may presume, to sum up the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Newall, that those who devised those criteria had, from the most laudable motives, set too high a standard at the outset. In particular, it would seem that insufficient attention was given to the principle, which is normally adopted in introducing legislation of this kind, of ensuring that

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all existing practitioners of the craft should qualify for registration, so that persons should not be deprived of their livelihood.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newall, has explained, the amendments the Bill would make are designed to remedy those defects by observing that principle and by making other related changes. If I sound a note of caution, it is not with the intention of trying to impede the progress of this Bill in any way but only to emphasise the inadequacy of the information available to the Government. We know very little more now about farriers and farriery than we did two years ago. We have examined the proposals in the Bill very carefully and they seem to us to be likely to overcome all the problems which have so far come to light. I am afraid, however, that the Government are simply not qualified to give Parliament a categorical assurance that, as it would be amended by this Bill, the 1975 Act will then serve to do the job it is intended to do. On our part at least, the absence of any comment should be interpreted as a matter of faith rather than knowledge.
The only other major provision in the Bill is to separate the two unlawful acts which are created by the 1975 Act. These are: the practice of farriery by persons not registered with the Registration Council and the use or adoption by an unregistered person of the style, title or description, "farrier" or "shoeing smith", or any other form of words which might suggest that he was so registered. The position at present is that neither of these acts constitutes a criminal offence because the Secretary of State has not yet made an order bringing into operation the section of the Act, Section 16, in which they are set out. The Bill before us would remove the offence of the misleading use of the title "farrier", and so on, from Section 16 and transfer it to a new section which would come into operation following a fixed period after the passing of the Act. This would leave the offence of unlawful practice of farriery to be activated by order of the Secretary of State.
The advantage of this difference of treatment is that the "title" offence is less sweeping in its effects. If there was a shortage of farriers in any part of the
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country, horses could continue to be shod by unregistered persons, provided that they did not use the prohibited titles or styles. The "practice" offence, however, is comprehensive and once it is introduced the problems of a shortage will be difficult to overcome. The Government recognise that, without teeth, the Council's task of securing registrations will not be easy. In the Government's view, the compromise now proposed is a satisfactory one, which will reconcile the Council's need to secure some sanction, with the risks of introducing the full sanctions before the question of supply has been determined.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newall, has explained, under the Bill a person who was qualified to register as a farrier would have to decide during the 12 months from the date of Royal Assent either to register with the Council, or to stop describing himself in the way I have outlined. Your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord, Lord Newall, indicated that he would seek to cut this period by six months, by means of a suitable Amendment. So far as the Secretary of State's order is concerned, I can only repeat what I said two years ago; namely, that the Secretary of State would need to be satisfied—and this is important—about the numbers and dispositions of farriers in Great Britain before considering making an order.
We are well aware of the reservations that were expressed at the time, that in some of the remoter parts of Scotland there are few farriers and a case might be made out for not activating the penalty provision in those areas. At this stage, I cannot say what the Secretary of State's intentions are about Section 16, because we think it best, first, to see what effect this Bill will have—if it reaches the Statute Book—on the numbers of farriers registering. It would be fair and reasonable to say that the Secretary of State is unlikely to implement Section 16 in those areas where there is not an adequate number of farriers, and this may go some way to meet the anxieties of a number of your Lordships. When the Farriers Registration Council has so to speak, closed its books—at least so far as existing farriers are concerned—in some 12 months' time or six months' time as the case may be, it will be in a position to present to the Secretary of State the kind of informa-

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tion he will need before he considers action which will make unlawful any farriery, subject to the exceptions provided for in the Act, which is carried out by anyone not on the register.
In welcoming this Bill, as I said at the beginning I should not wish the House to misconstrue the Government's attitude to it. As is traditional in this House with so much Private Members' legislation, the Government's attitude is one of neutrality. But I hope that what I have said will afford some reassurance to any of your Lordships who may have been surprised by the need to amend the 1975 Act so soon.
3.14 p.m.
Lord HELSBY: My Lords, like others who supported the present Act when it was before this House in 1975, I am sorry that it has been necessary to amend it so soon. I live in a part of the country where there is a pressing need to raise the standard of farriery. There are plenty of farriers, but too many of them are not good enough. Therefore, I thought that the Act was on the right lines when it sought, from the outset, to set standards of improvement in the quality of work. But I now see that it would have been better to follow the practice of other crafts and professions that have instituted systems of registration. The veterinary and surveyors' professions, and many others, have faced this problem and have concluded that the right course is to let all existing practitioners in, without attempting to set new standards of quality at the outset, and thereafter to seek to raise standards. I am sure that that is right for this profession, too. Therefore, I support the Bill and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Newall, for bringing it forward at this stage.
Above all, I think it is important that the registration scheme should be put on a basis which allows it to be made a working scheme very quickly. The plain fact is that, at present, registration has very little to offer those who would seek it. As the Act stands at the moment, the time is some way off when the scheme could be implemented and, as I understand it, not one in five of those farriers who are qualified to register have done so. There are two reasons for this: first, they have nothing much to gain by registering at the moment,
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because we are some distance from the restriction on practice, or on the use of the name, which will in due course come; and, secondly, the fees are rather on the high side. This has been necessary, because the Registration Council has to cover its expenses out of its fees, and since the registrations are low the fee for each registration has to be high. Better by far if the number of registrations could be increased and the fee dropped. At present it stands as high as £15 in the first year and £10 in subsequent years, which is quite a lot in a craft of this kind even if we allow for present-day inflation.
As I have said, I speak mainly from a knowledge of the South of England where there is no shortage of farriers and the main need is to raise the quality. Some other parts of the country are in a very different position indeed. In the remoter parts of Scotland and Wales, there is probably no foreseeable possibility of farriery becoming a full-time occupation; it will always he something done by people who are also occupied in other ways. In those circumstances, one has to provide for some flexibility of standards and of qualification. But what is necessary, above all, is that standards should be raised as quickly as possible in those parts of the country where it is practicable to do that. This will be partly a matter of dealing effectively with complaints of poor work—and we have heard that the first complaint has now come in—and of refusing registration to men such as those who have broken apprenticeships and started to practise before completing them. In the long run, the health of the craft depends upon building up and maintaining a sufficient flow of well-trained new entrants.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newall, told us, this is going to depend in large part on the training done by master farriers. As I understand it, the problem of recruitment is not—at present, at any rate—a problem of attracting youngsters to become apprentices. In my part of the country there have been one or two advertisements in local newspapers by would-be apprentices seeking master farriers to take them on. The fact is that not enough suitable master farriers are anxious to take on apprentices. One has to accept that not all competent farriers would necessarily make good trainers of apprentices, but I think that there are enough who would do it if the

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present discouragements to taking on apprentices were removed or alleviated.
These discouragements are, in the main, three. First, there is the problem of the apprentice who works as an apprentice for two years, for example, out of the four for which he is indentured. He then looks around him and thinks that he knows just as much as some other young men who are practising the trade without apprenticeships and that he has only to buy a second-hand van, put some tools in it and go around the country seeking business in order to earn a great deal more money than he is getting as an apprentice. That is an attitude which registration must be used to counter.
Secondly, there is the problem of block release for training in technical colleges. At the moment, the requirement is that apprentices should be given block release for three weeks in the first year and two weeks in each of the next three years of the apprenticeship. There used to be a small grant which the master farrier could use to help to cover the lad's wages, but that has gone now and the master farrier has to pay the full wages during the period of block release. They do not complain of this, but there have been rumours of substantial increases in the periods of technical college training. I have no doubt that some technical college training is right and necessary, but most farriers operate on a small scale and cannot afford to release apprentices for long periods, especially after the first year. After the first year, the apprentice has become part of the team—at any rate, for a limited scope of work such as removing shoes and doing some preliminary preparation of feet, although even at that stage the apprentice will be far from doing the whole job. I was delighted to hear recently from the chairman of the registration council that he considers it is now generally accepted that very long releases are out of the question and that courses will have to be short and concentrated. If this view is made generally known to master farriers, it will considerably modify their present reluctant attitude towards apprenticeships.
Third, there is the proposal for a National School of Farriery. As the noble Lord, Lord Newall, said, two proposals for a national school have been put forward. I do not know the details
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of these proposals, nor do the master farriers—in general at any rate—but they are well aware that the proposals exist. I hope that there is no idea of setting up a school that would turn out finished farriers, as it were, who had not had experience of the craft on the ground, as carried out by the farriers who are in the business. These lads ought to have experience of the kind of business that they themselves will, in due course, look forward to running. It is not a craft to be learned wholly, or even in large part, in any school or college, although a specialised school of farriery might be much better than an ordinary technical college, especially if one or two good master farriers could be persuaded to serve on the training staff. Probably that kind of arrangement would be possible only if the national school were associated with a regular responsibility for shoeing horses on a fairly wide scale. For instance, it might be associated with one of the permanent and busy equestrian centres. That would provide practical work throughout the year without competing directly with existing farriery businesses. Even so, I feel that the apprentices who went through the school—and I very much hope that it can be set up—should also have experience of a normal business.
The three points which I have indicated to be the basis of anxiety among master farriers at present are those upon which some assurances are needed to get things working as they should. At bottom, the problem of ensuring a flow of well-trained recruits is that of getting the master farriers on the right side, as it were. This is not by any means an insoluble problem. I do not think it is even a difficult problem. I have discussed the scheme with the farrier who looks after my own needs. Like his father before him, he is a firm supporter of the basic purpose of the scheme. I have also spoken about it to the local secretary of the Master Farriers' Association, who is himself a respected practising farrier. Like most of their kind, these are sensible and public spirited men who are very ready to co-operate in a properly thought out plan to improve the long-term efficiency and standing of their craft. Indeed, I believe that this would be the general response of the whole of the craft.
Therefore, I very much hope that assurances can be given about some of the uncertainties and anxieties that I have mentioned as regards the place of the

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master farrier in future plans for training. However, the first step—and that is why I so much welcome and support the Bill—is to make it clear that the system of registration will come into force at a known and not too distant date. Let it work in practice and then everything will fall into place.
3.29 p.m.
Lord MARGADALE: My Lords, I want to delay the House only for a minute or two. I took part in the debate on the other Bill. Noble Lords who have listened to the debate today will agree that we all wish to further the interests of the farrier and good shoeing with as little bad effect as possible on horses and ponies. However, I expressed—as did several other noble Lords who cannot be here today—certain misgivings at the time of the last Bill. I have not heard those misgivings covered today, either by the noble Lord, Lord Newall, or by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. However, I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, struck a note of caution when he said that it would probably take a little more time to implement the system than might be anticipated.
There are two points I wish particularly to stress; namely, that, in the outlying areas—I am thinking particularly of the highlands and islands of Scotland and probably a few hill areas of Wales or even England, although I do not know them individually—if there is a limited number of farriers, or almost no farriers at all, to send them away to technical colleges, though highly desirable in principle, is not really a starter. If they go away as little more than boys to the lights of the big towns, they will not return to the villages to work. They will be lured into other jobs.
When I spoke on the last Bill I think I said that around me on a certain island off the West Coast of Scotland there were five blacksmiths. Now there is only one left and he, for his own reasons, is not prepared to take an apprentice. If he went out of business tomorrow, I do not know what would happen. Therefore, when the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, refers to a note of caution, I hope he will persuade the Minister concerned and the Worshipful Company of Farriers that, under Section 16 whereby penalties are not imposed in a certain area, in fact they will not be imposed until there are
22
at least some farriers, otherwise considerable cruelty will be caused by not shoeing horses at all, which would be highly undesirable. Cruelty was one of the first matters that was mentioned in connection with this Bill.
3.32 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I should like to trespass upon the time of the House for just two minutes. Having listened to this interesting debate, I am grateful to the noble Lord who raised this issue and I should like to pose two questions. First, with the coming again into our fields and farms of that wonderful creature which has helped mankind so much—the horse—there is not the slightest doubt that it will be essential to increase the supply of farriers. Since this country earns a lot of money through the Ministry of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food in the breeding of bloodstock and the export of first-class racing and other types of horse, an approach might be made either to the National Agricultural Advisory Council or to the Ministry to see whether or not the Ministry is now taking a constructive interest in this matter. Those of us who many years ago may have come from marginal areas in some of the mountains of Wales know that the good old strong horse can do a job with much more ease, at less cost and he does not compact the land in the same way as the heavy tractors. Therefore, this Bill is essential to the small farmer.
Mankind should still realise that the first great invention—and your Lordships can find it in Virgil's Georgics—was the invention of the horse collar, whereby man managed to hitch the plough to the horse and began to produce his food. Despite the sophistication of Summit Conferences, and so on, the production of food is the first priority for mankind today.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, we recall how much need there was, until a few years ago, to bring together the different aspects of this problem. It was then that my noble friend Lord Newall took it upon himself to try to rectify this situation and, after much research and hard work, he produced a Bill, for which we were all grateful. As we know, he was successful in putting the Bill on the Statute Book. As the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has said, it was then expected that there

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would be need for modification. That has proved to be the case and today we have heard from my noble friend Lord Newall of the need for modifications in some directions. The noble Lord has made clear to us the purposes of this Bill and we are grateful to him for it. Like so many other Members of your Lordships' House, being interested in horses he considered that there was great need for this procedure with regard to farriery; and with the present expanding equestrian interest in the country the Bill has proved even more timely.
I was interested in my noble friend's remarks with regard to the possibility of having a school of farriery which would dignify the status of those engaged in the craft, would probably get more recruits and would result in better service both to the owners and to the horses which they look after. Without taking up any more of your Lordships' time, I would just thank my noble friend for the trouble he has taken and congratulate him on the success of the Bill so far.
3.35 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, I should like first to say how grateful I am to the Government for giving encouragement to something which is so obviously needed. I am sure that all those who are running the Registration Council will hope that the Home Office will be able to bring in Section 16 to those areas where it is advisable to do so as soon as possible. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Helsby, for his support, and I assure him that work is going on all the time in the Registration Council, although it is not always easy to see it at every stage. Until the registration is properly done, we cannot carry out a head count, which is the start of all the business we have to do. In this day and age I do not think that the cost of £10 per annum for registration is very high, when one considers the cost of shoeing a horse.
With regard to the deterrents, the only one I should like to mention particularly is the block release problem. I know that discussions are taking place through the Worshipful Company of Farriers in an endeavour to secure Government grants for apprentices when attending courses at technical colleges. This will relieve some of the financial burden on the
24
masters. I certainly agree with his description of the majority of farriers in this country as being good hard-working men.
I am well aware of the views of the noble Lord, Lord Margadale, and those of his friends, and I can assure him that his words will be carefully looked at and that caution will reign supreme. If anybody is thinking of bringing in Section 16, it is most unlikely that the Home Secretary will be advised to apply that section to the highlands and islands at the moment. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Leek and Lord Barnby, for their interventions.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE DOWNING STREET SUMMIT
3.39 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement, made this afternoon in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, on the Downing Street Summit. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the Downing Street Summit which was attended by the Presidents of France and of the United States, and the Prime Ministers of Canada, France, Italy and Japan and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic, as well as the Finance and Foreign Ministers of the countries represented, and yesterday by the President of the European Commission. Nearly a year has elapsed since our meeting in Puerto Rico, and there was a general wish among the leaders of the major industrial democracies to consult, to exchange experiences and ideas and to harmonise as far as possible our responses to our shared problems, recognising that our wellbeing is bound up together. Our discussion had the purpose of agreeing a common analysis, and so a common approach.

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"We have been able to share our views with the new American Administration, and to review the state of the world's economy and examine our present policies as a whole. We have reviewed our policies to combat inflation and unemployment and discussed the policies that will be needed to reach a successful conclusion of the CIEC. We also readily responded to President Carter's call for a close examination both of the need to conserve energy and of the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
"Let me briefly re-state seven target areas where we pledged ourselves to action. First, we agreed that our most urgent task is to create more jobs, including special measures for young people, and that, hand in hand with the fight against unemployment, is the fight against inflation. Inflation destroys jobs, corrodes democracy and undermines economies strong and weak.
"Secondly, Heads of Government committed themselves to maintain their targets for economic growth or for stabilisation policies. We recognised that growth rates must be maintained in the stronger economies, increased in the weaker economies, and inflation tackled successfully in both, if we are to cut unemployment and provide a basis for sustained non-inflationary growth.
"If countries concerned seem likely to fall short, they will adopt further policies to achieve their targets. This should give added stability and confidence.
"Thirdly, we committed ourselves to seek more resources for the International Monetary Fund and to support the link between its loans and the adoption of appropriate stabilisation policies. Such facilities are essential if countries now in balance-of-payments deficit are to maintain reasonable levels of internal activity and foreign trade so that the world can avoid the danger of new trade and payment restrictions.
"The danger of new trade restrictions also prompted our fourth pledge: that we would work to expand opportunities for world trade by giving a new impetus to the multilateral trade negotiations originally launched at Tokyo in 1973, whilst not removing the right of individual countries to avoid significant market disruption.
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"In view of the increase in demand for energy and oil imports which is placing increasing pressure on finite resources of fuel, we pledged ourselves to greater energy conservation and agreed on the need for greater exchanges of technology, joint research and development for the efficient use; of energy resources, including the improved production and use of coal.
"This brought us face to face with the nuclear dilemma. The present generation has an awesome responsibility for the future of mankind. We agreed to launch an urgent study, the first stage of which we intend will be completed within two months, of how to reconcile the world's demand for nuclear power with the need to avoid the spread of nuclear weapons. Our initial studies will be concerned with the terms of reference for evaluating the nuclear fuel cycle internationally.
"Our seventh pledge was to the world's poor, for whom the impact of the oil crisis and world recession has been devastating. The countries attending the Summit agreed to do all in their power by means of trade, aid and finance to help the developing countries towards a just share in the sustained growth of the world economy. We should work for a successful conclusion of the CIEC in Paris at the end of the month. We also invite the COMECON countries to join us in this, the only war worth fighting, the war on want.
"We placed on record a welcome for the work being done to achieve international agreement to eliminate irregular practices in international trade, banking and commerce.
"The text of the Downing Street Declaration, together with the fuller Appendix issued with it, will be published in the Official Report.
"Mr. Speaker, all of us recognised the difficulties of raising standards or in certain countries even of maintaining them, and the problem of overcoming unemployment. But we shared a common determination to succeed, and we ended our discussions with the confidence that our democratic systems have the resilience and the inner strength to surmount our present difficulties. It is our perception that the world economy is one and must be managed increasingly as one. This weekend the seven leading

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industrial democracies pledged themselves to a programme aimed not simply at their own future prosperity but in working for that prosperity to be more fairly shared in a safe and peaceful world."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Following is the Declaration and Appendix referred to above:
Declaration
"In two days of intensive discussion at Downing Street we have agreed on how we can best help to promote the wellbeing both or our own countries and of others.
"The world economy has to be seen as a whole, it involves not only co-operation among national Governments but also strengthening appropriate international organisations. We were reinforced in our awareness of the interrelationship of all the issues before us, as well as our own interdependence. We are determined to respond collectively to the challenges of the future.
"Our most urgent task is to create more jobs while continuing to reduce inflation. Inflation does not reduce unemployment. On the contrary it is one of its major causes. We are particularly concerned about the problem of unemployment among young people. We have agreed that there will be an exchange of experience and ideas on providing the young with job opportunities.
"We commit our Governments to stated economic growth targets or to stabilisation policies which, taken as a whole should provide a basis for sustained non-inflationary growth, in our own countries and world-wide and for reduction of imbalances in international payments.
"Improved financing facilities are needed. The international monetary fund must play a prominent role. We commit ourselves to seek additional resources for the IMF and support the linkage of its lending practices to the adoption of appropriate stabilisation policies.
"We will provide strong political leadership to expand opportunities for trade to strengthen the open international trading system, which will increase job opportunities. We reject protectionism. It would foster unemployment, increase inflation and undermine the welfare of our peoples. We will give a new impetus to the Tokyo round of multilateral trade negotiations. Our objective is to make substantive progress in key areas in 1977. In this field structural changes in the world economy must be taken into consideration.
"We will further conserve energy and increase and diversify energy production so that we reduce our dependence on oil. We agree on the need to increase nuclear energy to help meet the world's energy requirements. We commit ourselves to do this while reducing the risks of nuclear proliferation. We are launching an urgent study to determine how best to fulfil these purposes.
"The world economy can only grow on a sustained and equitable basis if developing countries share in that growth. We are agreed to do all in our power to achieve a successful conclusion of the CIEC (Conference for International Economic co-operation) and we commit ourselves
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to a continued constructive dialogue with developing countries. We aim to increase the flow of aid and other real resources to those countries, we invite the COMECON countries to do the same. We support multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, whose general resources should be increased sufficiently to permit its lending to rise in real terms. We stress the importance of secure private investments to foster world economic progress.
"To carry out these tasks we need the assistance and co-operation of others. We will seek that co-operation in appropriate international institutions, such as the United Nations the World Bank, the IMF, the GATT and OECD. Those among us whose countries are members of the European Economic Community intend to make their efforts within its framework.
"In our discussions we have reached substantial agreement. Our firm purpose is now to put that agreement into action. We shall review progress on all the measures we have discussed here at Downing Street in order to maintain the momentum of recovery.
"The message of the Downing Street Summit is thus one of confidence.
"In the continuing strength of our societies and the proven democratic principles that give them vitality—that we are undertaking the measures needed to overcome problems and achieve a more prosperous future".
Appendix to Downing Street Summit Declaration World economic prospects
Since 1975 the world economic situation has been improving gradually. Serious problems, however, still persist in all of our countries. Our most urgent task is to create jobs while continuing to reduce inflation. Inflation is not a remedy to unemployment but one of its major causes. Progress in the fight against inflation has been uneven. The needs for adjustment between surplus and deficit countries remain large. The world has not yet fully adjusted to the depressive effects of the 1974 oil price rise.
We commit our Governments to targets for growth and stabilisation which vary from country to country but which, taken as a whole, should provide a basis for sustained non-inflationary growth worldwide.
Some of our countries have adopted reasonably expansionist growth targets for 1977. The Governments of these countries will keep their policies under review, and commit themselves to adopt further policies, if needed to achieve their stated target rates and to contribute to the adjustment of payments imbalances. Others are pursuing stabilisation policies designed to provide a basis for sustained growth without increasing inflationary expectations. The Governments of these countries will continue to pursue those goals.
These two sets of policies are interrelated. Those of the first group of countries should help to create an environment conducive to expansion in the others without adding to inflation. Only if growth rates can be maintained in the first group and increased in the second, and inflation tackled successfully in both, can unemployment be reduced.
We are particularly concerned about the problem of unemployment among young people. Therefore we shall promote the training of young people

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in order to build a skilled and flexible labour force so that they can be ready to take advantage of the upturn in economic activity as it develops. All of our Governments, individually or collectively, are taking appropriate measures to this end. We must learn as much as possible from each other and agree to exchange experiences and ideas.
Success in managing our domestic economies will not only strengthen world economic growth but also contribute to success in four other main economic fields to which we now turn—balance of payments financing, trade, energy and North/South relations. Progress in these fields will in turn contribute to world economic recovery.
Balance of payments financing
For some years to come oil-importing nations, as a group, will be facing substantial payments deficits and importing capital from OPEC nations to finance them. The deficit for the current year could run as high as 45 billion dollars. Only through a reduction in our dependence on imported oil and a rise in the capacity of oil-producing nations to import can that deficit be reduced.
This deficit needs to be distributed among the oil-consuming nations in a pattern compatible with their ability to attract capital on a continuing basis. The need for adjustment to this pattern remains large, and it will take much international co-operation, and determined action by surplus as well as deficit countries, if continuing progress is to be made. Strategies of adjustment in the deficit countries must include emphasis on elimination of domestic sources of inflation and improvement in international cost-price relationships. It is important that industrial countries in relatively strong payments positions should ensure continued adequate expansion of domestic demand, within prudent limits. Moreover these countries, as well as other countries in strong payments positions, should promote increased flows of long-term capital exports.
The International Monetary Fund must play a prominent role in balance of payments financing and adjustment. We therefore strongly endorse the recent agreement of the interim committee of the IMF to seek additional resources for that organisation and to link IMF lending to the adoption of appropriate stabilisation policies. These added resources will strengthen the ability of the IMF to encourage and assist member countries in adopting policies which will limit payments deficits and warrant their financing through the private markets. These resources should be used with the conditionality and flexibility required to encourage an appropriate pace of adjustment.
This IMF proposal should facilitate the maintenance of reasonable levels of economic activity and reduce the danger of resort to trade and payments restrictions. It demonstrates co-operation between oil-exporting nations, industrial nations in stronger financial positions, and the IMF. It will contribute materially to the health and progress of the world economy. In pursuit of this objective, we also reaffirm our intention to strive to increase monetary stability.
We agreed that the international monetary and financial system, in its new and agreed legal framework, should be strengthened by the early implementation of the increase in quotas. We will work towards an early agreement within the IMF on another increase in the quotas of that organisation.
Trade
We are committed to providing strong political leadership for the global effort to expand opportunities for trade and to strengthen the open international trading system. Achievement of these goals is central to world economic prosperity and the effective resolution of economic problems faced by both developed and developing countries throughout the world.
Policies on protectionism foster unemployment, increase inflation and undermine the welfare of our peoples. We are therefore agreed on the need to maintain our political commitment to an open and non-discriminatory world trading system. We will seek both nationally and through the appropriate international institutions to promote solutions that create new jobs and consumer benefits through expended trade and to avoid approaches which restrict trade.
The Tokyo round of multilateral trade negotiations must be pursued vigorously. The continuing economic difficulties make it even more essential to achieve the objectives of the Tokyo Declaration and to negotiate a comprehensive set of agreements to the maximum benefit of all. Towards this end, we will seek this year to achieve substantive progress in such key areas as:
One—A tariff reduction plan of broadest possible application designed to achieve a substantial cut and harmonisation and in certain cases the elimination of tariffs,
Two—Codes, agreements and other measures that will facilitate a significant reduction of non-tariff barriers to trade and the avoidance of new barriers in the future and that will take into account the structural changes which lave taken place in the world economy,
Three—A mutually acceptable approach to agriculture that will achieve increased expansion and stablisation of trade, and greater assurance of world food supplies.
Such progress should not remove the right of individual countries under existing international agreements to avoid significant market disruption.
While seeking to conclude comprehensive and balanced agreements on the basis of reciprocity among all industrial countries we are determined, in accordance with the aims of t le Tokyo Declaration, to ensure that the agreements provide special benefits to developing countries.
We welcome the action taken by Governments to reduce counter-productive competition in officially supported export credits and propose that substantial further efforts be made this year to improve and extend the present consensus in this area.
We consider that irregular practices and improper conduct should be eliminated from international trade, banking and commerce, and we welcome the work being done toward international agreements prohibiting illicit payments.
Energy
We welcome the measures taken by a number of Governments to increase energy conservation. The increase in demand for energy and oil imports continues at a rate which places excessive pressure on the world's depleting hydrocarbon resources. We agree therefore on the need to do everything possible to strengthen our efforts still further.
We are committed to national and joint efforts to limit energy demand and to increase and diversify supplies. There will need to be greater exchanges of technology and joint research and development aimed at more efficient energy use, improved recovery and use of coal and other conventional resources, and the development of new energy sources.
Increasing reliance will have to be placed on nuclear energy to satisfy growing requirements and to help diversify sources of energy. This should be done with the utmost precaution with respect to the generation and dissemination of material that can be used for nuclear weapons. Our objective is to meet the world's energy needs and to make peaceful use of nuclear energy widely available, while avoiding the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons. We are also agreed that, in order to be effective, non-proliferation policies should as far as possible be acceptable to both industrialised and developing countries alike. To this end, we are undertaking a preliminary analysis to be completed within two months of the best means of advancing these objectives, including the study of terms of reference for international fuel cycle evaluation.
The oil-importing developing countries have special problems both in securing and in paying for the energy supplies needed to sustain their economic development programmes. They require additional help in expanding their domestic energy production and to this end we hope the World Bank, as its resources grow, will give special emphasis to projects that serve this purpose.
We intend to do our utmost to ensure, during this transitional period, that the energy market functions harmoniously, in particular through strict conservation measures and the development of all our energy resources. We hope very much that the oil-producing countries will take these efforts into account and will make their contribution as well.
We believe that these activities are essential to enable all countries to have continuing energy supplies now and for the future at reasonable prices consistent with sustained non-inflationary economic growth: and we intend through all useful channels to concert our policies in continued consultation and co-operation with each other and with other countries.
North/South Relations
The world economy can only grow on a sustained and equitable basis if developing countries share in that growth. Progress has been made. The industrial countries have maintained an open market system despite a deep recession. They have increased aid flows, especially to poorer nations. Some 8 billion dollars will be available from the IDA for these nations over the next three years. As we join others in fulfilling pledges to its fifth replenishment. The IMF has made available to developing countries, under its compensatory financing facility nearly an additional 2 billion dollars last year. An international fund for agricultural development has been created, based on common efforts by the developed OPEC, and other developing national
The progress and the spirit of co-operation that have emerged can serve as an excellent base for further steps. The next step will be the success-
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ful conclusion of the conference on international economic co-operation and we agreed to do all in our power to achieve this.
We shall work:

(I) To increase the flow of aid and other real resources from the industrial to developing countries, particularly to the 800 million people who now live in absolute poverty: and to improve the effectiveness of aid;

(II) To facilitate developing countries' access to sources of international finance;

(III) To support such multilateral lending institutions as the World Bank, whose lending capacity we believe will have to be increased in the years ahead to permit its lending to increase in real terms and widen in scope;

(IV) To promote the secure investment needed to foster world economic development;

(V) To secure productive results from negotiations about the stabilisation of commodity prices and the creation of a common fund for individual buffer stock agreements and to consider problems of the stabilisation of export earnings of developing countries; and

(VI) To continue to improve access in a non-disruptive way to the markets of industrial countries for the products of developing nations.

It is desirable that these actions by developed and developing countries be assessed and concerted in relation to each other and to the larger goals that our countries share. We hope that the World Bank, together with the IMF, will consult with other developed and developing countries in exploring how this could best be done.
The wellbeing of the developed and developing nations are bound up together. The developing countries growing prosperity benefits industrial countries, as the latter's growth benefits developing nations. Both developed and developing nations have a mutual interest in maintaining a climate conducive to stable growth worldwide.
3.46 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, we must thank the noble Lord opposite for having repeated that Statement. I think we should all be careful not to expect too much from Summit Conferences. In the very nature of things, the Heads of Governments meeting for a comparatively short time cannot be expected to go into much detail, or really to lay down the means by which the aims which they have set out can be implemented. But Summit Conferences can do two things, and probably this Conference did both.
First of all, by meeting and exchanging views, and because of the personal contact in so doing, the Leaders of the Governments in the West can to a degree overcome the differences between them; at the lowest level they can begin to understand the reasons why they do differ. I would have thought there was evidence

33
that this Conference had done that, although possibly all of us are a little sorry about the problems of the EEC and Mr. Jenkins. The second thing that a Summit Conference can do—and this one I think has done this—is to outline the direction in which Western policy, in this case, should go, and give it the authority of the West's leaders and the impetus of their backing.
I do not think anyone could quarrel with the seven points outlined in the Statement. They seem to me to be entirely unexceptionable and all of us could support them. Having said that, of course, it is all the more necessary that these seven points should be followed up. The only concrete outline we are given of how any of the points are to be followed up is the Conference on Energy which is to be finished in two months. May I ask the noble Lord opposite—and I suppose in a sense it is a case of the blind leading the blind; I was not there and nor was he, and he may not be able to answer this question—whether he can give the House any more information about how these seven aims are going to be followed up, whether any mechanism has been devised in order to push forward these aims, and whether he could tell us how we are going to be informed about the progress?
3.49 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, we also should like to thank the Minister for reading out this Statement of impeccable principles, which, so far as it goes of course, is very satisfactory. I see that priority was given—I think on the initiative of our own Prime Minister—to combating unemployment, and indeed unemployment of young people. But, surely, unless we get a revival of international trade we are unlikely to see much improvement in unemployment, and indeed in inflation, both of which go together, though there may be, I suppose, some advance in combating unemployment and inflation if we all pursue sensible and identical policies. But trade revival is directly connected with the problem of the suitable disposal of the vast sums which are now coming into the possession of the OPEC countries—something like £40,000 million, I believe.
It does not seem to matter so much where these moneys are invested so long
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as they are invested, and here we come to the seventh point which is the share of wealth that should increasingly accrue to the developing countries. If those moneys are invested in the West, the West can re-invest them in developing countries; if they are invested directly in the developing countries, the West can profit by offering increased trade. It goes round in a circle. Presumably it is in the, interests of OPEC countries that the money should be invested, otherwise in the event of breakdown how are the developed countries to buy the oil at all? Here presumably we conic up against political obstacles—I do not know whether they were considered at the Summit meeting—such as, of course, the difficulty of a Middle East settlement and the necessity of large expenditure on armaments unless we can diminish tension with the Eastern bloc. Therefore the moral to be drawn from this Conference is that everything hangs together—all is one. The last paragraph of the Statement says exactly that:
"…the world economy is one and must he managed increasingly as one".
So if that principle has now penetrated the minds of the greatest of our rulers, certainly the Conference will not have been in vain.
The aim of the Summit must hive been to make it clear that this is the only principle on which we can proceed. My Lords, more especially, should it not be the principle behind the organisation of the European Economic Community? I hope that the Government will agree with that. I only hope that that principle has not been damaged by the extraordinary exclusion of Mr. Jenkins from the first day of the discussions, which I hope the Government will ensure never happens again.
I wish to ask only two questions. The third paragraph of the Statement says that if countries seem likely to fall short—that is to say, countries with weaker economies which are falling short in their growth rates—then all the seven leaders will adopt further policies to achieve their targets. What sort of policies may we therefore expect? Secondly, I am glad to see—and it is one of the most important results of the Conference—that the Ministers committed themselves to ensuring more resources for the International Monetary Fund. Does that mean that the United States will take the

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lead, because it would depend on the United States finding new money—new resources—for the IMF, and, if so, where will all these resources come from? I am all for that and merely ask whether that will be a great step forward or not.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, first may I thank the two noble Lords for their comments on the Statement made by my right honourable friend. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made the point that if this Summit Meeting has done nothing else, it has value in that it has brought together the leaders of the seven world industrial democracies, and that is undoubtedly a most encouraging aspect of this Summit. I can only say that Mr. Jenkins made a significant contribution, and, naturally, together with the two noble Lords, I would have wished that the opportunity had been greater, but what opportunity was given he made very good use of.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to the follow-up. In relation to three of the seven objectives set out in the Statement, one could point to two practical indications of follow-up. For instance, the conference on energy, which is now reaching fruition, will take into account the discussions and decisions in which the Summit was involved when it takes its decisions. The urgent study on nuclear energy, which is expected to be completed in the next two months, is clearly addressed to the central problem of utilising nuclear power for civil purposes while endeavouring to avoid nuclear proliferation in the military field. That study will report in the next two months.
The proposals with regard to the IMF are pretty indicative and this brings me to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. I would expect the United States to be very prominent—if indeed it does not take the lead—in the operation to increase the resources of the IMF, but it would not do so on its own. We shall have to wait a little for the actual details of this.
The noble Lord made the point about revival of trade being essential for the reduction of unemployment. I could not agree with him more. The whole tone of the Statement and the Communiqué issued at the end of the Summit meeting,
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plus the Appendix, which will of course be included in the Official Report, bears him out on this. Apart from the decision to maintain growth, there is also the forthright declaration against trade restriction as well as for the expansion of IMF facilities. I would add one development as regards indications of future, hopeful action to which both noble Lords referred. It is contained in one rather short but very significant sentence. At the end of page 2, the Statement says:
"We also invite the COMECON countries to join us in this, the only war worth fighting—the war on want".
That refers to the seventh pledge to assist the world's poor, but if this is successful in bringing Eastern and Western Europe and Japan together for that purpose, there may be hope for common action between both halves of Europe and other parts of the world for wider purposes even than the assistance of the world's under-privileged.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, although few would dissent from the words of this Statement, it could possibly carry dangers for Britain because it can be looked upon as soothing syrup, which will not do us any good. The idea which it presents, that we all suffer from unemployment, investment and taxation problems may be true, but our problems are much worse than those of the other countries, and unless we face that and take internal steps to deal with our taxation and productivity problems this joint Statement will not do. If we swallow this soothing syrup and believe that we all share the same burdens in every respect and have no special responsibility to ourselves, it can be dangerous. I hope that the Government will bear that in mind.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, as we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, declarations from Summits of this kind must, if possible, issue in action. I think that from the start of this Summit there was the feature of personal and what might be called broad philosophical accord among those taking part. I would point to this evidence of basic consensus, of personal congeniality and philosophical consensus. The noble Lord made the point about our problems being worse. In some

37
respects they are worse than those of the other countries; in some respects they are rather better. That is the realism that we should apply to this country's condition and that of the rest of the industrial world.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, although I welcome the Statement, particularly the words of co-operation with COMECON, the reality is that British businessmen and others are already cooperating and obtaining trade wherever they can in the East. However, I have one small caveat to make. I do not wish to be cynical, and welcome the meeting of men together. I have had the privilege on two occasions of attending conferences where people were sincere all the way round the table. We must not take too much notice of cynical writing by theorists and commentators because the statesman has to approach the world pragmatically. If one approaches the world pragmatically it does not necessarily mean that one is a cynic. Cynicism and pragmatism are two completely different things. Consequently, I welcome the Statement. It is an effort at least, in one of the most difficult transitional periods historically, to try to meet overwhelming problems when the old theories of trade, horizontal and vertical, and the old ideas, maybe, of capitalism and socialism, and other "isms" and "wasms", need bringing off the shelves and redusting, and man needs to think again about the problems that he faces.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can hardly add anything to that tremendous philippic except to say that the only thing worth being cynical about is cynicism itself. I endorse what my noble friend has said in such eloquent terms. This was a Summit perhaps with a difference. The leaders who got together share—I almost used the word "ideological"—social and international purposes. They come from a wide spectrum of political experience and thought, from the Right to the Left, centring perhaps on the realism of the declaration I have just repeated.

SALE OF MANORS BILL [H.L.]
4.1 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read
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a second time. It is with some trepidation that I venture to move the Second Reading of this small Bill concerning the ancient and historic title known as the "lordship of the manor". My sense of trepidation is kindled not only because a number of your Lordships will of course be holders of this ancient title, and no doubt are suspicious of the purpose of the Bill, but also because the subject touches the very foundations of our ancient history of land tenure from the days of William the Conqueror and the Domesday Book; and between the Danegeld, the Sokeman, and the Stirt and the Hide, I have an uneasy hunch that my limited grasp of the history of ancient land tenure may lead me rather rapidly to the stocks.
To allay any suspicions in the House, I feel I should say at this stage that the Bill is not an attack to abolish the ancient title of "lordship of the manor". In my view the Bill would help to strengthen it by removing certain discrepancies that now exist. The Bill in its barest simplicity has two objectives. The first objective is to help protect certain public, or quasi-public, land against damage—and here, of course, I refer to the village greens and the lands mentioned in the Bill. The second is to put an end to the somewhat degrading spectacle of certain dealings in lordships which I shall come to a little later.
As I said earlier, the ancient title was first created as far back as the time of William the Conqueror. My researches in the Library show that the early monarchs were as shrewd as the present day Chancellors of the Exchequer at extracting taxes from people. They took the view that to extract the tax from one person, the lord of the manor, and to allow him then to collect the tax, was the best form of taxation.
One of the root causes today in the whole problem of lordships of the manor and their title is that there are no accurate accounts, records, or registrations, of the names and numbers of present-day holders. I am told that back in the Middle Ages there were about 9,000 lords of the manor, and that the Church then owned one-third. I am further told that it is believed that the same number exist today, although many of them are untraceable.
From the early days of the creation of the titles the lords of the manor were

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granted certain rights: the right of game; the right of minerals; franchises, such as treasure trove, and indeed they were also given certain rights to hold courts. In fact that was the way they would manage the manor. They were allowed to summon the court baron, and indeed I saw only over the weekend from evidence given in the Royal Commission on Common Land in 1956 that the lord of the manor of Dorney used with very good effect his ancient right to overcome certain management problems at Dorney Common. As well as the ancient rights there were of course certain traditional honours. One of the most interesting concerns the lord of the manor of Scrivelsby, who by right carries the Royal Banner at the Coronation. I understand that this is in the family of my noble friend Lord Dundee.
If one examines the practical situation of the lordships today it is perhaps not surprising to find that a great many have been separated from their former lands. Indeed, today, I think there are really three categories of lordships. There is first the category of the lordship that still retains the personal land within the manor: the estate, the farm, the manor house, or even the paddock. Then there is the lordship which no longer retains the land for personal use, but almost by historical accident still retains certain manorial lands within the villages—the village green, the roadside waste, the old pound, and so on. The third category comprises the lordships which have no land and which I understand, for the benefit of lawyers, are known as empty lordships, or incorporeal hereditaments devoid of content. It is the last two categories which the Bill is designed to affect.
What is it that the Promoters of the Bill, the National Association of Local Councils—which of course advises parish councils and community councils throughout Britain, and with which many noble Lords are associated—seek to improve for the benefit of the parish councils; and why is it really necessary? The problem, I would suggest, revolves round the word "management". Traditionally, the parish councils have been, and are indeed, responsible for the maintenance of the public and quasi-public areas in the village: the village green, often the centre of the village, and indeed, the heart of
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the village, and in some cases as large as 20 acres. I believe that there is a village in Devon which has a village green of over 20 acres. This green is important aesthetically for the village, and in many cases it is extremely important for the recreational use of the parishioners. The old pound, the roadside wastes—all these the parish councils have the responsibility to care for. The responsibility comes not only from the responsibility that has continued for many years, but indeed from certain Acts of Parliament; the Enclosure Act 1857 and the Commons Act 1876 gave parish councils the right of maintenance and the protection of these lands.
The question must be put: If that is the case, if these old Bills gave the parish councils those powers, was that not enough, and is that not enough? The answer in practical terms is "No", for over the last ten years the National Association has helped to advise in no fewer than 400 cases concerned with the problems that generate from village greens and their ownership. In each case the parish councils have been frustrated in their endeavours to protect the village greens. The practical problem in almost every case was that the lord of the manor who still owned the soil of the green was no longer in the area, and in many cases was untraceable.
The remedy for the parish councils, of course, exists in various ways. They could, I suppose, have the use and power of a compulsory purchase order. But this, as many of your Lordships will realise, is not attractive to a close-knit community. They could acquire by agreement with the lord of the manor, but here again progress has been very slow. As far as I know, there has been only one case in recent years, at Stow-upland in Suffolk, where the parish council purchased the lordship. As I have said, in many cases the lords of the manor are apparently untraceable. This is one of the root causes of the problem.
The second objective of the Bill concerns empty lordships. It may seem oversensitive to some, but many parish councils—indeed, I am sure all of them—feel very strongly that these ancient and proud titles, which stem from the heart of our heritage, should not end up offered as a raffle at a Chicago convention, as

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did the lordship of the manor of Great Snoring some years ago. It is perhaps an unfortunate name, but that is what happened. I support the view, as I am sure many noble Lords will, that hawking these lordships around America, Japan and elsewhere is both degrading and unnecessary. I have no exact figures of recent sales of empty lordships—I have tried to get them but have failed—but I am advised that in 1968, 17 were sold and that the average value was just under £2,000 each.
I inquired as to what precedent there was, if any, to put forward to support the Bill. There are, I think, two precedents. The first is the right to appoint the rector of the parish, a right granted centuries ago, often to lords of the manor in return for building the church. This appointment was an absolute right and the bishop could object only on the grounds of evil living. That right to sell by auction became illegal after the Benefices Act 1898, which was followed in 1924 by an Act which virtually abolished advowsons.
The second precedent is much closer; it involves the ancient rights of commoners under the Commons Registration Act 1965. Because, as to who could graze the land, commoners were, as with many lordship owners, often untraceable, and because, like many of the lordships, the management of the commons subsequently suffered, that Act was passed to allow of compulsory registration, after which a certain number of commoners were known to have lost their rights by default.
I said at the beginning that the Bill had two objectives. Clause 2 sets out the categories of lordships affected by the Bill—lordships with no land, lordships with no personal land but with what I call manorial land, village greens—and, within these limited categories, a transfer or sale under Clause 1 would in future be void unless the notification procedure under Clause 3 had been adhered to, and indeed unless the parish council had indicated within the period of time tha it did not wish to purchase. The notification procedure is framed deliberately as a short, simple procedure, and allows parish councils four weeks in which to decide whether or not to purchase the lordship. The councils themselves will in fact have a duty under Clause 4 of the Bill to consult any other councils where
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part of the manor is situated in another council area. If that other council decides that it would like to purchase, if the first has decided not to, then it shall be granted one further month for the decision.
Clause 5 provides for the basis of compensation on a sale to a council. It would be a fair market value and, failing agreement between the parties, an independent valuer would be appointed and his award would be binding. The cost of such award would be shared equally between the parties. Under the interpretation provision, Clause 7, is spelt out particularly what is covered under transfer of ownership; and the Schedule covers the definitions of "parish" and "community". Clause 8 of the Bill excludes both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I would not profess at this stage to claim that the drafting of the Bill is perfect; there are certain Amendments which even my unpracticed eye tells me will need to be made, and other matters which will need examination. If the Bill is allowed to go into Commitee, I feel that we shall have to examine Clause 2 particularly, the question of excluding, for example, a lord of the mancr living in his manor house with perhaps a garden of one acre but who could at the present time come within the scope of the Bill; it is not intended that that category should be included. Equally, I think the time-scale of notification may have to be adjusted; likewise the defiaition of "transfer" in Clause 7, particularly in cases of probate.
I hope I have explained sufficiently clearly to the House both the purposes and provisions of the Bill. I have no doubt that there is a practical and real need for parish councils to be granted these powers. I believe the Bill does not set any precedent, but it does, as the Commons Registration Act did, bring an ancient right into line with modern-day requirements, and it is for flat reason that I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
4.17 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness BIRK): My Lords, I intend to make only

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the briefest intervention on behalf of the Government, whose attitude to the Bill is one of good-humoured neutrality. My own attitude, having heard the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and having read the Bill's smaller print, is one of intrigued neutrality, for he seems to be going even further towards making an extension of the Community Land Act. The noble Earl appears to be extending it to parishes and community councils. What I find rather strange is that having gone through the processes under Clause 5(3) where the owner and the council cannot agree on the terms, the Bill then says:
"The valuer's award shall bind the owner to convey the lordship to the council, and the council to pay the sum awarded, and shall be final".
A compulsory purchase order by any other name may sound sweet or sour according to one's approach, but it seems to me that the way in which the Bill is drafted achieves the same effect that a CPO would achieve in any other circumstances. It is not based entirely on friendly negotiation, which, if that could be reached, I am sure the noble Earl would feel to be the right answer, and there is certainly a form of compulsion at the end of the day.
For this reason, I am greatly intrigued because this seems to be a move towards the nationalisation of land, albeit to a small degree, which all seems rather foreign compared with the utterances of the noble Earl on other occasions. However, the last thing I would wish to do would be to turn down the Bill or his ideas because of that. Taking a neutral position—for the noble Earl was also good enough to point out that the latest figure that he was able to give was for 1968 when there were 17 sales (I know the difficulty for I have tried to find out the figures for myself)—it is difficult to know whether the size of the problem created by these manors is great enough to merit cure through legislation. I make this point because we are always hearing from all sides of the House and particularly from noble Lords opposite about the amount of legislation that is going through Parliament. It would seem to me to be a pity, unless a definitive case can be made out, to add to the load. However, I should be interested to hear further comments from other noble Lords.
In this context, it is quite clear that a manor is not just a house and land as I
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believe many of us who are ignorant about this may have thought. It is the seisin of a defined district with the power of subinfeudation therein. In case there is anyone—and I very much doubt that—who does not know the meaning of these terms, "seisin" is the holding of the freehold and the power of "subinfeudation" is the power to grant lands within the manor to the lord of the manor's subjects. I, however, being a lay person in these matters, find it easier to think of the manor as a relic of a feudal estate, perhaps with some land still related to it and perhaps with some minor rights over that land which are possessed by the lord, but which are very largely of titular and historic significance only.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in his introductory remarks mentioned various sales—even by raffle as at Great Snoring about ten years ago—of some of these titles of lord of the manor. There was also the enchanting story of Sowerby. I am fascincated by the quaint, ancient history of the whole problem. Where a title is all that is involved, I see no reason why a parish council or anybody else should intervene. I believe that the noble Earl agrees. It may seem foolish for people to invest in a title with no real value, but if they wish to do so, I can see no wrong in it.
However, the Bill is concerned with those lordships of the manor where there is some title to land—common land, waste land at the roadside, the manor pound and particularly village greens. In such cases, it is quite true that the land may be of little value to anyone but the population at large. They are represented by the palish council or, in Wales, the community council which already has rights, but not the full rights of ownership. Therefore, they cannot take civil action or physical action to protect village greens. Here, I believe, lies the strength of the noble Earl's intentions. I can see that in such cases the proposals in the Bill could have some merit. I can also see no harm in giving parish councils powers to acquire these feudal relics, especially if the acquisition of village greens helps to preserve them and that of the roadways protects the verges. It seems sensible to facilitate their task in this way.
The Bill also includes lordships where no land is involved. I am not sure whether

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I heard the noble Earl aright. I understood him to say that he would want changes in the drafting of Clause 2(a), which specifies no land. In any case, that seems to me to be something that should be queried if the Bill is taken forward to a Committee stage. It should be clear what is the the point of including this. Perhaps the noble Earl can explain. The noble Earl himself also pointed out that there are drafting problems with the Bill as it stands, though now is not the time to go into detailed questions.
I must also point out that, at this late stage of the Session, the Bill has only a slender chance of making progress in another place. Nevertheless, I have no intention of opposing a Second Reading, though I wonder whether there are not other ways of bringing about the very worthy objective that the noble Earl has in mind without going through what will be a small but tortuous piece of legislation.
4.25 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, at this stage, we can say that we are grateful to my noble friend for introducing this Bill; but I am not so sure whether we shall continue to be grateful once the Committee stage has been reached, for I see intricacies looming ahead of us. Like the noble Baroness, I find this an intriguing subject, but I suspect that it is immensely intricate. My curiosities were greatly aroused when the noble Baroness likened it to a mini Community Land Act, which, heaven knows! was complicated enough. However, I was disappointed when, having said that, she did not immediately jump to the support of my noble friend and encourage him with her enthusiasm. That is what one would have expected.
If the Bill is to make progress, I believe that it will require the help of the Government which, I noticed, was not excactly forthcoming. If the noble Baroness feels that there is a cause here which can be supported in other ways, I believe that we should all be glad if she can express it when we reach another stage. Otherwise, I believe that we shall all be spending a lot of time to little effect.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I said that I thought that there was a slender chance—the question is purely one of time. It
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does not rest with me at all but is a question of Parliamentary time. So far as alternatives are concerned, I must make it quite clear that I have no intention of putting forward alternatives. Having been frank about that, I was suggesting to the noble Earl that he might, or other noble Lords might, come forward. I should not like to mislead the House into thinking that I was going to produce an alternative.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, the noble Baroness has certainly not misled me. What I was attempting to do in a very tenative way was to pave the way for possible discussions between her Department, my noble friend and the National Association of Local Councils. If there is another way round this, it would be as well if we could find it. I believe that the Committee stage portends a real meal for the lawyers, estate agents and historians and that we shall get very entangled. Nevertheless, I should like to give my provisional support to one or two of the aims of my noble friend and the National Association of Local Councils, because I agree with them that the transfer of the title of these lordships of the manor to absentees and outsiders is something of an affront to the dignity and pride of local communities and may prove to be an obstruction to the development of their recreational facilities on village greens and so on.
I feel that the sale of such dignities and titles by events such as raffles is also something of a scandal, and I agree with the more substantial point that the absence of these rights from a locality is a source of difficulty to those who want to develop the amenities and recreational facilities of their village greens. However, I believe that there are some fairly substantial objections which will somehow have to be met. One relates to the mineral rights which I know that my noble friend Lord Clitheroe will want to talk about. I would think that shooting rights would also lead to problems where these have been absorbed into the manorial rights. These are both rights with substantial values. They are not exempt from the operation of the Bill as far as I can see from my reading of Clause 2, but I should not have thought that the parish council was an appropriate body to administer or manage either of these even if it was interested in acquiring them.

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Perhaps my noble friend can indicate now, or at a later stage, where these are supposed to fall; whether they are proposed to be excluded by the Amendments he is talking about; or whether they are included. Perhaps he can also say how things are to be made better if parish councils start to acquire rights of this kind.
As a rather incidental point, I should like to ask my noble friend whether he can say, either now or in correspondence, if he has any concern for a number of outsiders, and even foreigners, with whom some special links with particular villages and parishes might be mutually desirable, even for some token payment. There are quite a number of families who trace their ancestry back to certain villages. There are foreigners belonging to towns which are twinned with certain parishes in this country, and I think that some way of establishing honorary links between people like that and these rights might not be a had thing. I do not think that this is a matter which needs to he imported into the Bill, but it is something about which we might think as the Bill goes forward. I am afraid that this is a rather lukewarm welcome, but I am conscious that there is probably much more to the Bill than meets the eye, and until I see that a little more clearly I should like to reserve my judgment.
4.31 p.m.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, I apologise for intervening, and I shall not be long. A good many noble Lords besides myself have a personal interest in the Bill, which raises a few questions which I should like to be allowed to ask the noble Earl. First, does the word "land" in Clause 2(a) include land which was copyhold land and was enfranchised in 1925? In many cases that would very likely be land in which the lord still had certain interests, such as mineral interests or shooting interests.
Secondly, may I ask whether it is intended that this Bill should apply to the manors in the possession of the Crown and the Royal Duchies. Furthermore, to me the most important question of all is whether transfer, as described in the clause, includes probate. When an heir inherits from his predecessor it would
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appear to me, from looking at the Bill, to mean that it was a transfer. In such circumstances if a father dies and his son inherits from him, I do not think that that would be an occasion when the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, would think it appropriate that this Bill should operate. There are other minor matters on which I should be happy to talk to the noble Earl at some other time, but I wanted merely to express my view that there are some matters in the Bill which need quite serious attention.
4.33 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, so that the noble Earl can make clear something which I think will be of interest to other noble Lords as well as to myself, I should like to ask him two questions before he replies to the debate. First, in Clause 3 I notice that the operation of the Bill would be started by the owner of the lordship notifying the council in writing. I think there are a great many manors in this country of which nobody knows who owns the lordship, and in such cases there can obviously be no notification in writing. So how would we proceed from there?
The second question I want to ask is: What happens when manors are held in moieties? It frequently has happened, I believe, that manors were split up. That did not mean that they were split up geographically, but that several lords each owned a share of the whole. I know of one manor which is held in six moieties, and it is most unlikely that all six should die at the same time, or should want to part with their interests at the same time. Those are two questions that I should like to put to the noble Earl, but if I thought rather harder I might think of some more. It seems that the Bill, in its present state, has a number of provisions at which we ought to look very closely in Committee.
4.35 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am very grateful to all of those who have spoken on the Second Reading of the Bill and for the support which has been given, even if it has been somewhat careful support. The noble Baroness,

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Lady Birk, said that the Government looked upon the Bill with good-humoured neutrality. I am not sure how neutral she was when subsequently she suggested that the Bill was the arm of nationalisation, and when she raised the question of over-legislation and so on. But certainly she was good-humoured, for which I was very grateful.
With regard to the prospect of the Bill going through another place—if, indeed, it goes through this House—I would hope that there was a rather good chance, because the Government's programme of business has been somewhat curtailed by recent Bills (which we know about) and I should have thought that there was room for this fairly important change in ancient law—and it is something which the parish councils are looking for. The noble Baroness particularly asked about the question of "no land" under Clause 2. This refers specifically to the empty lordships, and, as my noble friend Lord Sandford said, it is one of the objectives of the Bill to try to stop these rather degrading sales abroad.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandford for his support. He asked a number of detailed questions which perhaps I could deal with at a later stage. My noble friend Lord Clitheroe asked, I think, three questions. Unlike the Government, I do not have experts in the Officials' Box to whom I can immediately refer, and so perhaps I can also deal with those matters by correspondence.
However, I think that I can answer one point raised by my noble friend, Lord Inglewood, who asked how on earth the Bill could be enforced where a lordship was untraceable. I should have thought that the answer would be that if a British lawyer was involved in the sale of a lordship, it would be his duty to advise his clients to notify the council, even if the clients did not know. I hope that that partially answers the point. My noble friend raised another interesting question regarding manors held in moiety. Again I will have to check on that and write to him. My Lords, I am very grateful for the support given to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2ª and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PATENTS BILL [H.L.]
4.38 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be now further considered on Report.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 69 [Declaration as to non-infringement.]
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 109:
Page 61, line 27, after ("or") insert ("a proposed act")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 109, and to speak at the same time to Amendment No. 110. These Amendments make it clear that the court or the comptroller may make a declaration as to non-infringement in respect of proposed or intended acts which have not actually taken place. I am grateful to nob1e Lords opposite for first drawing our attention to this defect in Clause 69 during the Committee stage, when Committee Amendment No. 269 was discussed. I indicated then that I accepted their Amendment, subject to drafting, and I hope that they will agree that these Amendments fully meet the point. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, subject to what the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has just said, we are very grateful that the Government have been able to accept what we hoped were these minor Amendments in order to make the Bill a little more effective. We are very grateful, and wish to add support.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 110:
Page 61, line 29, after ("doing") insert ("or proposing to do")
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 70 [Power to revoke patents on application]:
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 62, line 8, leave out from ("in") to ("as") in line 9 and insert ("the application for

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the patent, as filed, or, if the patent was granted on a new application filed under section 7(3), (Determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents, etc.), 13(4) or 35(4) above, in the earlier application").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment makes Clause 70(1)(d) bite upon new, substitute applications filed under Clause 7(3). Clause 7 is the new clause dealing with the determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents. The Amendment brings paragraph (d) into line with the European Patent Convention, Article 138(1)(e), by making it clear that a patent granted on such a new application is to be coverable if it extends the matter disclosed in the earlier, original application as filed. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 112:
Page 62, line 12, at end insert—
("(1A) An application for the revocation of a patent on the ground mentioned in subsection (1)(b) above—

(a) may only be made by a person found by the court in an action for a declaration or declarator or found by the court or the comptroller on a reference under section 35 above to be entitled to be granted that patent or to be granted a patent for part of the matter comprised in the specification of the patent sought to be revoked; and

(b) may not be made if that action was commenced or that reference was made after the end of the period of two years beginning with the date of the grant of the patent sought to be revoked, unless it is shown that any person registered as a proprietor of the patent know at the time of the grant or of the transfer of the patent to him that he was not entitled to the patent.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this at some length when dealing with Amendment No. 104A at our last Sitting, last Thursday. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 113:
Page 62, line 23, leave out ("35 above or")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord McCluskey spoke to this Amendment when he was dealing with Amendment No. 42 last time, and this Amendment, No. 113, is consequential upon Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 113A:
Page 62, line 25, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, when dealing with Amendment No. 104A last time I spoke to this Amendment, as well. This Amendment is consequential on Amendments Nos. 112 and 113. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 113B:
Page 62, line 28, at end insert—
"( ) A decision of the comptroller or on appeal from the comptroller shall not estop any party to civil proceedings in which infringement of a patent is in issue from alleging invalidity of the patent on any of the grounds referred to in subsection (1) above, whether or not any of the issues involved were decided in the said decision.".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment both follows on and, I think, is virtually identical with one which I moved at Committee stage and which stood in the names of both myself and my noble friend Lord Belstead. Noble Lords will recall that the full and due processes of the law were bandied around at that stage. Words like, "estoppel" and res judicata were two of the simpler concepts to come under your Lordships' scrutiny. Noble Lords will also recall that my noble friend Lord Belstead made what I believe to be the very valid point that in any unsuccessful action to revoke a patent the applicant could be sued for an infringement, and that in the course of this he could not use the same arguments, or indeed part of the same grounds, in his defence, even if the basis for the appeal against revocation was entirely different from the original basis.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, in his reply, referred to this attractive term res judicata and pointed out that, in general, this was a sound provision and I think we would all go along with the fact that it does obviate tedious and repetitive litigation. However, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, mentioned, firstly, that the courts were unlikely to use the law of estoppel—and I would add (I think I have probably got it right) he meant the estoppel of issue, because I understand that is the precise definition of res judicata—to prevent any litigant from protecting himself in an infringement action or in any counterclaim.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, accepted our Amendment, as he said, in principle. He believed that the Government should make it quite clear that res judicata has no application in such circumstances. But, my Lords, what troubled us then, and I must say troubles us still today, is that we are not entirely happy that Clause 72 (and, in particular, as we have it, Clause 72(l)(a), which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oram) is sufficient to achieve what all of us believe the court will wish to achieve.
Subsection (1)(a) deals with the validity of a patent in infringement proceedings, but we would submit that this need not necessarily be at issue. What we believe is at issue is Clause 70(5), which seems to us to have nothing to do with estoppel of issue or, indeed, res judicata. What we understand by Clause 70(5) is that it removes the right of appeal to the court except by leave of that court; but we do agree that Clause 72(l)(a) deals with the validity of the patent in infringement proceedings, and also that Clause 72(1)(d) will satisfactorily cover the validity of a patent in revocation proceedings. My Lords, the main purpose in pursuing this Amendment is to ensure that, in any proceedings under Clause 72, estoppel cannot be used to bar an applicant from what might quite well be a rightful and, we hope, a reasonable remedy.
My Lords, I hesitate to become more legal—I hesitate even to attempt such an action—but the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has equated Clause 72 and the remedies in that particular clause with our worry in respect of res judicata. I am given to understand that res judicata is a particular form of the law of estoppel, certainly in England; and, as I mentioned, it is estoppel of issue. Our Amendment, we hope, will cover this particular aspect of the law of estoppel. Whereas the new clause, now Clause 72, is thought by the noble Lord, Lord Oram, to deal with res judicata, I am instructed that Clause 72 deals with what is known as action estoppel, where the validity of the patent is judged on any grounds—novelty, obviousness and the others. This is the particular position as we understand it. We would welcome any further comments from the Government before the doctrine of res judicata, or anything similar to it, is invoked in any such proceedings as these.
I think that in earlier proceedings, so far as this Bill is concerned, even on Second Reading, what all of us—certainly those of us on this side, and I believe throughout the House—have been worried about is that proceedings for patents may be carried out in an effective way, but in a reasonably cheap and a reasonably swift way, and that any objectials may be disposed of swiftly and effectively. Some estimates have been made to us that the cost of bringing any revocation proceedings before the comptroller are indeed exactly what we wish to see—they are quite cheap—but the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, when he has mentioned proceedings moving from the comptroller up to the court, has pointed out the great increase in costs, and this is what worries us and why we are particularly keen on this Amendment, which we have set down again and are discussing today. We believe that the Government should take a very careful and close look at this, as they said they would do.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, said he believed that our Amendment was covered, but we believe that this, unfortunately, is not necessarily the case. We believe that if our Amendment were not to be accepted and written into the Bill there would be a considerable risk of patent litigants virtually wishing to go to the court, with the very great increases in costs that this would involve. This certainly is not what we would wish to see and I believe it is not what the Government wish to see. For that and other reasons, I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has said, his Amendment and the speech to which we have just listened covered ground that we covered when dealing with the Committee stage Amendments Nos. 280 and 282 of his noble friend Lord Belstead. I said at the time that in my view the effect of the first of the two Amendments would be achieved by what is now Clause 72. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, this afternoon referred to my opinion expressed at that time and continues to have doubts as to whether its effect is to meet the points he has in mind. He will be comforted to know that since the Committee stage we have given further thought to this question of estoppel, not only following what the noble Lord has said in this House but also

55
having received representations from the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents and senior members of the patent Bar. Obviously this is a matter of great importance and we are persuaded that it would be wise for the Bill to clarify the position.
So far as concerns prior decisions of the comptroller, I am fully prepared to accept that the unsuccessful applicant should not be estopped if he is later sued for infringement. This should also be the result if the prior decision is given by the Patents Court on appeal from the comptroller. However, the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has moved, No. 113B, goes further than that in that it provides that there shall be no estoppel as a result of a decision or appeal from the comptroller, even though the decision may have been given by the Court of Appeal or indeed by the House of Lords. As it seems to me at present, this is going too far. I should therefore like the opportunity to consult further with noble Lords opposite and with patent interests with a view to establishing whether it is really necessary to go further than I have already suggested.
I am wondering, therefore, whether the noble Lord, Lord Lye11, would be prepared at this stage to withdraw his Amendment in the light of what I have said. I should then be happy to enter into such consultations with him and others with a view to submitting at Third Reading an Amendment which should meet the points that really need attention. I hope that full satisfaction will then be given to noble Lords who have raised this matter.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I have listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has said. I cannot quite understand his reservations in this matter. It may be helpful if I were to mention that when proceedings occur before the Comptoller General of Patents, the evidence is usually on a declaration or affidavit and that when there is an appeal from the comptroller that evidence goes before the Appeal Court and it is difficult to get further evidence put in. Industry welcomes a robust and quick decision on these infringement matters and many would abide by the decision of the
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comptroller. Therefore, at first instance, I do not understand why he is limiting the scope of this proposed Amendment in the way he has indicated. No doubt he will consider this point later and we may be able to raise this matter at Third Reading if it is the wish of the other supporters of the Amendment that the matter should not be pressed now.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, before my noble friend replies to the noble Lord and to the offer that the noble Lord has made, may I, as a non-lawyer, get myself absolutely right. As I understand it, the Government are now saying that the problem we have presented by the Amendment moved in Committee and again today is not met by Clause 72 and therefore the Government are of the view that something needs to be done. The noble Lord was good enough to outline the grounds on which he feels that something needs to be done where prior decisions of the comptroller apply and where a court, on appeal from the comptroller, takes a decision.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, because I think that we too are worried that the action that the Government are contemplating at the moment would not extend to the Court of Appeal or a decision of the House of Lords. Although I can see that the Government have misgivings about this, I do not think that their misgivings are going to overcome the problem that we have been trying to present when speaking twice to this Amendment. I hope that my noble friend may perhaps take my advice, which is that I think that it would be helpful if the Government would do what they have suggested: that is, if the Amendment is withdrawn they would consider it again. But I think it right none the less at this stage that we ought to make the point that we on this side are worried that the Government's misgivings, although understandable, will leave the point not perhaps sufficiently covered.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I thank both noble Lords, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran and Lord Belstead, for registering those points; so that at least we have it on record now just what is the difference between us at this moment. This will inform the discussions that I have undertaken to enter into.

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It will be this point, no doubt, that we shall have to discuss. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will now see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I have listened peacefully and with dignity to everything that was said. I think it would be churlish and unfitting in this House to turn down the kind offer of the noble Lord, Lord Oram, on behalf of his colleagues. However, I think that if we look through the proceedings (certainly at Committee stage and, probably also, the two days of Report stage) we should find a plethora of cases where further consideration was suggested by the Government.
I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Oram, say that considerable discussion had taken place with patent barristers and with the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents; but I hope that further discussion in narrowing down the point may take place. I note that the litigant should not be estopped either on appeal from the comptroller (nor, indeed, higher appeals) and I am glad that we and the noble Lord, Lord Oram, are running on the same track so far as that is concerned.
I am slightly mystified by Lord Oram's comments that consultations would continue—I think they were his words—about our point as expressed. I have expressed our point as well as I can. He will appreciate that I am not a lawyer (and neither is he) and I think we can both be thankful that we are at least on the level there. But when the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that our Amendment needs attention, I may say that we have heard this also on Committee stage. We hope the attention that doubtless is going to be given by Lord Oram and his colleagues, and possibly by his noble and learned colleague, will be able to narrow down both the points at issue and our differences. I am sure Members of the House will appreciate that we have not long to go before this Bill will wend its way through your Lordships' House; and, indeed, the other place are keen to deliberate all that we have been discussing.
We were particularly gratified to have the highly qualified support of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, as a qualified practitioner. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, will agree that
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the noble Lord expresses his points briefly and clearly. We are pleased that he believed that evidence before the comptroller is normally taken or affidavit. Lord Lloyd's words on how industry would welcome robust and quick decisions are particularly apposite. There was the small problem that we believed would be solved by Amendment No. 113B, which was supposing a company which was worried by a patent brought forward reasons for regarding this patent as being invalid, together with evidence of proof of this invalidity, it might be that the attack on the patent and the validity would be insufficient merely because it had been done at the comptroller level. As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, said, he hoped that it would be at a robust level. Yet possibly it might not be effective, because the patentee would be able to retain his patent; and in the absence of any definite rules relating to estoppel, without Amendment No. 113B it would leave the opponent open to an infringement action. This would be carried out on the High Court scale with all the additional expense which is particularly anathema to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, and everyone.
We believe that there is a risk that if action was taken at the High Court level, the opponent would find it mush more costly and much more difficult adequately to defend himself. This is a particular problem which we believe still has not been solved by the proposals set forth both at the Committee stage and now by the noble Lord, Lord Oram. Certainly it would be ungenerous, particularly in view of the air in which this Bill has been discussed—I will not say argued—across the Floor of the House not to take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and withdraw our Amendment.
But of course we look forward to having fairly intensive discussions with the noble Lord. There probably will be other items, even on our agenda today, which will require equally close and delicate negotiations and discussions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, is not letting himself and his colleagues in for more than he possibly thought when he was so kind and asked us if we would reconsider our Amendment.
We are grateful to everybody who has spoken on this very difficult issue. I

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hope that I have not fallen into too many deep legal pits—as my noble friend Lord Belstead said, that I have made no lacuna—and I seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): Is it your Lordships' pleasure that with peace, dignity and clarity, this Amendment should be withdrawn?
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 114:
Page 62, line 31, after ("appeal") insert ("or by way of putting validity in issue in proceedings for infringement").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment gives effect to my acceptance in principle of one moved in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. The noble Lord's Amendment rightly drew attention to the need for the provision to be amended so as to permit anyone charged with infringement after revocation proceedings to defend himself in the way in which Clause 70(5), as now amended by this Amendment, permits him to do. I therefore hope that noble Lords will be able to agree that this Amendment achieves the improvement which the noble Lord was seeking and thank the noble Lord for having drawn the point to my attention in the first place. I beg to move.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this point meets the point that I ventured to make when in Committee. I am grateful to the Government for putting the Amendment down and I will of course support it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.5 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 114B:
After Clause 70, insert the following new clause:
Effect of disclosure of matter on application where such disclosure occurs after filing earlier relevant application
Where an invention to which an application for a patent relates has the priority date of an earlier relevant application pursuant to section 5 above, then, notwithstanding anything in this Act, the comptroller shall not refuse to grant the patent, and the patent shall not be revoked or invalidated by reason only that any matter disclosed in the earlier relevant application
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was used or published or taken to be comprised in the state of the art at any time on or after the date of filing the earlier relevant application.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 114B. When this Amendment was debated in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that as he was then advised, he was assured that Clause 2 covered the effect which this Amendment aims to achieve. I confess that I remain concerned that this is not the case. I wonder whether I might put the difficulty to the Government in the following way. Let us suppose that a man—a man who has become an old friend to the Members of the House who have taken part in this Bill—discovers a new method for attaching the uppers of a pair of shoes to the soles. He prepares his specification and applies for a patent. However, he is proud of this invention and, soon after, publishes an article about it in the Shoemakers' Gazette. After that, and within a year from the date of filing his application, it occurs to the inventor that the invention—because the method is being carried out by a machine—can be used for fixing blinds to their rollers and canvas hoods to the roofs of cars. He then files a new application for shoes, roller blinds and car hoods, which I suggest has a single generic claim for the fixing of flexible matter to a stiffer backing.
That generic claim is not supported by the description of the first application for shoes. Therefore, under Clause 5 of the Bill the second application can only claim the date of filing of its own application. The Government may say, "Under Clause 5(2), if an application is supported by matter contained in an earlier application, the second application can take the earlier priority date. But the second generic claim, the one for the three things, is in this case not so supported by the earlier application for shoes alone, because if there is an invention which is limited in its scope—in this case only shoes—it is very doubtful whether it would be held with a broader claim for different articles (in this case roller blinds and car hoods as well as shoes) as being supported by matter in the earlier application for shoes alone. Anyway, it could be argued that work on blinds and car hoods are different arts so for as shoes are concerned.
The second generic claim can be said now to have been anticipated by the dis-

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closure in the Shoemakers' Gazette, and the claims for blinds and car hoods may be robbed of inventive merit under Clause 3 by the previous application for shoes, because it could be argued that someone skilled in the art could have realised that the invention for shoes could have been used for other things as well. When replying, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, based his case—which he did with great care to me on the previous stage of the Bill—on the fact that it was Clause 2 which resolved the matter. But for the reasons that I have tried to give about anticipation, quite apart from inventive merit under Clause 3, I believe that Clause 2 does not resolve the problem at all, the problem which has been created by publication in a trade newspaper.
I believe that some provision has to reproduce Section 52 of the 1949 Act. That section allows someone, once a patent application has been filed, to start to exploit the invention in one way or another, to publish articles or an account of the invention. Any modifications or improvements of the invention will be protected by a later specification, provided that the later specification is filed within one year of the original application. The case which I sought to make last time, and which I am seeking to make again, is that in effect this Amendment rewrites Section 52 of the 1949 Act into this Bill. In addition, it will comply with Article 4 of the Paris Convention, which provides that any patent application in any of the countries of the union set up by the Paris Convention has one year after filing during which the inventor may file corresponding applications in other countries of the union and may obtain priority from the first filing.
With respect to the case which the Government have put to me before, I remain unconvinced that there is any provision in this Bill which gives the same protection as Section 52 of the 1949 Act and Article 4(b) of the Paris Convention. In fairness to inventors, and in the national interest, to prevent delay in the exploitation of inventions I believe that this Amendment, or a similar provision, is necessary and should be written into the Bill. I beg to move.
5.11 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for
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raising this matter again which, as he indicated, was dealt with fairly fully in Committee. I recall that I agreed on that occasion to give it further thought. What is basically troubling the noble Lord is the absence in the Bill of any provision corresponding to Section 52 of the 1949 Act, which protects an application for a patent from defeat by reason of disclosure of any matter contained in a priority application upon which the first application is based, notwithstanding that the first application may disclose a "doveloped" invention. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, gave an example, which we have heard before, concerning the attaching of uppers to the soles of shoes. The invention was later found to be applicable to roller blinds and canvas hoods for cars. The noble Lord argued that Section 52, or something like it, was necessary in order to comply with our obligations under the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
Let me say at once that, having given thought to this as I promised to do, I cannot accept that view of tie matter. Our obligations under that Convention include the giving of a right of priority to the invention first disclosed in another country which is a party to the Convention, and not to any developments of that invention. Indeed, there is nothing in the European Patent Convention which corresponds to Section 52 of the 1949 Act, and I venture to suggest that few would argue that the European Patent Convention is contrary to the international Convention. I do not for a moment underestimate the importance attached by the noble Lord to this point but, as I said during Committee stage, it is essential that we should not depart from the European Patent Convention in this respect. I am afraid, therefore, that after further consideration I must again resist the arguments put forward by the noble Lord.
If the Amendment were to be accepted, the result would be that in some circumstances an invention might be patentable under the Bill but not under the European Patent Convention, and thus we should be introducing a duality of standards in patentability. I hope your Lordships would agree that such a thing would be undesirable.
Finally, may I say that I do not think the picture is quite as black as the noble

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Lord has painted it. If I may take the example that he gave, any disclosure or publication of the means for attaching uppers to the soles of shoes between the priority date and the date of filing the United Kingdom application for the shoe, the roller blind and car hood, can only defeat the invention so far as it relates to roller blinds and car hoods if that invention is obvious; that is, if it lacks inventive step in relation to the invention relating to the shoe. That is because, so far as novelty is concerned, the Amendment we made earlier to Clause 2(3) precludes consideration of disclosures in the application in suit. Moreover, the disclosure, so far as obviousness is concerned, must be a disclosure otherwise than through publication of the application under the Bill, because Clause 3, which governs obviousness or inventive step, excludes from consideration any matter in the state of the art by virtue of Clause 2(3).
Therefore, all we are concerned with is the case where an invention is disclosed by the inventor before he has made an application either for that invention or for an invention which is obvious in the light of that disclosure. I am bound to say that we find nothing exceptional about that. Indeed, to do otherwise would, I am advised, flout the whole basis of patentability. It is for those reasons, despite the cogency of the arguments we have listened to in Committee and again today, and having taking further advice on this matter, that I cannot recommend your Lordships to accept this Amendment.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I have very great difficulty again—it is entirely my fault—in understanding the position now raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oram. He says that the attitude of the Government on this issue conflicts with the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which is known as the Paris Convention which has existed since about 1882. May I ask him, therefore, whether he has consulted the officers of that International Convention regarding this matter? The noble Lord has said that this aspect now put forward by the Government conforms with the European Patent Convention. Of course, that Con-
64
vention did not have the advantage of being discussed by a tribunal and it was not subject to Parliamentary discussion. The European Patent Convention, as I understand it, arose from some notion of the Council of Europe. It has been discussed by Government Departments but has not had the advantage of Parliamentary debate in any country.
Then the noble Lord also said that if this Amendment were pursued it would result in a duality of standards in patentability. Again, I find it very difficult to understand that position. The Amendment has been discussed very fully. It has had the support, as I understand it, of British industry and of British patent agents; and yet the noble Lord and the Government prefer the terms of the European Convention in their entirety, to the exclusion of the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. I wonder whether the Government would consider this matter once again, because this Amendment has had very considerable support in the patent agents' profession.
5.20 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for speaking as he has done on this Amendment, particularly from the point of view of the Paris Convention. I am also grateful to the noble Lord for saying that it is an important Amendment. Coming from him, I am comforted that I have put it down again. It is the law at the moment, under Section 52 of the 1949 Act, that an inventor, after making a patent application, shall be allowed to publish an account of it or to exploit it without prejudicing his rights, thereafter, even if the inventor expands his invention before making a final application, provided that this is done within one year and also provided that additional matter is not added. It is to protect that position that this Amendment has been put down. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for dealing with considerable care with what I said and in a moment I will come to an apology which I feel I ought to make.
First, with regard to the Paris Convention, I readily admit that the effect of this Amendment is not contained in the European Patent Convention. But I

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shall be surprised if the Government are saying to the House today that the European Patent Convention, and indeed the Community Patent Convention, intend to abrogate the Paris Convention. I think that that would be a very remarkable assertion, and one which I have not heard made either when this Bill was in Committee or during the time that it has been on Report before your Lordships' House. I should have thought that the provisions of the Paris Convention were not abrogated by the European Patent Convention, and, because the European Patent Convention happens to be silent on this subject, I should not have thought that that was a reason for assuming that there will therefore be a duality of standards if this Amendment is agreed to. Rather I should have thought that, perhaps, silence on behalf of the European Patent Convention meant consent with what it is that the Paris Convention provides.
If I may now come to my apology, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, directed our attention to Clause 2(3) and I must honestly admit that I found it difficult to follow what he was saying. Therefore, I should like to reply to him in the form of a question. As I see it, Clause 2(2) provides that the state of the art shall be taken to comprise all matter which has, at any time before the priority date of that invention, been made available to the public by written or oral description, by use or in any other way. That is the effect of Clause 2(2). In the case of this inventor, would I be right in thinking that his second application for shoes, roller blinds and car hoods has been anticipated because of Clause 2(2), by the disclosure of the invention as it refers to shoes in the Shoemakers' Gazette? Would I also be right in thinking that if the invention had begun to be used by the inventor as it applies to shoes before he put in his broader, second application, the broader second application would have been doubly anticipated? It is those two dangers which Section 52 of the 1949 Act and Article 4(b) of the Paris Convention protect the invention from—in my view, very desirably. It is for that reason, above all else, that I feel that something needs to be done about this Amendment.
If the noble Lord, with advice, can tell me that I have got the meaning of Clause 2(2) wrong in the light of further
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Amendments which have been put down on Report, then of course I will withdraw this Amendment, but ask leave t o have the right to be able to reproduce either it or something like it on Third Reading. But if I am correct in the two questions which I have asked then, without wishing in any way, personally, to belabour the Government, I should like to put this Amendment to a Division.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, if I may speak again with the leave of the House, and reply first to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, if I may say so he got my first point wrong when he suggested that I was arguing that this Bill, as it stands, is in conflict with the Paris Convention. I meant to say just the opposite, that it does not conflict with the Paris Convention. He asked whether we had consulted with the officers of the Paris Convention. The answer is: No, this was not done for the reason that we felt that we were not doing anything which was in conflict with the Paris Convention. With regard to the European Patent Convention, it is a major purpose of what we are now considering to bring our legislation into line with the European legislation. I accept what the noble Lord said about that not having had the due process of discussion in Parliament, but I think that we have had ample opportunity in dealing with this Bill to discuss just how it does, or does not, relate to the European Patent Convention.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, I think he will acknowledge that some of the questions that he asked were particularly difficult to answer off-the-cuff. But in relation to his interpretation of Clause 2(2), I understand that the answer is: No; his invention would not have been anticipated, because he had not disclosed it before the priority date. I hope that that helps the noble Lord. I recognise that that is only in outline, but I hope that he feels it is to some extant satisfactory—sufficiently for him not to pursue the course that he mentioned of putting this to a Division. If he is not fully satisfied, I undertake to write to him in time for him to take up the matter again on Third Reading, and these matters can certainly be discussed further for clarification in another place, if need be. I hope that, with that undertaking, the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Amendment.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, may I have your Lordships' leave to speak once more? I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. He said, in essence, that under Clause 2(2) the second, broader, generic application would not have been anticipated, because it had not been disclosed before the priority date. I do not think it is reasonable for me to ask the noble Lord where that is written into the Bill, because I think he has been taking advice fairly quickly, as have I. That is the obvious question which I should like to ask, and that is the question which I ask the noble Lord to communicate about to me in writing. On those grounds, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment, but give notice that if the noble Lord cannot satisfy me on this point I shall put this Amendment down again on Third Reading, with a view to taking it to a Division.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 72 [Proceedings in which validity of patent may be put in issue]:
5.29 p.m.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 115:
Page 63, line 9, at the beginning insert ("Subject to the following provisions of this section,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this Amendment on the last occasion, when dealing with Amendment No. 104A. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 116:
Page 63, line 11, leave out ("58") and insert("59").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment merely corrects an error in the sectional reference contained in subsection (1)(a). My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 117A:
Page 63, line 27, at end insert—
("(3A) The validity of a patent may not be put in issue on the ground mentioned in section 70(1)(b) above in proceedings commenced after the end of the period of two years beginning with the date of the grant of a patent unless it is shown that any person registered as a proprietor of the patent knew at
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the time of the grant or of the transfer of the patent to him that he was not entitled to the patent.
(3B) Where proceedings with respect to a patent are pending in the court under any provision of this Act mentioned in subsection (1) above, no proceedings may be instituted without the leave of the court before the comptroller with respect to that patent under section 59(2A), 67, 69 or 70 above.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is another of the Amendments which I dealt with collectively when I moved Amendment No. 104A. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 73 [Amendment of patent in infringement or revocation proceedings]:
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 118:
Page 64, line 1, leave out ("determine") and insert ("consider the opposition in deciding").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment which seeks to make it plain that where a person gives notice of opposition to a proposed Amendment under Clause 73 the court or comptroller is obliged to consider the opposition in deciding whether to allow the proposed Amendment, or any Amendment to the specification of the patent. On the present draft, it is not clear that this has to be done. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 74 [Amendments of applications and patents not to include added matter]:
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendments Nos. 119 to 125:
Page 64, line 10, at beginning insert—
(".—(1) An application for a patent (the later application) shall not be allowed to be filed under section 7(3), (Determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents, etc.), 13(4) or 35(4) above in respect of any matter disclosed in an earlier application or the specification of a patent which has been granted if the later application discloses matter which extends beyond that disclosed in the earlier application, as filed, or the application for the patent, as filed")
Page 64, line 12, leave out ("section") and insert ("subsection")
Page 64, line 13, leave out from ("disclosing") to ("or") in line 15 and insert ("any such matter")
Page 64, line 18, leave out subsection (2).
Page 64, line 29, leave out ("This section") and insert ("Subsection (2) above")
Page 64, line 30, leave out ("7(3), 13 (4)")
Page 64, leave out ("35(4)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 119 to 125 en bloc. Amendment No. 119 introduces a new subsection which fills a gap in the Bill by making it clear that, in the case of a new application filed under the clauses referred to, that application must not disclose any matter which extends beyond that disclosed in the earlier application from which it is derived. As at present drafted, the Bill quite correctly prevents any amendments being made to such applications which add matter, but does not prevent matter being added on filing. The new subsection makes it unnecessary to refer specifically to a "relevant application" in subsection (1), which deals solely with amendments. This in turn makes subsection (2) unnecessary. Amendments Nos. 119 and 122 effect these changes. The remainder are purely consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
5.34 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 126:
Before Clause 75, insert the following new clause:
Filing of European patent application.
. A European patent application may be filed at the Patent Office.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this proposed Amendment is a British overture to the European symphony to be found n Part II of the Bill, which deals with the provisions about international conventions, including European patents. The purpose of the Amendment is to make it clear that applications for a European patent can be made in the United Kingdom Patent Office and that it is not necessary for practitioners all over the world to file their original patent application in Germany, where the European Patent Office is located, or in any other country. The filing of patent applications throughout the world is becoming increasingly a competitive business. The filing of European patent applications will become a new art and an extensive business. It has been much publicised that the European Patent Office is now in Munich. This office will receive applications for European patents in 1978.
National patent offices, such as the United Kingdom Patent Office, will continue to deal with applications for national
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patents. Indeed, Part I of the Bill, which is headed "New Domestic Law", states in Clause 2 that every application for a United Kingdom patent shall be made at the United Kingdom Patent Office. It is not, however, made abundantly clear that the United Kingdom Patent Office can receive applications for European patents. It seems to me that it is in the interests of the United Kingdom that this should be made clear, not only in this country but abroad.
Various clauses in Part II of the Bill dealing with European patent matters refer to "a European patent (U K)" and to "the European Patent Office". It is stated in Clause 82(1) that patent agents must have their names on a list maintained by the European Patent Office in pursuance of the European Patent Convention. There are other clauses in Part II of the Bill, which I shall only mention but will not read, that seem to direct practitioners in the patents field all over the world to patent offices other than the United Kingdom Patent Office. This direction is to be found in Clause 76(3)(e) and in Clause 79(3)(c) at page 70. Clause 122, for instance, states that "European patent (UK)" means a "patent designating the United Kingdom". It does not follow from this definition that a European application for a patent can be filed at the European Patent Office. Therefore I submit that while there is no clear statement in Part II of the Bill that all application for a European patent can be filed in the United Kingdom Patent Office, there is a clear mandatory statement that domestic United Kingdom applications shall be filed in the United Kingdom Patent Office.
I raised the matter at the Committee stage. At col. 1535, on 15th March 1977, the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, was good enough to say that he had a great deal of sympathy with what I had said and with the way in which I had said it. He concluded by saying that he did not think that I should regard the position at that stage as neceisarily the end of the story. Therefore, encouraged by the remarks made by the noble and learned Lord, that my observations in Committee were not quite the end of the story, I hope he does not think that I am making too heavy weather about this Amendment. I beg to move.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, although the names of my noble friends and myself are not added to this Amendment, we should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has said in moving it.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for his support.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Lord McCluskey): My Lords, if I may reply to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, he spoke of this Amendment as being the overture to a European symphony. I am not sure whether it deserves quite that description, elegant though it was. It is certainly a song that we have heard before but I am afraid that my reply must be slightly more waspish than it was last time.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I hope that it will be tuneful!
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, I have some sympathy with the noble Lord's concern. Indeed, I said so before. His concern is to ensure and publicise the fact that European patent applications must be received by the Patent Office. What I assert is that the matter is abundantly clear, although I accept that it is not abundantly clear in the wording of the Statute. However, one has to think of the constitutional purpose of a Statute. Its purpose is not to give glimpses of the obvious but merely to enact the law. The constitutional position is that if it is unnecessary to put this Amendment into the Statute, then one should not put it in.
I repeat that I believe there is no doubt whatsoever that the Patent Office has authority to receive such applications without any statutory provision. The real question is whether, this being the position, it is as plain as two and two making four that one needs to put this authority specifically into the Bill. There is the constitutional or legislative objection to which I referred last time: that if one specifically gives statutory authority to a Government Department to do a certain thing when it does not need such statutory authority, it throws doubt, or may throw doubt, upon the authority of other Government Departments to
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act in certain ways in which they already act without having express statutory authority.
Having given further consideration to the matter, I am persuaded that this Amendment is undesirable for the reasons which I have given and that the Amendment would create an unfortunate precedent, albeit, as the noble Lord pointed out during Committee, that this is a somewhat new field. However, that does not alter the principle of the objection which I have outlined. The noble Lord today referred in error to Clause 2; I think he meant Clause 12, the equivalent of Clause 11, which he mentioned at the Committee stage. Clause 12 is concerned only with the filing of applications for patents under the Bill, and although an application for a European patent which designates the United Kingdom is treated for certain purposes under Clause 76 as such an application once it has a date of filing, it is not so treated for the purposes of Clause 12(1). So to answer the question that was asked at that time, Clause 12 does not provide the statutory authority desired by the noble Lord. As I have said, one does not need statutory authority for it.
Clause 12 applications must be made in a prescribed form and filed in a prescribed manner for processing by the Patent Office. That is something more than the exercise of administrative authority, which is all that is required so far as the reception of European applications is concerned. The objection which I have made to the noble Lord's Amendment therefore does not arise in connection with Clause 12. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot be as accommodating as I hoped at the Committee stage I might have been, but we take the view that the legislative principle is important and should be preserved. For that reason, I hope the noble Lord will feel that the airing he has given to the matter, both in Committee and today, and the plain assertions that I have been able to make about the authority of the Patent Office to receive these applications, will be sufficient to bring to the attention of all practitioners what the position in law is and that he will feel able to withdraw this Amendment.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am again grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his exposition of

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the constitutional problems which this apparently simple Amendment raised. I have no option in this House but to accept the advice given by the noble and learned Lord. No doubt it is a Government decision, but it may be a decision of the Government made at a considerable loss to the invisible revenues of this country. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 75 [Effect of European patent (UK)]:
5.42 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 127A:
Page 65, line 20, at end insert—
("(2A) Sections 56(3A) to (3C) and 61 above shall apply to the case where, after proceedings for the infringement of a European patent have been commenced before the court or the comptroller but have not been finally disposed of, it is established in proceedings before the European Patent Office that the patent is only partially valid as those provisions apply to proceedings in which the validity of a patent is put in issue and in which it is found that the patent is only partially valid.")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a small but, I hope, a useful Amendment. Under Clause 61 of the Bill, as amended, and the corresponding subsections which we have recently added to Clause 56, by Amendment No. 74, relief may be given in respect of an infringement even if a patent is partially invalid, provided certain conditions are met. The principal condition is that the specification of the patent must have been framed with reasonable skill and knowledge. The court is given a discretion as to costs or expenses and as to the date from which damages should be reckoned. The provisions are derived from Section 62 of the 1949 Act. Banks reported that that section was a,
"useful provision for shortening the proceedings and granting an injunction or backdated damages and costs on a fair basis having regard to all the circumstances of the case",
but that some of the possible functions of the section were now covered by Sections 30(1) and 59(3), replaced in the Bill by Clauses 25, 74 and 60(3).
By one of those oddities that sometimes occur, things have moved full circle and the very circumstances that Section 62 was first introduced to meet in 1932;
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namely, the difficulties of there being separate proceedings for amendment and infringement, have now re-arisen in the European field. It may happen that infringement proceedings are taking place here in relation to a European patent at the same time as opposition proceedings under Part V of the EPC. If in the course of those proceedings the patent is upheld in part then the Amendment would give the court a discretion as to damages et cetera. Thus the proprietor of the patent would not have to start a new action and the infringer would only have to pay damages on a fair basis having regard to all the circumstances of the case. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 80 [Jurisdiction to determine questions as to right to a patent]:
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendments Nos. 128, 129 and 130 en bloc:
Page 70, line 36, leave out ("7") and insert ("(Determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents, etc.)")
Page 72, line 1, leave out ("7") and insert ("(Determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents, etc.)")
Page 72, line 16, leave out ("7") and insert ("(Determination of questions about entitlement to foreign and convention patents, etc.)").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 128, 129 and 130 together as they have the same effect and are consequential upon the addition of the new use after Clause 10, for the sole purpose of being able to refer to the correct clause. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 82 [Patent agents and other representatives]:
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 131:
Page 73, line 1, leave out ("person") and insert ("individual").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords with the leave of the House, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 131, 133, 135, 136 and 137 at the same time. These Amendments are designed to meet a point on which the Government have received representations. Although Article 134 of the EPC does not allow

75
professional representation to be undertaken before the European Patents Office by anyone other than "natural persons", it would be wrong to prevent a group of patent agents who have formed themselves into a company from holding themselves out under the company name as carrying on European business. These Amendments, of which the principal one is No. 135 (the third Amendment) are designed to achieve that result. They do not have, and are not intended to have the effect of allowing such companies to be entered on the European list. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 132:
Page 73, line 5, after ("patents") insert ("or for the purpose of conducting proceedings in connection with such patents before the European Patent Office or the comptroller").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I should like to move Amendment No. 132 and at the same time to mention Amendment No. 160 which I hope to move formally when we reach it. That Amendment applies to Clause 122. This pair of Amendments, the first of which, No. 132, is concerned with European business and the second with business before the comptroller, extend the range of things which an unqualified person is forbidden to do. The definition of "patent agent" in the Bill as drafted is taken from the 1949 Act (Section 101(1)) and the wording of Clause 82 follows that definition. The provisions refer only to "applying for or obtaining patents" and are silent about other possible proceedings. It is thought right to provide that unqualified persons should also be prohibited from carrying on for gain the business of acting as agent for other persons for the full range of proceedings, for example, opposition, revocation and applications for compulsory licences. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 133:
Page 73, leave out lines 8 and 9 and insert ("the European list").
The noble and learned Lord said: I have already spoken to this Amendment, my Lords. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 133A:
Page 73, line 11, leave out from ("from") to end of line 16 and insert ("conducting or otherwise taking part in any proceedings in connection with European patents before the European Patent Office or the comptroller to the same extent as he is entitled to take part in the corresponding proceedings in connection with patents under this Act before the Patent Office or the comptroller").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 133A replaces Amendment No. 134 in the second Marshalled List and is consequential upon Amendment No. 132. Since the list of things which are prohibited under subsection (1) has been extended, it follows that the exemptions in subsection (2) must also be extended. This exemption is justified by Article 143. paragraph 7, of the EPC which provides for legal petitioners to have the same right of representation before the European Patent Office as they have in their own States. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendments Nos. 135 to 137:
Page 73, line 16, at end insert—
("(2A) A body corporate shall not for gain act or describe itself or hold itself out as entitled to act as agent or other representative of other persons for any purpose mentioned in subsection (1) above unless the name of every director or member of the body and, if it has a manager who is not a director or member, of that manager appears on the European list.")
Page 73, line 17, after ("(1)") insert ("or (2A)")
Page 73, line 28, at end insert—
("(6) In this section the European list "means the list of professional representatives maintained by the European Patent Office in pursuance of the European Patent Convention.")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I spoke to this Amendment with Nos. 131 and 133. With the leave of the House, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 135 to 137 en bloc.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 84 [Decisions on Community Patent Convention]:
Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendments Nos. 138 to 141:
Page 74, line 21, leave out from ("instrument") to ("shall") in line 23 and insert ("made under or in implementation of that convention by any relevant convention institution")
Page 74, line 28, after ("section") insert (""relevant convention institution" means any institution established by or having functions under the Community Patent Convention, not being an institution of the United Kingdom or any other member state, and")
Page 74, line 29, leave out ("the Community Patent Convention") and insert ("that convention")
Page 74, line 31, after ("being") insert ("—

(a) the European Patent Office or one of its departments; or

(b)")

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, these Amendments are designed to meet a point raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, on Amendment No. 317. Noble Lords opposite put down an Amendment in Committee (No. 317) along the lines of what is now Amendment No. 141, and my reaction was that the Government certainly did not intend all European Patent Office opinions to be binding, but that the Community Patent Convention required some opinions on the validity of patents to be binding on our courts. The difficulty arose because the words "instruments issued" in line 21 of page 74 would have included a patent. The first of these Amendments, No. 138, would substitute a reference to an "instrument made", but not a patent. Thus Amendment No. 138, the first of these four Amendments, makes possible Amendment No. 141, the fourth, which I am sure will please noble Lords opposite. The Community Patent Convention, as brought into our law by Clause 83, will now speak for itself so far as the binding or non-binding nature of European. Patent Office opinions on the validity of patents is concerned.
The Amendments make one other small change of substance. Institutions of Member States are now excluded from the definition of convention institutions. This change, which is effected by Amendment No. 139, makes it quite clear that if, for example, the comptroller issues a practice direction about something he is empowered to decide under the Community Patents Convention then that direction is not subject to Clause 84. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, has made some very kind references to these Benches with regard to Amendment No. 141. We are very grateful for the insertion of this Amendment. We hope, and indeed he will be able to tell us, that it meets our worry on the point we had in mind, and to that extent we are very grateful.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, I believe it does. I am grateful for that kind acknowledgment. This is the ninth day on which we have been engaged in what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, would, I am sure, describe as the fixing of stiff matter on to a very flexible backing.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 93 [The Patents Court]:
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 142:
Page 80, line 41, after ("scientfic") insert ("or other")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 93 is the opening clause of Part III of this Bill, entitled "Legal Proceedings". My Amendment is directed to saseetion(4) under which, as the Bill stands a. present,
"Rules of court shall make provision for the appointment of scientific advisers to assist the Patents Court in proceedings under this Act and for regulating the functions of such advisers."
In my submission, in the context of the present Bill, "scientific advisers" is too limited an expression, and my Amendment suggests that after "scientific" there should be inserted "or other" so that the Court can have other than scientific advisers.
My main reason for putting forward this Amendment is that there are sections of this Bill which necessitate the consideration of the commercial exploitation of patents, and it may be that the Patents Court would like to have the assistance of some businessman or of people associated with the commercial exploitation of patents. Again, under the sections dealing with the position of employee inventors, questions in relation to industrial relations in a company may arise, and it may be that the Court would be assisted by advisers like trace union officials or persons concerned with industrial relations. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, several times the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, urged upon your Lordships in Committee the desirability of introducing into proceedings persons of experience in the commercial exploitation of patents and in industrial relations, but he will have noted that on each occasion, with regret, your Lordships declined to accept his proposals. The result is that nowhere in the Bill is mention made of the appointment of any sort of advisers to assist the Patents Court, apart from the reference to scientific advisers in Clause 93(4). Of course, the Court will be assisted by witnesses on each side with commercial experience and industrial relations experience, and my view is that it would not be really very helpful to bring in any other kind of adviser than the scientific adviser. If that is so and is accepted, it would be illogical to require that rules of court should provide for their appointment. With the last part of the argument I am sure the noble Lord will agree. Therefore, I regret to say that I cannot accept the Amendment.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I deeply regret, of course, that I have failed once again to obtain the sympathy of the noble and learned Lord on this matter, but he knows as well as I do—if I may presume to put it in that way—that the Patents Court have been very reluctant in the past to invite the assistance of scientific advisers. No doubt many judges have spoken to him, as they have to me, to say that while they have witnesses who can deal with scientific matters perhaps it would merely complicate the matter to have these additional scientific advisers. In my view, the position under the Bill has completely changed in the way I have indicated, but, in view of the advice given by the noble and learned Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 94 [Appeals from the comptroller]:
5.58 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 142A:
Page 81, line 10, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, once again we find this Amendment following
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from the kind and indeed welcoming remarks made by the noble and learned Lord at Committee stage. In the course of his remarks he said he wondered how much confidence he had in his reply to the point I was putting forward, that an appeal should be allowed from a comptroller's decision, but especially when we were concerned with the date of filing in one of these applications that we call "divided out". I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord who is sitting on the Woolsack is still convinced that such a decision is entirely—I use his word—administrative. For my part, I would suggest that there is always the risk that with so much at stake an appeal should be allowed to the Court, as the decision is bound to concern itself with some aspects—again, with leave, I quote the words of the noble and learned Lord—of judicial discretion. Of course, that will be what lay members of your Lordships' House would call the law. This Amendment is seeking to probe further, to see whether the noble and learned Lord has, or indeed the Government have, anything to add to the answer and comments which we obtained at Committee. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am happy to say that in view of the strength of feeling expressed by the noble Lord, I can accept the Amendment in principle, particularly as the European Patent Convention itself gives a right of an appeal in cases where purely formal requirements are not met. If the noble Lord is prepared to accept my acceptance en principe, I shall be grateful if he will withdraw the Amendment.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I think that there is an element of double negative there. I am certainly pleased to accept the acceptance of the noble and learned Lord that there is merit in excluding paragraph (b) from subsection (1). If the noble and learned Lord will accept my contention en principe that we shall find some guarantee in the Bill, I shall be pleased and happy to beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.1 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 143.
Page 81, line 19, at end insert—
("(g) an award made in accordance with section 38 above").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should also like to speak to Amendments Nos. 144 and 145. Clause 94(1) deals with appeals from the comptroller and it cites a number of circumstances in which there shall not be an appeal to the Patents Court from the decision of the comptroller. Amendment No. 143 seeks to add another instance where no appeal should be available to either party, and that is where, in the case of a dispute between an employee and his employer an award is made in accordance with Clause 38 of the Bill as to the amount of compensation which should he paid to the employee. This matter has been dealt with in Committee at considerable length. I merely put forward the submission once again that finality as regards disputes between employees and employers is to he encouraged. This is an attempt to produce finality for such a dispute in the comptroller's court and there should be no appeal, subject, of course, to the usual appeals which are available to anyone where he considers that a court has gone wrong in law.
Amendment No. 144 in principle is concerned that an award made to an employee under Clause 38—that is, the employee-inventor position—should, again, be a final award. Although it is not consequential to Amendment No. 143, it raises the same kind of issue. Amendment No. 145 is also directed to limiting the scope of the appeal which can be conducted in the case of a dispute between an employee and an employer, not at the Comptroller-General stage but at the stage of the higher court. Therefore in effect, the three Amendments are trying to produce a finality at various stages from the comptroller's court through to the other courts. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for discussing these three Amendments. The first would add the awards identified there, made in accordance with Clause 38, to the list of decisions specified in Clause 94(1) in respect of which no appeal would lie to the Patents Court from the comptroller's decision. We do not consider that it would be right to accede to this
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Amendment. The complexity Df the issues involved and of the amounts at stake make it desirable that the comptroller's decision should be the subject of appeal to the Patents Court at the behest of any dissatisfied party to the proceedings before him.
Amendment No. 144 would prevent an appeal lying from the Patents Court to the Court of Appeal on any such award. Here again, and for the same reasons, the Government think that it would not be right to cut off he parties' rights of appeal in the way proposed. The third Amendment is really part and parcel of the idea contained in the second —it is a matter of drafting mechanics to give effect to that idea. I really have nothing more to add on it. I appreciate the noble Lord's desire to keep down the costs of litigation, but I fear that we must not do so at the expense of justice, and that might be the result of accer ting these Amendments.
Lord LLOYD of KILGEWZAN: My Lords, I thank the noble ar d learned Lord for his full consideration of my Amendments. I fear that I cannot totally agree with the last words of his interesting remarks, that he fears that my Amendments would not give rise to justice being done. In relation to the rights of employee-inventors, I think that V, e are now proceeding into a new field, and I believe that it is in the public interest for an employee and employer to have their disputes considered outside the ambit of the High Court wherever possible. As I have said before and as the High Court has frequently said, it is not the proper tribunal in which to discuss patent disputes. In my submission, those remarks apply far more cogent)/ to any disputes which may arise between an employee and an employer. When the noble and learned Lord addresses your Lordships' House in this way I have no alternative but to accept his advice. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.7 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 146.
Page 81, line 32, after ("38") insert ("59").
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment is consequential upon

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Amendment No. 82 to Clause 59, giving the comptroller an infringement jurisdiction. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 146A.
Page 81, line 41, at end insert—
("(5) An appeal shall not lie to the Inner House of the Court of Session from a decision of an Outer House judge on appeal from a decision of the comptroller under this Act or rules—

(a) except where the comptroller's decision was given under section 7, 16, 18, 25, 35, 38, 59, 70, 71 or 73 above; or

(b) except where the ground of appeal is that the decision of the Outer House judge is wrong in law.")

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Clause 94(3) sets out the cases in which, where there has been an appeal from a decision of the comptroller to the Patents Court, a further appeal lies from that court to the Court of Appeal. This Amendment introduces a new subsection (5) to Clause 94 which makes parallel provision for Scotland. Under the existing subsection (4) of that clause, where the comptroller hears a case in Scotland, an appeal from his decision may be made to the Court of Session. It will be heard by an Outer House judge of that court: that is to say, by a single judge of the court, and rules of court will, we understand, be made to make provision for this.
The new subsection provides that the cases in which a further appeal is to lie, that is, from the Outer House judge to the Inner House of the court—which consists of three or four judges sitting together—are the same as will lie in England and Wales from the Patents Court to the Court of Appeal. Thus, this Amendment makes parallel provision for Scotland to that which Clause 94(3) makes for England and Wales. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 99 [Right of audience in patent proceedings]:
6.10 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 147:
Page 82, line 34, leave out ("counsel") and insert ("any barrister").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 147, with the leave of the House I would wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 148 and 149. Clause 99 of the Bill concerns the right of audience in patent proceedings. I have been approached by the Bar Association for commerce, finance and industry that their members should also have the right of audience in the circumstances of Clause 99. The members of the Bar Association for commerce, finance and industry are members of the Bar but they are not practising members of the Bar. and they have been given audience in the past in certain patent proceedings. These men and women do a fine service, in most cases in business, and they are qualified as barristers. It would be helpful to the courts if they could also have the right of audience in this matter before the relevant patent courts. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am delighted to say that at last I am in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. It gives me particular pleasure at last to be able to say that, helpful as he has been throughout our deliberations. I agree with him that there is no reason in logic or in justice why a right of audience which is given to solicitors and to patent agents should not also be given to employed barristers. The Bar Council have no objection to this proposal, so long as it is clear that it is limited to appeals from the comptroller to the Patents Court and does not extend to proceedings in the Patents Court at first instance, which is not what the noble Lord is seeking.
I am fully in sympathy with the thought behind these Amendments. However, I have doubts about the drafting of the Amendments to Clause 99(3)—that is, Amendments Nos. 148 and 149—and I question the necessity for Amendment No. 147. Clause 99(1) gives a right of audience to counsel, solicitors, and patent agents, and in addition to "any other person" whom the party desires to represent him. "Any other person" is a phrase wide enough to include employed barristers, and I would accordingly suggest to the noble Lord that his wishes in that respect have already been met. As to Amendments Nos. 148 and 149, practising barristers have of course an automatic right of audience before the

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High Court. The noble Lord's Amendment, including, as it does, practising barristers, might be taken to imply that their right of audience is only by virtue of a statutory provision. Accordingly, if the noble Lord would be kind enough to withdraw these two Amendments, I undertake that at a later stage a Government Amendment will be put down to ensure that, when the Patents Court is hearing appeals from the comptroller, employed barristers do have a right of audience.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, in considering the wording of his Amendment might have regard to the fact that in Scotland those who pass in England under the name "barrister" use a different title.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am much obliged to have the advice of two noble and learned Lords on this matter. In those circumstances, I shall not detain the House any further. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 100 [Extension of privilege for communications with solicitors relating to patent proceedings]:
6.14 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amend-ment No. 149A:
Page 83, line 16, at end insert—
("(1A) In Scotland, the provisions of this section shall apply to the rules of law which confer privilege from disclosure in legal proceedings in respect of communications, reports or other documents (by whomsoever made) for the purpose of any pending or contemplated proceedings in a court in the United Kingdom as it applies to the rule of law referred to in subsection (1) above").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Clause 100(1) provides for an extension of the privilege from disclosure of certain communications with solicitors which parties at present enjoy in legal proceedings in England and Wales. The extension covers proceedings before the comptroller, and proceedings before the European Court of Justice and the European Patent Office under the Patent Conventions. Amendment No. 149A introduces a new subsection (1A) which provides for a similar extension in relation to the corresponding Scottish rules of law on the subject.
The Amendment which follows this Amendment, Amendment No. 149B, might be considered along with this Amendment. It simply leaves out subsection (3), which prevented the clause as printed from extending to Scotland. Now that the new subsection (1A) is to make appropriate parallel provision for Scotland, it follows that the old subsection (3) cannot also be retained. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord McCLUSKEY Lord McCLUSKEY moved Amendment No. 149B:
Page 83, leave out line 27.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 101 [Privilege for communications with patent agents relating to patent proceedings]:
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 149C:
Page 84, line 33, after ("to") irsert ("legal proceedings in").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the problem with which this Amendment seeks to deal is that there are parent agents in Scotland who practice before the British Patent Office and will be practising before the European Patent Office, and presum-ably their communications should have exactly the same right of privilege as have those of patent agents in England. It would appear that subsection ',6) means that Clause 101 does not extend to the Scottish courts. This is the meaning which this Amendment seeks to make clear. I hope noble Lords will agree that my brevity is exceeded only by my lucidity. I beg to move.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, it is of course the intention of the Government, as it is of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that patent agents should have the same privilege when dealing with Scottish matters as they have when dealing with matters elsewhere in the United Kingdom. However, the Amendments to Clause 100 which we have just considered are intended to have the same, and indeed perhaps a wider, effect than this proposed Amendment. In Scotland the rules on privilege. post litis motam, that is to say, after the raising of the action, apply to all professional men and not just to solicitors, and so the new subsection (1A) in Clause

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100, together with Amendment No. 149B which I have just moved, will confer privilege automatically on patent agents. The Civil Evidence Act 1968 does not apply in Scotland.
In connection with this Amendment, we have looked at the wording of subsection (6), and I should like to take this matter away, having looked at it again today and consulted the draftsmen about it. We think that it may be that the wording could be improved. I am not sure that it can be improved, but perhaps in the circumstances the noble Lord will not press his Amendment at this stage and we would hope that we can achieve our common object by Third Reading.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble and learned Lord. I am quite certain of one thing, and that is that the wording can be improved. Let us hope that we can find an Amendment about which we can all agree on Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 102 [Costs and expenses]:
6.18 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGER RAN moved Amendment No. 150:
Page 84, line 35, after ("party") insert ("save to an employer in proceedings relating to an application under section 38 above").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 102(1) says that,
"the comptroller may, in any proceedings before him under this Act, by order award to any party such costs or, in Scotland, such expenses as he may consider reasonable and direct how and by what parties they are to be paid."
My Amendment is to limit his powers of awarding costs in a dispute between an employee and an employer as to the amount of compensation which should be paid by the employer to the employee, or an ex-employee, who has made a valuable invention which it is agreed has been of benefit to a company. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that it is not possible for a case to come before the Comptroller-General unless there is satisfaction that the invention has been of benefit to the company. The object of my Amendment is to prevent the em-
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ployer getting any costs in such proceedings; that is, to prevent the comptroller from awarding any costs in such proceedings. I shall be told that that would be very unjust to the employer, that one may have a difficult employee and so on and that costs awarded against an employee, or for an employer, would act as some sort of deterrent.
It has been the experience of industry that costs in legal disputes can act as a serious deterrent to securing justice for an employee, not only for an employee but for a man who cannot afford to instruct solicitors and brief lawyers for the High Court or, as in this case, the comptroller's courts. It will no doubt be said in reply that costs incurred before the comptroller's court will not be large, but that is not to appreciate the circumstances of the cases that will come before that court; thousands of pounds in costs may be involved in such cases.
What cost will the comptroller consider reasonable to award if, because of the complexity of the matter in dispute involving the employee and employer, the employer has, perhaps reasonably, incurred thousands of pounds of expense by way of costs? While it will be said that costs before the comptroller will be low, we are here dealing with an entirely new matter in relation to disputes between employer and employee. And will there not be gross injustice to the employee in terms of industrial relations if he has made an invention which it is agreed is of benefit to the company yet he is prevented from seeking justice because he does not know the magnitude of the costs that will be awarded against him?
Assurances that the costs in the comptroller's court will be low will not carry much weight in a new jurisdiction of this kind. I should have thought that it would be good industrial relations for the Government to include an explicit statement in the Bill to the effect that no costs should be awarded to an employer which an employee must pay in the circumstances of a dispute arising between an employee and employer which is heard before the comptroller's court.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, on more than one occasion the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has shown a praiseworthy concern to keep

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down the costs of proceedings under the Bill. In Committee he moved an Amendment to this clause which would have prevented the comptroller awarding costs to either party to proceedings under what are now Clauses 37 to 41. In reply, I referred to the fact that the costs would be at the discretion of the comptroller. That is a discretion which comptrollers will have had great experience in exercising. I said that there might be cases where it would be perfectly proper for him to order that an employee's costs be paid by the employer. Lord Lloyd has taken that point on board, but he still proposes that no costs should be awarded in favour of an employer in the event of his succeeding.
Whereas ideologically I might be tempted to support that point of view, one has to face the fact that there may well be cases where it would be right that an employer should be awarded costs, and an arbitrary ban on their award of the kind proposed could well cause injustice. The costs that are awardable by the comptroller will, I think, be moderate. They will be at the discretion of the comptroller and I venture to suggest that the combination of those two circumstances might encourage Lord Lloyd to accept my reluctance to adopt his Amendment.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that explanation. He spoke about moderate costs. May I ask him what moderate costs are and what experience the comptroller will have had of dealing with disputes between employees and employers? After all, this is a new jurisdiction. I have congratulated the Government before on introducing provisions which give rights to employees for inventions which have benefited the company. It seems wrong therefore that an employee might be faced with large costs awarded against him because they are considered to be reasonable, costs which the employer might have felt it desirable to incur by calling expert witnesses and experienced lawyers to protect his position.
I fear that this may cause grave injustice. As the noble and learned Lord referred to moderate costs, I hope the Government will reconsider the matter and try to define "moderate costs" in
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the Bill. Might it be said that no costs above, say, £100 should be awarded to an employer in the circumstances of a dispute of this kind?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, perhaps I might mention one factual matter which may, at any rate to some extent, reassure the noble Lord. The costs at present awarded by the comptroller rarely exceed about £200 and I have no reason to fear that there would be any dimensions higher than that, but obviously I cannot give an absolute guarantee to that effect. That is the kind of domain about which we are speaking, and, as I say, at the end of the day the discretion is that of the comptroller. If we were faced with a situation of an employer engaging expensive Queen's Counsel with the distinction, for example, of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and experts of similar distinction and perhaps even expense, than I think he might well take on board the fact that the discretion ought to be exercised in favour of the employee.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his gracious approach to the matter, which could be important in that, without being committed by defi ling what moderate costs are, he has given a figure and therefore any employee reading Hansard, as so many employees do, will be able to say, "It will not cost me more than about £200 if I press this dispute with my employer".
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I really do not want to go on record as binding myself on that, but I take the point the noble Lord has made.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 107 [Restrictions on practice as patent agent]:
6. 29 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 151 to 153:
Page 87, line 5, leave out ("company") and insert ("body corporate").
Page 87, line 8, after ("company") insert ("within the meaning of the Companies Act 1948").
Page 87, line 17, leave out from ("director") to end of line 18 and insert ("or member of the body and, if it has a manager who is not a director or member,").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Clause 107 of the Bill as drafted, which re-enacts with minor changes Section 88 of the 1949 Act, refers simple to a "company". Curiously enough, this is a term which does not as such have an exact legal meaning. It has therefore been decided to widen the prohibition to include all bodies corporate, a term which includes Companies Act companies and any other body having legal personality—for example, a foreign company without a place of business here. We believe that these Amendments will help to prevent poaching of United Kingdom business by outsiders. The principal Amendment is Amendment No. 151 and the remaining Amendments are consequential upon it. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 110 [Correction of errors in patents and applications]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 154:
Page 89, line 5, after ("with") insert ("a patent or").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment extends the power to correct errors so as to enable such corrections to be made in any document filed in connection with a patent. This fills a gap which was inadvertently left in Clause 110 and conforms to the existing law. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 154A:
Page 89, line 6, at end insert—
("( ) No correction of a mistake in any specification of a patent (other than an error of translation or transcription or a clerical error) shall be allowed if it extends the protection conferred by the patent unless both the mistake and the manner of correcting it are obvious.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I speak also to Amendment No. 154B so that we can make reasonable progress
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with these two Amendments. I spoke to this matter at Committee stage on, I believe, Amendment No. 346. There, we were pleased to see that the noble and learned Lord believed that he would be able to reconsider what he had said and to consider our views on this matter of correcting mistakes and errors. So far as we can understand, there has not been any change in the Government's thinking nor has any Amendment been put down which would substitute for our Amendment. We hope that the Amendment that we are again putting forward will give the right balance to the clause.
It will be seen that the Amendment should apply only to the amendment of specifications after the grant of a patent, and we also hope that it will prevent third parties from being completely surprised by the amendment of a mistake in every case where the patentee is seeking to do more than correct an error which is, as we would put it, obvious. The Amendment to subsection (2) is, we hope, merely consequential upon the larger Amendment already made to subsection (1). I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I appreciate that this Amendment is intended to parallel European Patent Convention Rule 88 and to make it clear that no error or mistake may be corrected unless it is obvious that an error or mistake has been made. We intend to make a rule corresponding to EPC Rule 88 but we do not wish this provision to be included in the Bill. The reason for that is that rules can be changed much more readily than can Conventions or Acts of Parliament. Should it occur that EPC Rule 88 is changed, we may wish to change our corresponding provision in a like manner and it would be unfortunate if we were precluded from so doing because the corresponding provision was in an Act of Parliament. There is no difference in intention between myself and the noble Lord on this point. It is merely a question of preserving flexibility in the matter.
Amendment No. 154B brings the wording of subsection (2) into conformity with that of subsection (1) and makes subsection (2) bite on correction of mistakes as well as on correction of errors. This was always our intention. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for drawing

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attention to this defect and I am happy to accept the Amendment. However, I hope that, in the light of what I have said, Amendment No. 154A will not be pressed.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, we are grateful for the acceptance of Amendment No. 154B. We also take note of and accept the assurance of the noble and learned Lord that rules will be written to implement what we had in mind to provide for in Amendment No. 154A. We are all pleased to accept what the noble and learned Lord has said about flexibility and his suggestion that rules may be more easily changed than Acts of Parliament. However, I hope that, when these rules are drawn up and are used by practitioners, patent agents and patentees, the matter will be as clear as is intended. I see motions of assent from the noble and learned Lord and, that being so, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 154B:
Page 89, line 7, at end insert ("or mistake,").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 116 [Rules]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 154C:
Page 91, line 2, after ("Act") insert (",except so far as the context otherwise requires, "prescribed" means prescribed by rules and").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, with this Amendment, it may be convenient also to consider Amendment No. 156A. These are drafting Amendments and make no difference of substance to the Bill. I believe that they were inspired by a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, in Committee. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.38 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 155:
Page 91, line 16, at end insert ("and providing for the remission of fees in the prescribed circumstances").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was spoken to
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by my noble friend Lord Oram when he moved Amendment No. 19. I beg formally to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 156:
Page 91, line 20, at end insert ("anc to appoint advisers to assist in proceedings under sections 38 and 59 and for regulating the functions of such advisers;").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on an earlier clause—Clause 93—your Lordships heard that the rules of court could make provision for the appoirtment of scientific advisers to assist the Patents Court. There is no indication:hat such a rule will be available to help the Comptroller-General. Clause 116 gives power to the Secretary of State to make rules,
"for regulating all matters placed by this Act under the direction or control of the comptroller".
I am suggesting therefore that there should be a small but helpful Amendment giving powers to the Secretary of State in the rules to appoint advisers to assist the Comptroller-General in prcceedings under Clause 38—that is, the chause that deals with disputes between an employee and an employer—and under Clause 59, a new part of which was introduced by the Government at Report stage and which gives power to the Comptroller- General to deal with infringement actions. It will also regulate the functions of such advisers as the Comptroller. General desires to assist him. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has nobly pressed the need for advisers, and I think that in the context about which we are now speakir g there is virtue in providing a rule-making power so that if it is shown to be necessary in the future it would be possible for the comptroller to appoint advisers to assist him. However, we are considering the practical consequences of that suggestion, and if we feel able to accept the proposal we would think it preferable not to identify particular clauses in the Bill, since at this stage it is a little early to identify the matters about which the comptroller might find it desirable to have the help of outside advisers. We will examine the question of whether the practical difficulries of having advisers can be overcome, and,

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if they can, we will move an Amendment at a later stage. Therefore, although this is not an absolute commitment, I hope in this case to be able to meet the intentions of the noble Lord.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his sympathetic approach to this matter, and in the circumstance of his assurance that the matter will be reconsidered, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.42 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 156A:
Page 92, line 1, leave out paragraph (k).
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this Amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 118 [Extent of invention]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 157:
Page 92, line 34, at end insert—
("(2) It is hereby declared for the avoidance of doubt that where more than one invention is specified in any such claim. each invention may have a different priority date under section 5 above.
(3) The Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 of the European Patent Convention (which Article contains a provision corresponding to subsection (1) above) shall, as for the time being in force, apply for the purposes of subsection (1) above as it applies for the purposes of that Article.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment introduces into Clause 118 two new subsections, both of which will, I hope, be to the liking of the noble Lords who have spoken to this matter, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Lyell and Lord Belstead, since they moved Amendments to the same effect in Committee. The new subsection (2) will put it beyond doubt that where the claims of a patent or application relate to more than one invention, the various inventions may have different priority dates. This is provided for in Article 88 of the European Patent Convention and it was always our intention to give effect to this provision. Indeed, we thought
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that we had already given effect to it, and the new subsection will put this beyond a peradventure—to use the language of the lawyers.
Subsection (3) inserts a specific reference to the Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 of the European Patent Convention. Your Lordships may remember that when a similar Amendment was moved in Committee I resisted it, not because I was opposed to the policy, but because it seemed to me to be superfluous. Of course it is important that the extent of the protection conferred by a domestic patent should be interpreted in the same way as the extent of protection conferred by a European patent, and for the latter purpose both Article 69 and the Protocol on its Interpretation are relevant.
However, Clause 122(6) states that Clause 118 is framed so
"as to have, as nearly as practicable, the same effects in the United Kingdom as the corresponding provisions of the European Patent Convention…"
As I have already said, the corresponding provision is Article 69, and the Protocol governs its interpretation. There can be no doubt that the Protocol is an integral part of the Convention because Article 164 of the Convention says so. Therefore Clause 122(6) makes Clause 118 have the same interpretation as Article 69 does when interpreted in the light of the Protocol.
Speaking for myself, I have always found this matter to be as plain as a pikestaff. Therefore, I was rather surprised during the Easter Recess to read a letter in The Times which accused me of circular argument on this point. The letter, while justly praising the "expert and velvet touch" of the noble Lords, Lord Belstead and Lord Lyell—no doubt in contrast to my hamfistedness—gave the impression that they had been battling to extract concessions from an uncooperative Government. Of course, there were difficulties in this highly technical Bill, as is inevitable, but it is a pity that the correspondent was not here at the earlier deliberations from which he would have seen that almost all has been sweetness and honey in the course of our discussions here. However, there it is, and so in order to comfort all those who have had anxiety, I shall put the matter beyond a peradventure by moving the Amend-

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ment, and I hope that all will now rest in peace on this particular issue. I beg move.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble and learned Lord for moving the Amendment. The new subsection (2) makes it clear that in cases. including divided out cases, each invention may have a different priority date, and I am grateful that this is now to be written into Clause 118. I cannot think where the noble and learned Lord got the impression that my noble friend Lord Lyell and I feel that we are dealing with an unco-operative Government. I would rather have said that we are dealing with a highly susceptible noble and learned Lord, and indeed I am therefore grateful for subsection (2). I should particularly like to thank the noble and learned Lord for this new subsection (3). He made it clear in Committee that it is a moot point as to whether, by virtue of Clause 122(6), it should be assumed that this clause should he taken to have the same meaning as Article 69 and its Protocol. I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for putting the matter beyond doubt by adding new subsection (3) to the clause.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 120 [Existing patents and applications]:
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved Amendment No. 158:
Page 93, line 35, at end insert—
("(4A) Any patent to which subsection (2) above relates and whose term had not expired on or before the appointed day shall have effect as if the term mentioned therein was twenty years, subject to the following condi-tions—

(a) any licence existing at the day on which this subsection comes into operation which has been granted for the term of the patent shall be treated as having been granted for the term as so extended if the licensee so desires;

(b) if the patent would apart from this section have expired on or before the day ending the period of 24 months after this subsection comes into operation, the patent shall during the period of the extension be deemed to he subject to the provisions of section 44 above as if an entry had been made in the register to the effect that licences under the patent are to be available as of right.

(4B) Where before the day on which subsection (4A) above comes into operation a
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person made in good faith effective and serious preparations to do an act which would constitute infringement of a patent by virtue only of the extention under subsection (4A) above, and it appears to the comptrcller having regard to all the circumstances that it would be just to order the grant of a licence to that person, the comptroller shall have power to order the grant to that person of a licence under the patent on such terms as he thinks fit.
(4C) The provisions of subsections (4A) and (4B) above shall not apply to any patent whose term was extended under the previsions of section 23 or 24 of the 1949 Act to a term of twenty years or more.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment deals with a difficulty that arises in relation to the term of patents. Under the Bill which we are considering all patents after the appointed day are to have a life of 20 years. This brings United Kingdom jurisprudence into conformity with many other countries. But a problem arises about the terms of patents that have been already granted under the 1949 Act, and some unfairness may arise to present patentees. in circumstances in which the Bill is to be found at present.
I should like briefly to describe the present position in regard to a patentee and the terms of his patent. Patents granted under the present Patents Act of 1949 have a term of 16 years, but applications can be made to the court for further extensions on two grounds. One is under Section 24 of the Act which allows an extension of up to 10 years in respect of war loss which the patentee may have experienced, but that extension is quite irrelevant at the present time, in view of the period of time from the last war. There is a second ground upon which the term of a patent can be extended, and that is by an application to the High Court under Section 23 on the grounds that the invention is of outstanding merit and that the patentee has been inadequately remunerated. This is well known to be a very expensive procedure, usually involving numbers of expert witnesses, and it is rarely invoked in relation to patents; but for patents granted under the 1949 Act this present Bill retains a reference to both Section 23 and Section 24 of the 1949 Patents Act, and that is my excuse for wearying your Lordships with a reference to it.
There is obvious unfairness that may arise. Suppose a person files a patent application just before the appointed day.

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What will be the term of that patent under the old Act? It will be 16 years plus his rights to have further extensions, according to the present Bill, under Sections 23 and 24 of the old Act, which will be kept in being by the present Bill. The likelihood of their getting an extension under Section 24 is nil. Under Section 23, the chances are that in many cases there will be very considerable difficulty in getting any extension at all; but the Bill says that the patentee should not get more than four years anyway as a result of any application on the ground that he has not been adequately remunerated for his invention. The Amendment which I have the privilege to propose in conjunction with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is to the effect that all patents in existence at the time of the passing of this Bill should be extended to 20 years. It proposes that they should all have 20 years; but, obviously, if one has an overall extension of that kind, there may be some difficulties arising for licensees. It is therefore suggested that a licence which exists at the date at which this new clause extending patents comes into operation and
"which has been granted for the term of the patent shall be treated as having been granted for the term as so extended if the licensee so desires."
This gives an opportunity for the licensee to say, "No, I do not want to continue with this licence; I do not want to continue under its terms". Of course, the terms may or may not involve the payment of royalties and the exchange of technical information.
Then there is another class of person who may find himself in an unfair position, and that class is dealt with under paragraph (b) of my Amendment. Where a patent would have expired, apart from this provision, during the period of two years after the subsection comes into operation,
"the patent shall during the period of the extension be deemed to be subject to the provisions of",
the Act dealing with licences of right. That is to say, if there is this extension then, for a period of two years before the end of the term of the extension, somebody can apply to the Comptroller-General or to the court for a licence of right. There will be a further relief, of course, under my proposed Amendment, by the addition of subsection (4B). It applies where a person. in good faith. has been doing some
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research work and can establish that he was hoping to be free to market his invention during the period for which the patent has been extended; that he had been hoping that the patent would expire and, therefore, that he would be free from being sued, probably, for infringement. If he has acted in good faith, he can go to the comptroller and say, in effect, "I have been operating in this way; it is only just that I should have a licence under the patent".
So that, if I may use an expression referred to earlier in this Report stage by the noble and learned Lord, my submissions are characterised by limpid clarity, perhaps I may ask the leave of the House to refer to Amendments Nos. 165, 166 and 167, which are consequential, and to No. 169B, which is a rather lengthy Amendment. The only effect of that latter Amendment is to remove any necessity for keeping in being Sections 23, 24 and 25 of the 1949 Act, to which I have referred, relating to the extension of terms of patents under the reasons of war loss and inadequacy of remuneration. May I also, with the leave of the House, refer to Amendments Nos. 170 and 172.
My Lords, the extension of the terms of patents has very important industrial and commercial implications to many manufacturers in this country. Some industries, of course, are not concerned with patents being extended at all because the technology in their industry moves so fast that, once the term of a patent is extended up to about seven years, there are new inventions and, therefore, they are not concerned with long periods for the terms of patents. But, particularly in the chemical industry and in the pharmaceutical industry, it is often seven, eight or nine years before a patentee can get any remuneration in respect of his invention. It is particularly hard, in my view, for the pharmaceutical industry, because nowadays they have to subject their inventions to so many tests to see whether there are any side effects in relation to the drugs which are the subject of these patents that it is sometimes as much as ten years before a pharmaceutical patent can bring any return. With that no doubt inadequate explanation, I beg to move.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, I find myself in some difficulty in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran,

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because, if I may have the permission of the House to refer to the Government Amendment No. 167B, that seems to collide with our one. If I may project myself forward, if we made the Amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord and myself we might perhaps be in collision with Amendment No. 167B when it is put forward on behalf of the Government. I feel that the only responsible action I can take at the moment is to say that I received the Government Amendment only after lunch today and that I have not had time to study it and collate it with the Amendment standing in the name of myself and the noble Lord. I therefore think that the right course of action at this stage would be to reserve my position until Third Reading, and to say that I shall not, for my own part, press the list of Amendments which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, read out; nor shall I raise my voice against the Government Amendment when the voices are collected.
I have, in addition, some ideas of what I might think on Third Reading. I believe that the Government Amendment, if I may refer to it, proposing a sort of five-year stay of execution, provides for too long a period. My original idea was to reduce this to two years, but over the weekend I had a very interesting suggestion from a chartered patent agent in the chemical industry. The suggestion, as a compromise, is that patents with a year or less to run should be given no extension; patents with between two years and one year to run should be given a year's extension; those with between three and two years, two years' extension; those with between four and three years, three years' extension; and then, those with five or more would get the full four years' extension. This would significantly reduce the number of the disgruntled and the degree of their disgruntlement, and I should like to see as many as possible inventors "gruntled", if I may put it in that way. With those remarks, my Lords, I would not seek to press these Amendments this afternoon.
7 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Amendment in substance repeats an Amendment which was moved in Committee by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord
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Lloyd of Kilgerran. At that time, I outlined proposals for a Government Amendment which would have broadly similar effects to that earlier Amendment. Its proposals, as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has just said, now appear as Amendment No. 167B which we have not yet reached. In view of certain industrial difficulties, it appears now as a supplement to the second Marshalled List. That could not have eased the task of the noble Earl. I understand that he is holding his hand, so to speak, without prejudice at this stage and will return to the matter after we have considered Amendment No. 167B and perhaps in the light of what I am about to say.
The present Amendment and the Government Amendment No. 167B really differ in only one fundamental respect; that is, that the present Amendment would increase the term of all existing patents granted under the 1949 Act to 20 years. The Government Amendment would confine that privilege to patents which have more than five years of their 16-year term to run. That aspect of the Government's proposals was, I appreciate, criticised in Committee and your Lordships will remember that the five year cut-off period was referred to as "magic" and a good deal of what the noble Earl has called "disgruntlement" was forecast as a result of this operation.
I ventured to say then that what the Government proposed was the result of consultations with the Standing Advisory Committee on Patents whose members, after all, are drawn from bodies representative of industry and the legal and patent professions, and I hope that I may be forgiven for emphasising that fact now. I might also add that if users of the patent system and its practitioners are broadly agreed on what should be done for existing patents, that alone ought to be substantial justification, I submit, of Government Amendment No. 167B.
Perhaps I may be permitted to make two other points which I think are substantial. First, the policy to be adopted should have regard to the interests not only of patentees but also of non-patentees desirous of working inventions after the relevant patents have expired: and it is to safeguard the position of the latter that it is proposed that the term of "old" existing patents should remain at 16 years.

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Otherwise, non-patentees who have already made plans to use the inventions of such patents in the reasonable expectation that they would expire at the end of their 16-year term might experience great difficulty if they were suddently faced with the fact that the term of those patents was to be increased to 20 years.
Secondly, it has been said that the five-year cut-off point will be unfair to patentees who find themselves just on the wrong side of that point; and in the event of that interesting suggestion that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has made of grading down the cut-off periods, at each point there will be somebody who would find himself arbitrarily and unluckily on the wrong side of the line. Unfortunately, you can always fault a cut-off point in that way. But some such point is almost unavoidable in changing from one set of rules to another; and if all existing patents were to be given a 20-year term, the unfairness or hardship would not be eliminated but merely transferred to a new point in time—and two or three have been suggested—in that case the date on which the new Act comes into operation.
My Lords, I hope that in the light of what I have said and in the light of the provisions of the Government Amendment which, to some extent, we are discussing now, noble Lords may feel that we have dealt with the substance of matters that were raised earlier.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, may I say a few words about the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the Government Amendment No. 167B, which we may be allowed to discuss at the same time: and make it clear that my noble friend Lord Lyell and I should like to support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, in their Amendment.
I am sure that, with one important proviso—and it is the proviso referred to by the noble and learned Lord when he mentioned non-patentees—it is inequitable to enable new patentees immediately after the appointed day to have as of right a term of 20 years, and old patentees, because they happen to fall before the
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appointed day, to have only 16 years and no more. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has explained clearly this unfairness. He gave us the illustration of the chemical and pharmaceutical patents. I think it is fair to remember that it was a recommendation of Banks that there would be a 20-year term for all patents.
When one comes to the proviso that something must he done to protect the interests of the non-patentees, as the noble and learned Lord has said, I venture to suggest that there may be a defect in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, in that although new paragraph (a) of subsection (4A) allows for existing licensees to extend their licences for old patents to 20 years, and although new paragraph (b) of subsection (4A) provides that old patents in their last two years shall be deemed to allow licences as of right, the licences mentioned in both new paragraphs have to be paid for. The licensees will go on paying royalties and they will be paying royalties in a period during which, as the noble and learned Lord said, those people would have expected, before this Bill was thought of, that they would not have to be getting licences and paying royalties at all.
I wonder whether the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, in considering what they may be doing with their Amendment, would give some thought to whether there is anything in what I have just said with regard to royalty-free licences during the extended period. Then, on the other hand, I feel that the Government this evening would like us to accept their Amendment, and I am afraid that my noble friends and I cannot do this. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will not think I am being discourteous when I say I also received the Amendment at a rather late stage, and perhaps the Government will forgive me if I have got it all wrong. But as I read it, it seems to me that the defect of the Amendment is that the right to extend an old patent is not going to be as of right; it is going to depend on Section 23 of the 1949 Act, for Section 24 no longer has any effect.
The noble and learned Lord referred to the Standing Advisory Committee. I was not quite sure that I heard him aright;

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but I understood him to say that the Government Amendment was in line with what the Standing Advisory Committee would wish. I am surprised to hear that the Standing Advisory Committee would wish the extension of old patents, at whatever stage, to depend entirely upon having to prove their case under Section 23 of the 1949 Act. I do not think that that is my view, as of this evening, anyway. For that reason alone—because I feel and I think that many of my noble friends feel that to have to prove their case under Section 23 is not what we are after at all with respect to old patents—if the Government will forgive us, we shall not support the writing of this Amendment into the Bill this evening.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am grateful for the support, in principle at least, to most of the Amendment which I have moved. I agree that the position of the licensee who finds that the patent has been extended is a matter for further consideration. As I have indicated, the licence may not involve payment of royalties, but it is for consideration whether the term of extension of the patent under the Amendment I have proposed should be such as to allow the licensee to continue with the patent but on a royalty-free basis.
The noble and learned Lord explained very clearly the position of the Government. Naturally it is very difficult to decide what is equitable in relation to the terms of the patents. It is a difficult matter. In some other fields it has even been suggested that some matters are only as long as the Lord Chancellor's foot; but in the present case from industry to industry, the consideration as to what should be the term of the patent will differ very considerably. As I have endeavoured to emphasise, the position of the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry deserves very careful consideration by the Government.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, I received the Government Amendment only today. I find the same difficulties about that proposed Amendment by the Government as does the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. As at present advised, I also feel that I could not support the Government Amendment. In view of the fact that there will be further discussions in regard to the extension of terms of the
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patent under the Government's Amendment, I beg leave to withdraw the present series of Amendments which I proposed, but reserve the position that I may take up the matter at Third Reading.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, in concurring with the noble Lord. Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, I want to say something about the question of fairness and hardship. The licensee is entirely parasitic upon the inventor. If all the world's licensees were laid end to end, if you had the Witch of Endor herself to pronounce the invocation, she could not raise the ghost of an invention from one of them.
In industry people are ambivalent—and this probably goes for the Standing Advisory Committee—because in industry people are both inventors and licensees; they cross-license one another t. nder their inventions. I do not think it unfair that when justice, at long last, is being done to the inventor—and I am now spec- king as an inventor in the chemical industry, metallurgy, electronics and a number of fields in which I have had patents which have earned money for my employers—I do not see that it is unjust that somebody should pay the fair price at last when he has in a sense been getting it too cheap for too long. For this reason, I wish to see inventors properly rewarded, ard I hope that we shall see them doing so at a later stage in the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 158A:
After Clause 120, insert the following new clause:
Priorities between patents and applications under 1949 Act and this Act.
(" —(1) The following provisions of this section shall have effect for the purpose of resolving questions of priority arising between patents and applications for patents under the 1949 Act and patents and applications for patents under this Act.
(2) A complete specification under the 1949 Act shall be treated for the purposes of sections 2(3) and 5(2) above—

(a) if published under that Act, as published application for a patent under this Act;

(b) if it has a date of filing under that Act, as an application for a patent under this Act which has a date of filing under this Act;

and in the said section 2(3), as it applies by

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virtue of this subsection in relation to any such specification, the words "both as filed and" shall be omitted.
(3) In section 8(1), (2) and (4) of the 1949 Act (search for anticipation by prior claim) the references to any claim of a complete specification, other than the applicant's, published and filed as mentioned in section 8(1) shall include references to any claim contained in an application made and published under this Act or in the specification of a patent granted under this Act, being a claim in respect of an invention having a priority date earlier than the date of filing the complete specification under the 1949 Act.
(4) In section 32(1)(a) of the 1949 Act (which specifies, as one of the grounds of revoking a patent, that the invention was claimed in a valid claim of earlier priority date contained in the complete specification of another patent), the reference to such a claim shall include a reference to a claim contained in the specification of a patent granted under this Act (a new claim) which satisfies the following conditions:—

(a) the new claim must be in respect of an invention having an earlier priority date than that of the relevant claim of the complete specification of the patent sought to be revoked; and

(b) the patent containing the new claim must be wholly valid or be valid in those respects which have a bearing on that relevant claim.

(5) For the purposes of this section and the provisions of the 1949 Act mentioned in this section the date of filing an application for a patent under that Act and the priority date of a claim of a complete specification under that Act shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of that Act, and the priority date of an invention which is the subject of a patent or application for a patent under this Act shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of this Act.")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is an important but I regret to say highly technical Amendment to the Bill which I shall endeavour to explain in simple terms though I am aware there are underlying complexities arising from the differing concepts of priority and validity in the Bill as compared with the 1949 Act. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, mentioned this at an earlier stage in our deliberations.
Briefly, the Amendment makes provision for resolving two situations: first, where an application for a patent is filed under the Bill while there is pending an application under the 1949 Act for the same invention but which has not yet been granted; and, secondly, the reverse situation, where a Bill application is filed having an earlier priority date than a
1949 Act application. The principle
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adopted is that where the Bill application was a later priority date than the 1949 Act application, the latter shall be treated for the purposes of the "whole contents" provision of Clause 2(3) as if it had been filed under the Bill. Conversely, where it is the Bill application which has the earlier priority, its claims shall be effective against the claims of the 1949 Act application in the "claim-against-claim" provisions of Sections 8 and 32 of the 1949 Act.
Perhaps it is now apparent that building the necessary bridge between the Bill and the 1949 Act in order to resolve conflicts in which the contestants lie on different sides of the frontier is no simple business. The Amendment has, however, been carefully framed so that an applicant (or patentee) under the Bill can only be defeated according to the rules of the Bill, and an applicant (or patentee) under the 1949 Act can only be defeated according to the rules of that Act. I therefore commend the Amendment as providing as much justice as is possible in a technically different situation.
My Lords, this is of very high technicality. I hope that a later reading of what I have brutally and frankly read out will be of assistance to your Lordships. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 122 [Interpretation]:
7.18 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY The Earl of HALSBURY moved Amendment No. 159:
Page 94, line 20, at end insert—
(" "computer program" means one or more recorded symbols or signals representing a sequence of instructions which is capable of causing a computer to perform a useful function;")
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment merely resuscitates the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord lronside, and I moved in Committee and withdrew in order to give the Government spokesman the opportunity to think about it again. The industry is extremely anxious that the words "computer program" as used in the Bill, meaning something one cannot get a patent on should be defined in such a way that they can lead to no misunderstanding as to what they mean. I am afraid that I am

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repeating what I said in Committee, but I think that it is important to say it again.
A computer is a device which carries out a series of mathematical or logical operations in sequence. The essence of a computer is the sequentiality of the operations it performs. This can be achieved in two ways: a piece of hardware can he designed, something you can pick up like a clock or an inkwell, my Lords, a physical object which you can hold in your hand which can he the subject of design in a drawing office; something which is manufactured; something which has all soils of ingenious tricks and gadgetry which enables an operator to carry out these sequential operations; or, my Lords, you can have what is called a "software program" which is originally simply written on a piece of foolscap manuscript. It is handed to a girl who has a keyboard instrument in from of her and, exactly as if she was typing it out, she works the keyboard with her fingers. From the inside of the keyboard emerges a long strip of tape or punched cards with holes in them. This is called the "software". This is presented to the computer input section which proceeds to carry out its sequential function.
Any given program can be accomplished in either of these two ways. It is simply a matter of convenience and cost. It is extremely important that, as the word "program is used ambiguously in technology, it should be used unambiguously in courts of law. To leave it ambiguous as the Bill now does means that sooner or later some judicial pronouncement has to he made on what is a purely technological matter. I believe that it is the right course—and I know that the industry wants this very much—that we should insert a proper definition of what we mean by "computer program" when we exclude it from the field of what is patentable. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we discussed this matter in Committee when an identical Amendment was moved. I have a good deal of sympathy with the underlying intention. As I understand it, the intention is to make it quite clear that the exclusion of "computer program in Clause 1 (2) (e) is not to bite on what is called computer "hardware". The noble Lord, Lord
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Ironside, conceded during the discussion of the Amendment in Committee that the regrouping of "a computer program" in Clause 1(2) with,
"a scheme, rule or method for performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business",
went at any rate some way towards meeting his point.
We have aligned ourselves with the European Patent Convention so that "computer program" must be construed as ejusdern generis, as it were, with the other things mentioned. Perhaps I might say to the noble Earl that curing the negotiations on the European Patent Convention the United Kingdom endeavoured to get a definition of "computer program" inserted into the Convention. Unfortunately, as the noble Earl will realise, we were outvoted, the majority taking the view that the meaning of "computer program" was a matter best left to jurisprudence—a proposition which clearly gives no comfort to the noble Earl. However, it is not the intention of the EPC, I understand, to exclude compute "hardware" from patentability. I said earlier that I would look again at this matter, but I ventured to warn your Lordships that I thought the Amendment we had already made to Clause I was probably as far as we could to. I am afraid that, having reconsidered the Amend-men t, I must again resist it.
In attempting an exhaustive definition of "computer program"—and I fully appreciate the purpose of so doing—I believe that the noble Lords would be introducing a departure from the Convention which could give rise to the possibility of duality of standards as to patentability between, on the one hand, the Convention and, on the other, the Bill. That is a situation which, to say the least, would be highly undesirable and which we have so far striven to avoid. Accordingly, I hope that, in the circumstances I have outlined, the noble Earl will once again withdraw his Amendment.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, in view of the manner in which the noble and learned Lord has asked me to do this with his usual courtesy, I can only say that I have done my best to get this through but feel I must be bound by h s advice. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.23 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 159A:
Page 95, line 31, after ("licensee" ") insert ("and "non-exclusive licence" ").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a paving Amendment for the Amendment to Schedule 1, No. 167B, and I hope I shall be permitted to explain it when we reach that hurdle. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 160:
Page 96, line 11, at end insert ("or for the purpose of conducting proceedings in connection with such patents before the comptroller").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was spoken to by my noble and learned friend Lord McCluskey when he dealt with Amendment No. 132, which was approved. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
7.24 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 160A:
Page 96, line 26, after ("and") insert ("without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing,")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is very much the same as one which I moved in Committee. My reason for moving that Amendment was to try to find out why the words which this Amendment seeks to insert into the Bill have been omitted from the interpretation of the word "published" because the words,
"without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing",
are included in the interpretation of the word "published" in Section 101 of the 1949 Act.
The problem presented by the omission of the words we are seeking to have inserted into the Bill is presumably that this clause is a kind of "code", to which those who are practising and interpreting patent law will have regard. It would seem that this definition of the word "published" will therefore be used as a definition of when a document shall be taken to have been published. It seems to us that if the words,
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"without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing",
have been cut out of this definition, as compared with the 1949 Act, there must be a reason. We fear that without those words a document will not be taken to have been published unless it can be inspected as of right somewhere in the United Kingdom. We are quite clear that that cannot be the intention, because Clause 2(2) refers to the state of the art as comprising matter which has been made available,
"to the public (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) here)".
Therefore, that might be a small hook upon which to hang this argument. At the previous stage, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that the purpose of the Amendment was not entirely clear to him. I hope that my explanation tonight is a little clearer than my earlier one at Committee stage. I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is the case that in Committee I agreed to look again at the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, on an Amendment which was identical to the present one. I have done so, and I hope that the following explanation will be sufficient to show why the words which this Amendment seeks to insert were included in Section 101 of the 1949 Act but are not included in the corresponding provision in the Bill. "Published" in the 1949 Act is roughly the equivalent of "made available" in Clause 2(2) of the Bill. In the Bill the term "published" is used in a different sense. It refers to "official" publication of an application which is potentially going to be a patent effective in the United Kingdom; that is to say, publication by the comptroller or publication under one of the Conventions, which is treated as publication by the comptroller. So to insert the words proposed by the Amendment would have a damaging effect.
The definition of "published" in Clause 118(1) has two legs. The first relates to making available in the United Kingdom or elsewhere; the second is concerned with documents and says that documents are published when they can be inspected as of right in, but only in, the United Kingdom.

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The Amendment would subject the second leg to the first, if that is not a mixed metaphor, and so have an undesired effect in that publication under Clauses 14 and Clause 122(4) would not need to be in the United Kingdom. It would mean, I am advised, that if the comptroller wanted to—though of course he would not—he could "publish" United Kingdom applications for the purposes of Clause 14 and, hence, of Clause 2(3) by making them available to the public in Omsk, Minsk and Tomsk, although I concede that such a course is highly unlikely.
I hope, in the light of this somewhat complex explanation, that the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, in the absence of other noble Lords wishing to speak, may I say that I probably deserved all I got in the complicated but very clear answer from the noble and learned Lord. I have taken in about nine-tenths of what he said. I think he will agree that he gave a very complex answer to what I unashamedly read out as a complex question. I do not wish to delay the House in any further debate, and I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I will study his remarks later—I will not say at leisure —and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.31 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 161:
Page 96, leave out lines 41 to 43 and insert (" "services of the Crown" and "use for the services of the Crown" have the meanings assigned to them by section 54(3) above, including, as respects any period of emergency within the meaning of section 57 above, the meanings assigned to them by the said section 57").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment does two things: first, it deletes from Clause 122(1) the definition of the expression "Union of Paris", since Government Amendment No. 80 has deleted the only use of the expression in the Bill, no doubt to the delight of everyone concerned; secondly, it adds definitions of the expressions "services of the Crown" and "use for the services of the Crown", drafted so as to cover the use of those terms both in the "normal" Crown use provisions of the Bill (Clause 53 to 56), and in the special
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provisions as to Crown use during an emergency (Clause 57). My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 162:
Page 97, line 4, at end insert—
("(2A) For the purposes of this Act matter shall be taken to have been disclosed in any relevant application within the meaning of section 5 above or in the specification of a patent if it was either claimed of disclosed (otherwise than by way of disclaimer or acknowledgment of prior art) in that application or specification.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was foreshadowed by Amendment No. 9, the effect of which was the deletion of subsection (5) of Clause 5. The purpose of that Amendment and the present one is to ensure that the term "matter", as used in relation to what is disclosed in a patent or patent application, shall have the same meaning throughout the Bill. This is a question of some importance, since the term "matter" is used in such key clauses of the Bill as Clause 5 on priority, Clause 70 or revocation and Clause 74 on amendments of applications and patents. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 163:
Page 97, line 31, leave out second ("4") and insert ("5").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is another Amendment which I am pleased to move, because it gives effect to the wish expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Lyell, Lord Belstead and Lord Cawley, during the Committee stage for the inclusion of a reference to Clause 5 of the Bill in Clause 122(6). The arguments for and against the inclusion of such a reference are finely balanced, but having given the matter further consideration the Government have decided that the advantage favours the reference, in the expectation that the priority provisions of the European Paten.: Convention will have the same effect in proceedings before the European Patent Office and the courts of other Con. racting States as the priority provisions of Clause 5 will have here. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 164:
Page 97, line 31, after ("(6)") insert ("35(5),52").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the addition of Clauses 35(5) and 52 to the list in Clause 122(6) of clauses of the Bill framed to have the same effect as corresponding provisions of the Community Patent Convention and other Patent Conventions is made necessary by Amendments which have already been made. As a result of Amendment No. 112 to Clause 70, the conditions of revocation of a patent, on the ground that it was granted to an unentitled person, have been aligned with the CPC. It follows that a reference to Clause 35(5), relating to the transfer of ownership of a patent granted to an unentitled person, is now appropriate in Clause 122(6).
As far as Clause 52 is concerned, this provides the possibility of extending to non-Member States the compulsory licence provisions of Articles 47 and 82 of the Community Patent Convention. However, the clause has been redrafted in such a way that it no longer refers to the CPC. A reference to the clause is therefore needed in Clause 122(6), in the interest of uniformity between Clause 52 and the corresponding provisions of the CPC. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 123 [Northern Ireland]:
7.36 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment 164A:
Page 98, line 6, at end insert—
("(cc) any reference to the Companies Act 1948 includes a reference to the corresponding enactments in force in Northern Ireland; and").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a purely drafting Amendment needed primarily for Clause 85(3). My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 164B:
Page 98, line 11, leave out ("alone").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is another drafting Amendment in relation to Northern Ireland, and
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it was suggested by the Northern Ireland Office. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Application of 1949 Act]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 167B:
Page 99, line 29, leave out paragraphs 3 and 4 and insert—
("3.—(1) This paragraph and paragraph 4 below shall have effect with respect to the duration of existing patents after the appointed day, and in those paragraphs—

(a) "old existing patent" means an existing patent the date of which fell eleven years or more before the appointed day and also any patent of addition where the patent for the main invention is, or was at any time, an old existing patent by virtue of the foregoing provision;

(b) "new existing patent" means any existing patent not falling within paragraph (a) above; and

(c) any reference to the date of a patent shall, in relation to a patent of addition, be construed as a reference to the date of the patent for the main invention.

(2) Sections 23 to 25 of the 1949 Act (extension of patents on grounds of inadequate remuneration and war loss) shall not apply to a new existing patent.
(3) The period for which the term of an old existing patent may be extended under sections 23 or 24 of that Act shall not exceed in the aggregate four years, except where an application for an order under the relevant section has been made before the appointed day and has not been disposed of before that day.
(4) Accordingly the following words in the 1949 Act shall cease to have effect except as respects any such application, that is to say—

(a) in section 23(1), the words from "(not exceeding" to "ten years)";

(b) in section 24(1), the words "(not exceeding ten years)"; and

(c) in section 24(7), the words from "but" to the end.

4.—(1) The term of every new existing patent under section 22(3) of the 1949 Act shall be twenty instead of sixteen years from the date of the patent, but—

(a) the foregoing provision shall have effect subject to subsections (4) and (5) of that section; and

(b) on and after the end of the sixteenth year from that date a patent shall not be renewed under the said subsections (4) and (5) and an application shall not be made under section 26 above for its restoration except by or with the consent of the proprietor of the patent.

(2) Where the term of a new existing patent is extended by this paragraph—

(a) any licence in force under the patent from immediately before the appointed day until the end of the sixteenth year from the date of the patent shall continue in force so long as the patent remains in force, but, if it is an exclusive licence, it shall be treated as a non-exclusive licence;

(b) notwithstanding the terms of the licence, the licensee shall not be required to make any payment to the proprietor for working the invention in question after the end of that year;

(c) every such patent shall after the end of that year be treated as endorsed under section 35 of the 1949 Act (licences of right).

(3) Where the term of a new existing patent is extended by this paragraph—

(a) any use by any Government department or any person authorised by a Government department of the invention in question for the services of the Crown which was made before the appointed day and continues to be made until the end of the sixteenth year from the date of the patent may continue to be made so long as the patent remains in force;

(b) notwithstanding any terms for such use agreed on or determined before the appointed day, the use of the invention after the end of that year may be made free of any payment to the proprietor of the patent.

(4) Without prejudice to any rule of law about the frustration of contracts, where any person suffers loss or is subjected to liability by reason of the extension of the term of a patent by this section, the court may on the application of that person determine how and by whom the loss or liability is to be borne and make such order as it thinks fit to give effect to the determination.
(5) No order shall be made on an application under subsection (4) above which has the effect of imposing a liability on any person other than the applicant unless notification of the application is given to that person.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a very important Amendment, and we have already dealt with some aspects of it in earlier discussions. It gives effect to the Government's proposals on the term of existing patents which, as I have already said, I outlined during the debate in Committee on the Amendment which was then moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and which was today moved as Amendment No. 158. As the House will have noticed, the Amendment does three principal things. First, the term of "old existing patents"—those having five or fewer years of their term to run—remains at 16 years; secondly, the term of all other existing patents—"new
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existing patents"—is increased from 16 to 20 years, subject to safeguards to protect the positions of the Crown, of licensees and of others who wish to work such patents during the increased term; and, thirdly, the provisions for the extension of patents on the grounds of inadequate remuneration or war loss (Sections 23 to 25 of the 1949 Act) are abolished, except as far as "old existing patents" are concerned, but the term of such patents may not be extended by more than four years.
The Amendment also makes some detailed provisions of a technical nature and, more importantly, allows anyone who suffers a loss or is subjected to a liability by reason of the increased term of new existing patents to apply to the court, which may determine how and by whom the loss or liability is to be borne. I think it would be right to say, as I said when we were discussing Amendment No. 158, that this Amendment is controversial in one major respect only; that is to say, the restriction of the increased term of 20 years to patents having more than five years to run.
In the earlier discussion the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, suggested that under the Bill existing patents, depending on their age, should have a term worked out on a sliding scale. I am advised; that this suggestion has already been considered fully and rejected as too complicated and too difficult to administer. It was put forward some time ago by the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents, and I understand it is not being pressed by them now.
One other point arose in the earlier discussion. I referred to the views of the Standing Advisory Committee, and I am advised that Amendment No. 167B is in accordance with the policy that was approved by the committee. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who raised this point. Paragraph 4(1) extends the term of every new existing patent to 20 years. Section 23 of the 1949 Act is relevant only to old existing patents. We have discussed this matter now at some length, and I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, at an earlier stage this evening my noble friend Lord Belstead, who is no longer with us as he has a prior appointment, expressed strong dissatisfaction on one—
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me. I notice that Amendment No. 167C is an Amendment to Amendment No. I67B, which perhaps I should have called at an earlier point.
7.42 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN moved manuscript Amendment No. 167C as an Amendment to Amendment No. 167B:
Page 3 of the Supplementary Marshalled List, paragraph 4, in line 4 of sub-paragraph (4) after ("court") insert ("or the comptroller").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be helpful if I move the manuscript Amendment which has already been referred to by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. In sub-paragraph (4) of the Government Amendment, it is stated that where a loss is suffered by some person or other arising from the conditions of this proposed Amendment, this person can go to the court to have the position considered. My manuscript Amendment enables this person to go either to the court or to the Comptroller-General of Patents. Therefore my Amendment inserts in sub-paragraph (4) the words "or the comptroller" after the word "court". Again this is in keeping with the general line I have been taking, that people should have the opportunity to go to a tribunal which is less expensive than the High Court, and I beg to move the Amendment. By way of explanation, may I say why the manuscript Amendment comes in at this stage. I received the Government Amendment just before lunch. Immediately I went to the appropriate quarters to seek advice as to whether I could add this small but quite important Amendment.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I find myself in the same difficulty from the point of view of time as the noble Lord who has just spoken. However, I am advised that paragraph 4(4) of the proposed new clause is intended as a general safeguard that is needed in case of unforeseen hardship occasioned by the extension to 20 years of the term of new existing patents. If cases arise, it is likely that they will involve issues which would be better dealt with by the court, with its all round legal expertise, than by the comptroller. I am advised that this point was considered by the Standing Advisory Committee during consultations
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on the term of existing patents. Its advice was that questions concerning loss or liability should be a matter for the court alone. In the light of that reasoning by the committee and my explanation of it, perhaps the noble Lord will reconsider his manuscript Amendment.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord. I will read tomorrow in Hansard what he has said. Therefore I reserve my position, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, now we revert to Amendment No. 167B.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I was apologising for the absence of my noble friend Lord Belstead who moved this Amendment at an earlier stage. I mean no discourtesy either to the noble and learned Lord or to the Government, but I, too, first saw the second list of Amendments this morning, although possibly a litttle earlier than some other noble Lords. I believe that there was great merit in what my noble friend Lord Belstead had to say. Possibly the extension of existing patents, be they new or old, should be allowed but, as my noble friend said, only as a result of Sections 23 and 24 of the 1949 Act. As my noble friend Lord Belstead pointed out, and as I think more expert minds in this field have been able to point out to us, the cases in which Section 23 could be used nowadays are somewhat limited. Indeed, I understand that the cases in which extensions have been granted have been relatively few, although they are possibly quite numerous in one or two sectors of industry.
The noble and learned Lord referred to paragraph 4(4), which he thought might provide a suitable safeguard against possible or prospective loss as a result of the cut-off date for new and old patents operating somewhat inequitably. We shall have to read very carefully what the noble and learned Lord has said. However, may I ask him whether it is entirely reasonable that we should accept this evening what I believe, and what I think

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the House will believe, is a major change in the definition of patents and, indeed, a very important change to this part of the Bill, particularly in view of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury? Certainly my noble friend Lord Belstead and I are of the opinion that there is very considerable merit in both of these Amendments, one of which has been moved by the noble and learned Lord and the other by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury.
We wonder whether it might be possible at this late stage to achieve what one might call a compromise. We believe that there are very serious issues, particularly in relation to sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph 3. That said, I reserve my position in order to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, have to say, unless it is that they have nothing further to add since they have already spoken to Amendment No. 158. I should not be able to recommend my colleagues to accept the Government's Amendment at this stage tonight, particularly in view of the somewhat short notice that the House has had on what I am sure the noble and learned Lord will accept is a highly technical and very important piece of legislation.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like just to say that this is a difficult part of the Bill; points of substance have been raised and I wonder whether noble Lords would be content to allow the Amendment to go forward in its present form with my undertaking that we will look at the points that have been raised in relation to it between now and the Third Reading of the Bill. I should be very happy to do that because I appreciate, first, the lateness of delivery of the Amendment, and also the points that have been raised.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should be grateful for that and indeed I believe that would be the wise course to adopt. I should like to raise one humble reservation. We have heard it said before, during the Committee
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stage, that the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues would look at items, and I hope that we on our side have not been too repetitive in this Report stage because in several cases, which we must not enumerate. verbal assurances have been given that a point would be looked at and, owing to pressure of new Amendments, to our knowledge no written evidence has been produced that the point has been looked at, whether satisfactorily or not. However, I accept that the noble and learned Lord, and his colleagues, will look at this matter as a question of priority, and with that assurance, which has been so charmingly given by the noble and learned Lord, I would have no further opposition to the Amendment going through as it stands tonight.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I should like briefly to support the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, in this matter. I understand the noble and learned Lord has said that he will reconsider the matters that have been raised under Amendment No. 158 which I withdrew, and in those circumstances I concur with the view that has been expressed.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, I support the view taken by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. I was very much afraid that if we raised our voices against this Amendment we should approach Third Reading in a vacuum. This Amendment gives us something to build on by way of further amendment at Third Reading and in that spirit I would not oppose this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Application of this Act to existing patents and applications].
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 168 to 169A:
Page 100, line 20, leave out ("28, 30 to")
Page 100, line 21, leave out ("99, 102")
Page 100, at end insert ("and (4)").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this group of Amendments is to apply certain provisions of the Bill to 1949 Act patents and applications.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals of provisions of 1949 Act].
7.55 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 169C:
Page 101, line 17, leave out from ("court), ") to end of line 20, and insert ("subsection").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is in the nature of a probing Amendment to seek out further information from the Government, and I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 173 which is consequential on this Amendment. The two Amendments are concerned with something that we believe is of importance: that existing patents should be revocable upon the existing grounds which are set out in Section 32 of the 1949 Act. I will not weary your Lordships by reading them, but this applies particularly to the grounds of prior secret use, which was something which was not immediately evident to me, although I understand it is of importance to practitioners, including patent agents, patent lawyers and patent barristers. I am sure it appears to be inequitable that an inventor, who has not applied for a patent because for some reason he has already made commercial use of the invention in secret, should find suddenly that such a patent will be validated under this Bill, and that someone who, in the past, has obtained a patent, even though he knew it should not be granted on the grounds of prior secret use, knows that his deception will be validated.
The whole of Schedule 3 as drafted was moved into the Bill by a Government Amendment in Committee. At that time a further point was raised; namely, that a situation might be created by Schedule 3 that someone would ask for advice, from, let us call him, a practitioner, as to whether the patent would be infringed, and the expert would advise the client that he need not worry about any infringement because under Section 32 of the 1949 Act the patent concerned is clearly invalid. But then, as a result of this Bill, we come to the appointed day for commencement and we find there that the provisions of Section 32 are amended; in other words, the rules about invalidity are changed in the middle of a revocation action. At an earlier stage my noble friend Lord Belstead ventured the opinion that this would result in
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absolute chaos. The effect of the Amendment is to ensure that the existing patents should be revocable continually on the existing grounds. It is for that reason that I beg to move.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this again is a sphere of high technicality. Schedule 3, paragraph 2(2)(b), to which this Amendment relates, has the effect of abolishing certain of the grounds on which an existing patent may be revoked under Section 32 of that Act. The abolished grounds are commonly referred to as inutility "false suggestion", "claims not fairly based" and "secret prior use" Those grounds have been abolished because they are not grounds for the revocation of European patents and Community patents (and hence should not be grounds for the revocation of United Kingdom patents under the Bill), and because it is desirable that the grounds of invalidity of all patents effective in the United Kingdom should be harmonised as far as possible to avoid doubt in the public mind as to what is and what is not a valid patent.
The purpose of the Amendment, as I understand it, is to restore to Section 32 of the 1949 Act the grounds of invalidity that the Bill would abolish (except the ground of Section 32(3)). The case for doing so is that abolition of grounds of invalidity validates patents that would have been held invalid if their revocation had been sought before the passage of the Bill, and that this is unfair on potential users of the inventions of the relevant patents, since instead of being faced with invalid patents, they will now be faced with valid ones.
There is some theoretical force in this argument, but in practice the grounds of invalidity which the Bill would abolish are of very limited importance when compared with such grounds as novelty and obviousness. Again any fairness and legal purity which the Amendment would achieve, therefore, seem small in comparison with the advantage of having standards of validity of existing and new patents which, although not identical, are the same in basic respects. I believe if the patent system is to be of maximum encouragement to industrial innovation its legal complexities—and Heaven knows there are plenty of them!—should be kept

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to a minimum. Thus, although the Amendment seeks to eliminate a possible source of injustice to non-patentees, I regard the possibility of actual injustice as sufficiently remote to justify the priority which the Bill gives to simplification and harmonisation of the all-important conditions of validity.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I will admit to being dazzled by the amount of ground that the noble and learned Lord has covered. I notice he was looking straight at me while giving the House the benefit of the reply to my Amendment. I would add briefly—and I am sure the noble and learned Lord would accept it—that there are very strong feelings, certainly in some sections of the professional practitioners in patent law, patent agents, barristers and solicitors, that various advice that might be given by these practitioners could be given not as part of litigation. Nevertheless, I have been given to understand that information would have been given by patent agents, and as a result of the alteration in Section 32 various acts which would have been illegal and would have been discouraged by the patent agents are by the effect of the Bill made respectable.
However, I think I should not seek to pursue this matter now. I will endeavour to study what the noble and learned Lord has said. Possibly I ought to add a minor reservation, and, dare I say to the noble and learned Lord, with reluctance I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 174:
Page 107, line 16, at end insert ("In section 33(3), the proviso.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Section 33(3) of the 1949 Act contains a proviso that the comptroller shall not revoke unless the circumstances are such as would have justified refusal of the grant of a patent under Section 14. Bearing in mind that Section 14 is repealed in Section 5, it is necessary to repeal the proviso to Section 33(3). That is what the Amendment does. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE TORNADO MILITARY AIRCRAFT
8.5 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL The Earl of KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the recent controversial television documentary on the Tornado military aircraft, whether they will confirm that the aircraft will meet the operational requirements of the Royal Air Force: and whether they will reaffirm their confidence in and support for the programme. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I feel somewhat hesitant to test the long patience of the House and speak for the second time today, but my defence is that the subject is so far removed from the weighty meat of the Patents Bill that perhaps this short debate on Tornado could be considered more as a savoury course to complete the digestion of the business of the day.
The purpose of my Question is twofold. The first is to give the Government, and the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, in particular, an opportunity to state their views on the contents of the highly critical documentary film about Tornado shown recently, I think on 18th April, on television. Secondly, I would seek from the noble Lord a little further information on the progress of Tornado, of its two versions which are about to go into service with the Royal Air Force.
Many of your Lordships will have seen the programme on television which set off such a barrage of protests from the industry and, indeed, from tit Royal Air Force. If the programme editor deliberately set out to achieve a controversial "knocking job" of the aircraft and the industry he certainly appeared to do a thundering good job. From the transcript of the programme which I have seen, the message, I think, was very clear. It was that the British taxpayer was subsidising the aircraft Industry, and indeed the European aerospace industry, at an immense cost, and had been doing so for many years on this project; that at the end of perhaps a 15-year programme it will produce an obsolete aircraft barely better than the TSR 2, cancelled some 15 years ago, perhaps on a par with the F.111, cancelled some nine years ago at considerable cost to the taxpayer,

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inferior to the American F.14 and F.15, and certainly inferior to the Russian Foxbat.
Few of us would ever claim, and certainly I would not, that we could ever technically judge the merits of one particular military aircraft or another. Indeed, if anyone goes to either the Farnborough Air Show or the Paris Air Show, I am sure he will be excused if he confesses that many of the military aircraft all look the same, except the Harrier, which, of course, is the finest air show performer ever produced. But I hope that very few of those who saw the documentary film will accept that message. I do not think it was at all surprising to find that the industry, and indeed the Royal Air Force, took a very hostile view of that programme.
The industry claim that the programme took some time to gather its evidence, a matter of months, and took a number of interviews from various members of the industry. I believe the managing director of Panavia was interviewed for over an hour and yet not one second of his interview was shown on the programme. The director of flight operations was also interviewed for a considerable time, and he was allowed five seconds of what was a 25-minute programme. I may add that the five seconds did include the comment "Rubbish!" in answer to a detailed criticism of the design and performance of the aircraft, and perhaps, in fairness to the editor, he thought that that was sufficiently earthy comment to counter the apparent attack on the project.
The Government, of course, are not responsible for the content or accuracy of any television programme, and I am not suggesting tonight that they should be. But when a recently retired commander-in-chief of Strike Command writes letters to the Press saying that in his view the effect of the programme was harmful to the Service morale, misleading to the public, damaging to the European aerospace industry and harmful to potential overseas sales, I hope that the noble Lord will take this opportunity to deplore the whole tone of that programme and, indeed, what I consider to be a thoroughly irresponsible programme.
We owe a great deal to the serving men and women in the Royal Air Force; we
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owe a great deal to the British aerospace industry and we hope, in future, the European aerospace industry. The contribution in terms of exports for the British industry is quite exceptional. Indeed, I think that the potential looks exceptional when one reads what the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said recently when taking up his new post. He anticipates that over 5,000 military aircraft will be exported by Britain between 1980 and 1990, of which 3,000 will go to NATO—and that figure does not include deliveries to the Royal Air Force or to the United States. Figures of that sort did not appear in the documentary film.
I am told that by next year Tornado will represent some 36,000 British jobs and some 70,000 to 80,000 jobs in Europe. However, perhaps where the producer of the documentary film may find common ground for criticism with the advocates of Tornado is in almost—and I regret to say this—the paranoid obsession that the Ministry of Defence has for concealing facts on military projects. Apparently, many of these facts have no real relevance to the strategic policies of the Ministry of Defence. I am told that it is just a traditional secret that the Ministry does not disclose these figures.
In particular, I refer to the refusal to give the total costs of military projects. Of course, the Ministry of Defence is at a unique disadvantage over Tornado because apparently our German and Italian partners do not have the same policy. Therefore, we get the ridiculous situation where a Member in another place asks the British Government for certain information on costs only to find that he is refused; and yet he can discover the same information in Europe when wearing another hat as a member of the Western European Union. I particularly ask the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to consider and perhaps comment tonight, if he can, on this unsatisfactory position, because cost is a not unimportant question with open government. When costs are used to knock the British industry in favour of buying an American aircraft, perhaps it would be helpful to note that the cost of an American aircraft is one of the worst arguments the pro-American lobby can use.
I turn briefly and specifically to some of the Tornada programmes of development.

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Can the noble Lord say what stage Tornado has reached as regard its Mach speed during its development?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, would the noble Lord be so kind as to repeat that question?
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am not sure that I worded it very clearly. I was asking the noble Lord whether he could advise us tonight of the Mach speed which the prototype Tornado has now accomplished. There has been a good deal of comment on the RB.199 engine, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us some helpful information.
I should also like to ask him about the weapons system or, more particularly, what is known as the Store Management System. We all know that the British are using the Marconi Elliot system and the Germans and Italians the American Base 10 system. The simple question, particularly for a NATO exercise, is that if a British Tornado should land on a German airfield, will there be, not only compatibility of the system, but an inter-changeability as well?
Finally, I should like to ask the noble Lord what is perhaps the most important question for the future of Tornado and, indeed, for the exports of our industry; namely, what indications have there been of interest in export sales? I believe that there have been some indications, and I hope that the noble Lord will comment on that.
Undoubtedly, as a joint European aerospace programme the Tornado represents the most important programme yet achieved by the European aerospace industry. I should like to pay tribute to all those who have been involved in the collaboration—it cannot have been easy—among the three industries. I hope very much, and I am sure that the House hopes, that it will be a forerunner of future programmes for the European aerospace industry. I should like to take this opportunity to thank those noble Lords who have indicated that they will speak, as I shall be unable to thank them later.
8.17 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, the whole House is very grateful to the
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noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, For raising this rather controversial Question this evening. I should like to add a little further controversy to it. First, the "World In Action" programme, which, as has been said, was televised on 18th April, without a shadow of doubt denigrated the Tornado. It was biased and unbalanced. Through its distortion and ill-informed criticism it tried to persuade the public that Tornado was too expensive, too late and also unable to carry out its assigned operational roles.
Perhaps it was due to the quest for sensationalism that Granada did not inform the taxpayer of the readily available facts about Tornado, and as a result it gave an entirely false picture. The public have a right to know about large expenditure on defence projects, but the media have a moral responsibility to represent the facts impartially and accurately. In this case, in my humble opinion, the media failed lamentably. The Royal Air Force say that they were not consulted, although I believe that ITV says that they were. To the best of my knowledge, neither of the other two air forces were consulted. However, even if the RAF had been consulted, there was no serving officer or anyone from the Ministry of Defence in the programme. Ex-chief test pilot of BAC, "Roly" Beaumont, who is now director of flight operations Panavia, was not—I repeat, net—given an adequate opportunity to comment on the alleged problems that were highlighted. Although he was interviewed—and here I disagree with the noble Earl—for 45 minutes before the programme, he appeared live only on three brief occasions, for a total period of just under one minute. But, either way, the noble Earl and I would not argue over those small points.
However, perhaps because of this controversial programme good will result and the right publicity will be given to Tornado. The programme also agreed that Tornado was capable of performing its low level strike, interdiction and reconnaissance rôles, yet at the same time it alleged that its Terrain Following Radar was no good. It also said that the Russians will pick it up on their early airborne warning systems.
My Lords, the TFR does work efficiently and Tornado can avoid chimneys and

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masts and suchlike. We must also remember that just because an aircraft is picked up on radar by the enemy it does not necessarily mean that that aircraft will be destroyed. Tornado, with its avionic equipment for protecting it in a hostile air environment, and with its low level tactics, makes it an extremely elusive and difficult target. Let us remember the Israeli air force in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The Israelis lost 1·1 per cent. of their aircraft on this particular type of mission against the most heavily defended environment yet experienced in modern warfare. In fact, the Israelis lost only 100 aircraft and not 400 as Granada stated.
The United Kingdom's requirement for an air defence role is for an aircraft with an ability to patrol at long distances from our coast and destroy enemy bombers at all heights, and further, ideally, outside the effective range of the enemy's standoff air-to-air missiles: in other words, an interceptor rather than an air combat fighter. The interceptor therefore needs an economical cruise at high altitude; an advanced airborne and intercept radar; complementary air-to-air missiles; and lastly, for the optimum success of the mission, a two-man crew. There are really only two possible alternatives to Tornado. One is the American F.14, which is twice as expensive; and second is the F.15, which is a single seater; it has inferior avionics and has a less economical high cruise performance. While on the subject of weapons like Skyflash, over costs I again think that the programme was not very fair to that missile.
Granada also claimed that the RAF and Italy would not be able to drop weapons for four years. But the weapons clearance trials which are currently in hand use a development stores management system, as the noble Earl mentioned, and there is no reason, so I am given to understand, to suppose that standard production equipment will not be embodied in the first aircraft that is delivered. I admit that the Germans have opted for a different system, but compatibility will be preserved. Cockpit panels and layout will be identical, and interface between aircraft weapons will be virtually common.
The alleged excessive "spillage" drag from engine intakes, which would impair
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Tornado's performance at high angles of incidence in the transonic speed range, was refuted by Mr. Beaumont during the recording of the programme, and then when the programme was shown it was edited out. From wind tunnel and flight tests, results have shown no evidence of excessive airframe drag, and the indications all point to the fact that Tornado will meet its stipulated maximum speeds, and subsonic performance will even exceed the specification requirements. Therefore, it is very sad, as well as unfortunate, that ITV should have had two Americans, one of whom incidentally I know, trying to convince a British audience that their money was being wasted. And while on costs, which naturally have increased with exchange rates and inflation, Granada said that the research and development costs on the air defence variant had increased by 35 per cent. I have been given to understand that it is about 12½ per cent. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, could confirm that when he replies.
The noble Earl's Question asked whether Tornado will meet RAF requirements. I have been informed of the following information, and I am hopeful that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will be able to confirm it and probably even enlarge on it. Tornado will be the core of the RAF from 1980 until at least the year 2000. It will replace five different types of aircraft, which will reduce the costs of training, the numbers of personnel, and logistics. It has already done 1,000 hours of development flying. It has exceeded Mach 1·9, will shortly go Mach 2, and later will reach its full specification of Mach 2·2. Shortly an additional order is going to be given for the next 110 aircraft for the three air forces.
For the first time ever the United Kingdom will have a real night and all-weather capability aircraft, due entirely to its avionics and in particular to its low level navigation system. It will have the most advanced electronic countermeasure pods, both active and passive, to foil enemy defences. Its weapon maximum delivery area is very small, and its weapons naturally will include guns, bombs, rockets and the most advanced missiles such as Skyflash, which incidentally has an outstanding British designed homing head, and which gives a super performance

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even with severe electronic interference from the enemy.
At 30,000 feet the Tornado can detect and destroy an enemy aircraft flying at 250 feet, 25 to 30 miles away, through British radar and an advanced missile. In other words we have a winner, in spite of what the critics say. Let us not forget that once upon a time we had critics of the Hurricane and the Spitfire. So it seems that the RAF are convinced that Tornado will do its air defence role, its offensive support role, and its reconnaissance role outstandingly well. The Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Neil Cameron, said about two days ago that he hoped this information would go not only to the Warsaw Pact countries but also to the "knockers" in the United Kingdom who, for some extraordinary reason, try and damage the morale of our Servicemen as well as the talented and able British and European aerospace industry.
8.27 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kimberley is certainly an excellent public relations man for the British aerospace industry—not for the first time this afternoon; although if I may say so, he is not quite such a good advocate of the independence of the British Press and television, which I should have thought was of equal, if not greater, importance. I am afraid that I must disagree with my noble friend in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in initiating a debate such as this, because I think that as soon as you start to bring pressure to bear on newspapers or television for the way in which they have chosen to present their programmes you are starting down an extremely slippery path of which neither my noble friend or the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, would very much like to see the bottom.
Therefore, I think we should he extremely careful in what we say about the way in which producers and journalists have discharged their task. By all means let us contradict them if they say things that are wrong. My noble friend Lord Kimberley said that this programme was biassed, unbalanced, and gave an extremely false picture, although I did not hear from him very many specific examples of the charges which he levelled against the programme. For instance, he said
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they were quite right in pointing out that the aircraft concerned would be capable of carrying out its low level strike role. There is no argument among any of us in that respect. So just what is it that the noble Earl and my noble friend did not like about the programme? I suggest that it was in fact its tone and, as my noble friend said, but as he probably knows was not true, the fact that it appeared at one stage that the RAF had not been consulted.
Certainly that claim was made in a letter to the Daily Telegraph by Air Commodore P. B. Hine, who said he was very surprised to read a statement by Mr. Brian Lapping that the Ministry of Defence had refused to allow an RAF spokesman to be interviewed because, said Air Commodore Hine, no approach had been made by Mr. Lapping to him or to any member of his staff so far as he could ascertain, and no person in the Defence Public Relations staff received an approach from the producer of this programme. All I can say is that there is a conflict of evidence. I am assured by Mr. Lapping that an approach was made and that he had written a letter to the Daily Telegraph for publication, from which he has kindly given me permission to quote. The letter was sent by hand on 5th May, and I dare say that owing to pressure of space in the correspondence columns of the Daily Telegraph it was not possible to publish it before today's debate.
In his letter, Mr. Lapping informed the newspaper that he examined the notebook of a "World in Action" team member and telephoned Air Commodore Hine's office in January. A note written by a journalist at the time shows that Air Commodore Hine's telephone extension was sought but that he was not available at the time and a deputy took the call. Three requests were made, and while I am sorry to go into this detail I do so because it adds verisimilitude to the story about an approach being made. The three requests were that they wanted an interview, they wished to film a NATO war or maps table and they wanted to know whether a copy of the TSR 2 aircraft was still in existence.
The person who took the call, and whose name has been given in confidence by Mr. Lapping to Air Commodore Hine, said he would ring back as soon as he had

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the answers to the questions. He rang back the following day saying that the requests for the interview and for a film to be taken of the maps table had been refused; and, so far as the TSR 2 was concerned, he told the journalist that on the day after the cancellation of the project all the aircraft had been destroyed with blow torches, although one fuselage could still be seen at an RAF station.
My noble friend will I think agree that there is ample evidence to show that an approach was made to the RAF. Perhaps it should have been followed up and further telephone calls made at a higher level. At any rate, Mr. Lapping thought he had done his duty by making that approach to Air Commodore Hine and that it was the end of the story when he received that refusal from the deputy. So much for that part of the argument.
Undeniably, far less information is given to us—here I agree with Lord Kinnoull—than is available to the general public in Germany and to members of the Bundestag in particular, and I suggest therefore that it is not possible to reach any firm conclusions about the roles and capability of this aircraft. In the RAF it is wanted for two perfectly distinct kinds of mission; it is wanted for deep strikes behind enemy lines to isolate the battlefield from reinforcements and the same variant is used for strikes against enemy shipping, and then later on we need the ADV, the air defence variant, for defending the United Kingdom against enemy bombers.
In regard to the first of those roles, the programme carried some remarks by Mr. Richard Burt who thinks that the Warsaw Pact forces are designed to win what is called a short war; that is, their forces will all be in the front line; that they will attempt to occupy the maximum possible amount of space in Western Europe within the shortest space of time; that therefore, in order that NATO should counteract this threat, we in turn need to concentrate our fire power on the battlefield, and that it is a waste of time spending a great deal of money trying to isolate the battlefield from the reinforcements, which will not be necessary if this is the strategy of the Warsaw Pact.
Obviously that is a matter we can argue about at some length, but at the
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end of the programme there was mention of the development in the United States of the tactical cruise missile; and there was an interesting article in The Scientific American a couple of months ago discussing whether tactical cruise missiles could be excluded from the SALT Agreement. The author concluded that that would be possible because tactical cruise missiles used turbo-jet engines, whereas the strategic cruise missile used by-pass engines. The temperature of the exhaust being different in the two variants, it was suggested it would be possible in a future SALT Agreement to exclude the strategic version while retaining the tactical one.
These cruise missiles are capable of hitting a target several hundred miles away with a radius of probable error of about 30 feet. They are extremely cheap —several dozen cost the price of one MRCA—and it may well be that in the time scale about which my noble friend was speaking, the 1980s or 1990s, the Americans will have deployed weapons of this kind, and manned strike aircraft will have become obsolete. I am simply saying that that is a point of view to which one's thoughts might have been led by consideration of the remarks of Mr. Richard Burt in the programme. However much one may disagree with him, I think my noble friend will at least agree that it was legitimate for the remarks to be allowed to be expressed on a television programme.
When we turn to the air defence role, it is not disputed that the planes have to be specially modified to meet this particular British requirement. Nobody knows what the additional cost will be, which is one of the points Lord Kinnoull made; it might be 35 per cent. on top of the basic MRCA cost that we are paying, including of course the development of the stand-off missile, the Skyflash, which my noble friend mentioned. No doubt this is a great British achievement, and I was glad to read in Flight International of 9th April that the missile was already in quantity production; that the first deliveries were supposed to be taking place in April; that the missile would become operational later in 1977; that initially it was being used to arm the Phantom and that from the mid-1980s onwards it would be used for the Tornado ADV.

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The experts tell us that we must not compare the ADV with an air superiority weapon system such as the F15. The witness, Air Vice-Marshall Nicolls, appearing before the Expenditure Committee on 26th April 1976, when asked the question:
"How do you rank it "—
that is, the ADV—
"as a combat fighter?"
replied:
"It is not as good as the F15 in that respect."
But, then, we are told that the aircraft is not for the same rôle, and that the reason we need Skyflash to be developed alongside the ADV is that the missile will be released at a distance of some 25 to 30 miles from the target and will not need to engage in dog fights with enemy fighters. If, as we have discovered, this missile can be fitted to the Phantom—and is indeed going operational with the Phantom this year—why should we not continue to use the Phantom in the ADV rôle, prolonging its life into the 1980s and saving a great deal of money?
If one looked at the programme one saw that the total lifetime costs measured in the way the Germans do it—including the spares, the fuel consumed during its operational life and so on —were calculated by Granada at no less than £7 billion, a figure I have not heard from either of the two noble Lords who are criticising the programme. That is indeed a very large sum of money, and it is only right that, as the Select Committee said in its Second Report in the Session 1975–76:
"This should be extremely carefully examined before such enormous sums are committed."
The letter from Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood in the Daily Telegraph of 22nd April said that since the date of that report the chairman of the Committee, Sir Harwood Harrison, had been reassured by evidence given to this same Committee. Certainly, evidence was again given to the Committee and I have just quoted from it, but I do not think that the Air Chief Marshal has grounds for saying that the Committee or Sir Harwood himself were reassured because no report was made from the second evidence taken. The minutes of evidence were published and, at the conclusion of the hearing, the two witnesses both said that they had had recent experience of flying in Phantom aircraft—and this was a complete non sequitur to me—and that the result of
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having flown in the Phantom had convinced them that the ADV would be necessary in the 1980s. Sir Harwood, the chairman of the Committee, said that he was extremely reassured to hear that they had had this recent experience and that they were confident that the ADV would fit the requirements of the Royal Air Force in the 1980s. But that was certainly not a view which he was expressing on behalf of the Committee. I took it that, in the context, it was a kind of polite noise which the chairman of a Select Committee normally makes at the conclusion of a hearing, and I believe that the inference drawn from it in the letter in the Daily Telegraph was wholly misleading and wrong.
I hope that, having had this debate, we shall at least think more carefully about committing ourselves to very large sums of money on aircraft than we have normally done in the past. The history of the development of military aircraft in this country since the war has not been a happy one and I should not like to see very large sums of money committed to an aircraft which, when it is delivered in the 1980s, will turn out to be obsolete. I can only suggest that we should take the advice of Granada and think a little more carefully before this programme becomes irrevocable.
8.44 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in the discussions within the Liberal Party but, if asked to form an opinion upon which view I prefer, I should say it was that of the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley. The matter raised by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull tonight is of very considerable importance and the House and, I believe, the Government will be grateful to the noble Earl for having raised it.
There are three principal points which are raised by the Question. The first is the accuracy of the allegations made in the recent television programme to which the Question referred. The second is the question whether we should challenge the right of broadcasters or journalists to make these assertions, and the third is the question whether it is right in general for the Press, television or, for that matter, Members of your Lordships' House to

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parade deficiencies or shortcomings, real or imagined, in major weapons systems such as the Tornado.
I shall deal first with the accuracy of the principal assertions made in the programme. The complaints of the producers seem to me to he somewhat confused and, in some cases, contradictory, but I shall deal with them as best I can. I do not propose to deal with the criticism relating to the presentation of the programme because I have to confess that I did not in fact see the programme. However, Granada Television have provided me with a script which was very helpful and would have been even more so had not one of the critical pages been left out.
First, it was said that we could have had 600 TSR2s for the price of 200 Tornadoes. This was the inference from the words of Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris who is (or was) a gallant and distinguished RAF officer but who has, I believe, been retired for some five years. But that was never the choice before us, because we were not able to afford 600 TSR2s at the time when they were available and we should not now be able to afford the lesser number of Tornadoes that we are planning to secure if it were not for the fact that the MRCA, as it was originally called, is a collaborative venture. There was never any possibility of securing European cooperation in the TSR2 programme because that aircraft was designed specifically for British requirements and would not have performed any of the roles required by the Germans or Italians, even at inordinate expense. I believe that the principal criticism of Sir Christopher's contribution to the programme was his failure to appreciate that, with major programmes such as this, it is very often collaboration or nothing. Thus, the aircraft must be designed to be acceptable to all the partners in the project. I rather fear that Sir Christopher was the victim of highly selective or even distorted editing rather than mistaken views. It is said that he answered the questions in the expectation that they would be used in a programme rather different from that which eventually appeared.
At one point in the programme it was claimed that we had "tried to rat on
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Concorde". I am not sure what was the relevance of that but apparently we did not do it because of the costs that would have been incurred by so doing. I do not know where that information came from, but I believe that it is of doubtful propriety to make such assertions in public when the evidence must be very slender. Certainly, the transactions that have occurred over the years relating to inter-governmental negotiations on Concorde have never, to my knowledge, been made public.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, it was immediately after the Labour Government came into office in 1964. They announced that certain programmes were being reviewed. The announcement was made by the noble Lord, Lord GeorgeBrown—Mr. George Brown, as he then was. He included Concorde among the projects that were to be reviewed.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that intervention, but I must say again that I am not sure what was the relevance to the programme in question of discussion relating to Concorde. I accept that the Labour Government did indeed announce that they were reviewing the Concorde programme, but I do not believe indeed I am sure—that it never was announced that the plan, if there was such a plan, to abandon the Concorde project had itself been abandoned because of alleged costs.
It is of course true that, in order to secure participation of the European colleagues, it was necessary for the MRCA, as it was then called, to be designed to fill a number of roles. It is certainly true that this necessitated compromise in certain areas. However, if we want to consider the RAF view of how we have succeeded in meeting the varying roles and, in particular, the two roles required by our Royal Air Force, I should prefer to take the opinion of the present Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Neil Cameron, to whose speech the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, referred earlier. The Air Chief Marshal said—and I quote from a report in today's Daily Telegraph—that:
"the supersonic plane was living up to the highest expectations and fully met its specifications."
However, I do not believe that all the roles for which the aircraft is designed are as

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contradictory as the television programme suggested. For instance, the German Navy requires an aircraft to carry out reconnaisance and strike missions over the North Sea, which is not too far removed from the primary role required by the Royal Air Force. Secondly, the Royal Air Force air defence variant will have a good deal in common with the Italian requirements for an air superiority fighter. It may he that the Italian variant is itself the least successfully achieved of all the roles which the aircraft is to perform, but one should remember that the Italians' contribution to this programme is by far and away the smallest. It is some 15 per cent. if my memory serves me right.
My Lords, there are two other highly technical points which have been made. The first is that the thrust weight ratio of the aircraft is inadequate, particularly for the RAF air defence variant role. I believe that that assertion, to which I must confess I was myself a party a year or so ago here in your Lordships' House, is no longer true, as the engines have since been considerably up-rated, and indeed it is intended further to up-rate them in the near future. In any event, as I have said previously, the RAF at least are not proposing to use this aircraft as what has been called a "dog fighter".
The second technical point relates to the ability of the aircraft to fly at low level and avoid obstructions, such as masts and chimneys. It is said that the radar being developed for this purpose is unsatisfactory because it cannot detect the smaller targets. We are clearly venturing at this point into the realms of classified information to which neither I, nor, I suspect, the programme producers, have access, but I am quite happy to accept Wing-Commander Beamont's assurance that this criticism is ill-founded, and that indeed was also confirmed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Neil Cameron in his speech to which I referred earlier.
Elsewhere in the television programme it was suggested that the aircraft was too sophisticated and complicated for what an American commentator regarded as the major task for NATO; namely, the ability to stop a massive tank thrust by Warsaw Pact forces. I therefore found it surprising later in the programme for the simplification of the radar to be criticised.
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My Lords, I have posed the question as to whether it is right for journalists or broadcasters to produce programmes such as this with so little apparent regard for the truth. I must say that I cannot imagine what was in their minis, because the producers must surely have known that the impression conveyed by their programme was an unhappy one—indeed was, in my view, misleading. I do not think that we can pretend that any potential enemies are not considerably better informed on the merits (or shortcomings) of our weapons than are the general public, so I do not think that there is much mileage in the suggestion that we are displaying our weaknesses to our enemies.
However, I think that a thoroughly damaging, and, as I believe, inaccurate, programme would have been much better kept off the air for the time being, particularly since it was broadcast just a few days before the new British Aerospace Corporation came into being, and when we are all doing our best to promote the interests of our industry and that of our European colleagues. I believe that it is our export markets that are more likely to he damaged by this kind of Programme or article, but that they have no real effect on our defence effort or posture.
What we, as Members of your Lordships' House, or indeed the Government, can do to prevent such programmes is another matter. Of course if broadcasts or articles actually disclose classified information, they should he suppressed or the producers prosecuted, but there was no question of that in this We all turn our faces away from censorship, and rightly so. So we are obliged in this country to rely upon our powers of persuasion, and also the hope that the management, both in the broadcasting organisations and in the Press, will ensure that those who are entrusted with the preparation of such programmes and articles are responsible and intelligent citizens who will not lightly embark upon the dissemination of falsehoods, as we have seen alas! occasionally occur. I believe that this programme was inaccurate and ill-timed, and therefore irresponsible, and that it is therefore for consideration as to whether the producers have justified the trust placed in them.
Finally, my Lords, I come to the third question to which I alluded at the outset

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of my remarks; namely, whether it is right for those with access to a public forum, such as your Lordships' House, or the newspapers, or our broadcasting facilities, to parade shortcomings, real or imagined, in our major weapons systems and by so doing perhaps give some comfort to our enemies. I believe that, subject to the restraints of the Official Secrets Act, this does no harm, provided of course that the assertions made are genuinely believed to he accurate.
I say this for two reasons. First, as I said earlier, I do not think that the average man in the street, or indeed Member of your Lordships' House, is able to tell the enemy anything that they do not know anyway, but also because I believe that informed criticism is a helpful part of our system. I for one greatly prize, for example, the facility to ask questions of the Government in your Lordships' House relating to defence matters, or anything else. Indeed, as I said earlier, I once asked a Question about the thrust weight ratio of the MRCA, and I remember being somewhat disappointed with the Answer of the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom. Indeed, since then the thrust weight ratio of the aeroplane has been improved, and I somewhat vainly imagine that that was, in a tiny part at least, due to my Question and other similar ones in another place and in the Press.
There is one small point that I want to put now to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, I regret that I have not given him advance notice of it, but perhaps he may have the information available. There was a report in the Press a few days ago that the Canadians were considering ordering this aeroplane. I wonder whether he can give us any further information on that matter—perhaps something that will encourage us, rather than discourage us, as this programme did.
My Lords, I conclude by thanking the noble Earl again for raising this matter and giving us a chance to consider not only the points raised in the unfortunate programme, but also the wider questions upon which I have touched. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, will be able to dispel any doubts which may remain in the minds of your Lordships, and will be able to reaffirm
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the Government's faith in and support for this important project.
8.56 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I, and indeed Her Majesty's Government, warmly welcome the opportunity provided by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, to report to you on progress with the Tornado project, and at the same time relieve some of the anxieties which the Granada television programme, "The Plane Makers", may have caused—a programme, I may add, with which the Ministry of Defence was in no way associated.
The Tornado aircraft is a project of the greatest importance to the Royal Air Force. It remains the largest single element in their current re-equipment programme, and is vital not only to the defence of the United Kingdom, but also to the collective strength of NATO, the basis, you will agree, my Lords, of our continued freedom and integrity. This aircraft is also of profound importance to the health of the British aerospace industry, and to those of our collaborative partners in this venture: Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany.
The military requirement for the aircraft has remained constant since the inception of the project. Dealing first with the IDS version—the version common to all three nations—the operational rôles of this aircraft are wide-ranging. The doctrine of flexibility in response has imposed tasks on our front-line combat aircraft which extend from direct support of land forces in the event of minor aggression, to attacks on enemy surface vessels at sea, interdiction of enemy supply lines, reconnaissance, attack on reinforcement areas, and counter-air targets in response to a major aggression. At this point I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that I cannot see cruise missiles doing all these jobs. With its specialised terrain following radar, the Tornado IDS will be able to penetrate into enemy territory at very low level and at high speed, and its blind attack capability will enable pressure to be maintained on enemy forces on the ground, and for interdiction to be maintained around the clock and in all weather conditions. The aircraft, when fitted with the reconnaissance pod, will also be able to operate effectively under a very wide range of weather and light conditions.

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The Tornado IDS aircraft, which entered production last summer, will replace the RAF's Canberra, Vulcan and Buccaneer aircraft. This is the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley. With its advanced weapons and avionics and its high performance in adverse conditions, it will be very much more effective than the aircraft it replaces.
Her Majesty's Government, my Lords, are fully satisfied that this aircraft will be effective in the intended roles. Our partners' full support for the programme is an indication that they, too, are satisfied that the Tornado IDS aircraft will meet their particular requirements.
The air defence variant of the Tornado is being developed by Britain to fulfil the RAF's requirement for an advanced interceptor, and to replace its Phantoms and Lightnings. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, must not forget that aircraft, like human beings, grow old. A Phantom, in 1990, will be a very old machine indeed. Aircraft have to be replaced because, like any other man-made object, they wear out.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, does the noble Lord know that the Germans have only just ordered a large number of Phantoms?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords, but they are warm off the production line. Ours have been off the production line a long time. The aircraft—that is, the air defence variant—will be given a different weapons-carrying capability and changes to the avionic equipment, together with greater fuel capacity. With air-to-air refuelling it will be able to maintain combat air patrol for long periods at great distances from its base. The ADV, as it is commonly known, is thus well suited for its vital peace-time tasks of policing, interception and interrogation of intruders into United Kingdom airspace and, under treaty obligations, over Western Germany, and for the overt demonstration that air-protection can be given to NATO forces at sea within the Eastern Atlantic area. In wartime, it will be employed in the day/night, all-weather air defence role, armed with medium-range and short-range air-to-air missiles, together with cannon. Its radar will enable targets to be detected at long range, while its weapons will be effective against subsonic and supersonic targets
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at low, medium and higher altitudes. Good progress with the development of the ADV is being maintained, and Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the aircraft will meet the RAF's exacting requirement for an interceptor.
I shall turn now, my Lords, to the performance of the aircraft. There have, of course, been problems during the development programme, but this is inevitable where new and advanced technology is involved. The progress with the flight test programme is, however, good: 11 aircraft have now flown, and something over 900 hours of test evidence accumulated. Perhaps the best indicator of progress I can give, my Lord.—and this is a point already made by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, I think—is to announce that recently a speed in excess of Mach 1·9 was achieved in level flight by the second prototype (in fact, quite an early member of the family of preproduction aircraft) fitted with engines appreciably less powerful than the production standard. Her Majesty's Government have every confidence that the IDS version of the Tornado will meet the planned performance requirements of the three collaborating nations. That is a point that I hope will reassure the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. That is a maximum speed of over Mach 2, which is the target for the aircraft. Despite the threat posed to an attacking aircraft by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery defences, we believe that the Tornado's ability to penetrate enemy territory at very low level and at high speed will enable it to operate effectively.
My Lords, if I may be permitted to do so, I shall expand for a moment on this aspect. As is usual in military matters, there are no simple absolutes in the shifting equation between offensive and defensive systems; improvements in one can be matched by improvements in the other. Modern SAM systems can offer substantial threats to attacking aircraft, but the aircraft can counter these in a variety of ways; for instance, by attacking the systems themselves or by jamming or deceiving them. I am satisfied that the Tornado, with its sophisticated electronics equipment, in conjunction with its impressive low-level day and night. all-weather capability, will be fully able to penetrate the SAM and AAA defences which it is likely to encounter when attacking its chosen targets.

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Here, perhaps I may answer a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the interoperability of the two weapons disposal systems, or management systems as I think they are called. Although the engineering of the systems in the British and German versions will be different, there will be full inter-operability. Therefore, for example, RAF aircraft will be able to re-arm with German weapons at a German base, and vice versa. I should add that the Tornado IDS stores management system will be available on time for incorporation in all production aircraft; so that is a problem overcome. The RAF requirement for 385 aircraft of both versions has remained unchanged. When the IDS version enters service in the early 1980s and the air defence variant a few years later, they will represent a substantial improvement to the qualitative strength of the RAF's front line, as well as satisfying the defence needs of the United Kingdom.
Your Lordships will realise that to have developed a separate aircraft for each of the several roles would have been prohibitive in cost terms. The multi-role concept of the Tornado, as well as conferring operational flexibility, is undoubtedly the most cost-effective manner of meeting our requirements. The same can be said for collaboration with West Germany and Italy, especially as regards the sharing of development costs and the economies of scale achieved with a longer production run. Furthermore, the deployment of a single type of aircraft in large numbers—over 800—with three major NATO air forces will bring considerable economies in logistic and support costs.
It is at this point that I should like to interject my own views on the assessments that have been made this evening as to the total cost of the project. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, pointed out, you can calculate the cost of a project at the cost-one-off of a single aircraft, or you can calculate it at its whole-life cost. But in addition I think you must take into account the fact that enormous economies can be made due to the fact that three major countries in the NATO defensive alliance have a common weapon with a common infrastructure and interchangeability throughout the whole of the Western front of NATO. Although I think it
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would be impossible to quantify that, we know very well that the uniformity of the infrastructure of the Warsaw Pact is one of its greatest strengths; and I have been urged at this Box, as have many other noble Lords, that this whole business, not only of interchangeability and inter-operability but of standardisation, is one of the ways in which we can use most effectively our resources for the defence of the alliance. So when we talk about the cost of one Tornado aircraft, we must think of it in terms of 800 spread over the whole Western front.
The question was asked by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley: What is the signicance to this country of the Tornado programme in terms of employment? He is quite right. At the peak of production, we estimate that about 36,000 people will be employed in about 100 United Kingdom companies; and the figure in Europe is larger.
Indeed—and this is one of my final points—the Tornado will be the largest aerospace project in this country for the next decade. It is also one of the best examples of successful international cooperation and will do much to strengthen the solidarity between ourselves and our European allies. There is nothing like working together in a common project to get into each other's minds and to feel that one is a member of a team. I met this in relation to German members of the Tornado project. In other respects, technically, in administration and in cost, given its complexity, the project is going better than anyone could have expected. This is a source of great satisfaction to those who work on the project and to those who will fly in the aircraft itself.
Before I come to my final paragraph, I should like to enter for a moment into the discussion as to whether or not this is an opportunity for us perhaps to comment on a television programme and whether we might also, as has already been done, express an opinion, because of the power of television as a medium of information, on the need for great responsibility within the television industry in order to ensure that the facts placed before people who have no methods of judging whether those facts and opinions are correct, may not discourage them and turn them away from their support of what is a great international project for the United Kingdom and our allies.

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It is my own impression, from the little I saw of all this, that the television company behaved in a most slovenly and irresponsible manner. You do not ask the RAF to send someone along on the basis of a single telephone call. Indeed, the way I myself received the same communication as other noble Lords received this evening, tempts me to echo what the French say: Qui s' excuse's accuse. The company had been slovenly and were in fact giving encouragement to the Queen's enemies and to the Queen's economic advisers—and that was the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley. I do not think it will affect our relations with our allies or our enemies, but it may affect the export capabilities of the project of this aircraft.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, can the noble Lord say why the representatives of the RAF refused to take part in the programme? Does he not think that some share of the responsibility rests on those persons who refused to allow the interview to take place?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if an understrapper from a television company talks to an understrapper of the RAF, you do not expect air marshals to jump. These things must be done seriously and properly. This is not trivial journalism as to whether the Tornado has more sex appeal than other things; it is a very serious subject and must be treated seriously.
May I touch on the point about Canada made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne? As the noble Lord has said, the Canadians were one of the original participants in the Tornado project. We know that Canada has remained interested in the aircraft as one of the possible solutions to her own re-equipment programme. We
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are doing all that we can to assist our NATO partner towards a decision in this direction. The contact was there at the beginning, it is being maintained and I hope it will be fruitful. This debate has been useful and I have no hesitation in reaffirming the confidence of Her Majesty's Government in the Tornado, and I know that this House will support me in that.