Lords Sitting of 26 June 1981

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

Updating of Cruelty to Animals Act
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: 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 they still expect to introduce proposals for the updating of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 in the next parliamentary Session.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the Government intend to update the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 when parliamentary time permits. Its proposals for carrying this forward will be announced at the appropriate time.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is a question of when parliamentary time permits, or whether the Government are waiting for the outcome of the deliberations in the Council of Europe? My Question is asking whether the Government intend to press on notwithstanding difficulties that may arise at the Council of Europe.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the answer to both parts of that supplementary is, yes; we are waiting for a conclusion of the proceedings in the Council of Europe and we shall then, of course, need legislative time.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, are we to understand that the measure, when it is introduced, will not place any ban on foxhunting?
Lord Belstead: I think we must wait and see how we go, my Lords.

Animal Slaughter: Religious Immunities
11.8 a.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: 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 are aware of the escalating exploitation of the immunities granted to religious minorities under our Slaughterhouses Acts, and whether they will advise local authorities concerned with planning applications and/or applications to license premises for slaughter of animals for export to seek the
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agreement of the applicants to the pre-stunning requirements which are imposed on all other slaughterings in this country.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I am aware of some apparent increase in the use of religious slaughter, but the exemption from the pre-slaughter stunning requirement in the Slaughterhouses Act applies to any slaughtering of animals for the food of Jews or Moslems provided that the conditions which are laid down in the Act are met. Use should be made of this exemption only where it is clear that the customer requires for religious reasons that the animals are not stunned.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the immunities in the present legislation derive from the first Slaughterhouses Act in Scotland in 1928, which were put there expressly to protect the position of Lascars, members of the crews of ships in the ports of Scotland; yet 50 years afterwards the protection of a minority religious persuasion in this matter has become big business and is becoming bigger business? Are the Government indifferent to this? Do they think it is in accordance with the intentions of Parliament throughout the period of this legislation? My Question asks whether they are prepared to advise local authorities to seek agreement with applicants for licences or planning permission to accept the pre-stunning conditions. Would the Minister kindly answer that?
Earl Ferrers: Parliament has discussed this question on a number of occasions, my Lords, and it has always come to the conclusion that it is correct to make such exemptions for the purposes of those religious minorities who require them. Parliament deliberately permitted this method of slaughter for those reasons, and it is not the Government's duty to seek to influence either the increase or restriction of this method of slaughter; the local authorities are the enforcement authorities.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, some local authorities have passed by-laws by resolution to regulate the method of slaughter of animals in their areas, and those by-laws are subject to confirmation. One particularly, near Kidderminster, has already been passed and is awaiting confirmation. Will the Government confirm by-laws passed by local authorities which seek to regulate the method of slaughter of animals when granting licences in their areas?
Earl Ferrers: It depends on the nature of the by-law and the nature of the request, my Lords. The Ministry of Agriculture's duty and the duty of the Government is to see that the laws which Parliament has provided are permitted, and those laws are that there should be this form of slaughter for those people who require it.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, in giving further thought to this matter, may I ask the noble Earl to bear in mind that a very distinguished physician, the late Lord Horder, after a detailed investigation,

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pronounced the method of slaughter by Jews as the most rapid and merciful way of killing he himself had witnessed?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is an interesting observation of which I was not aware and I am grateful to the noble Lord for informing me of it.

Vocational Training
11.11 a.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 what progress they are making with their new training initiative to provide improved educational and training facilities for both young and adult workers.
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, the Government were glad to be associated with the consultative document A New Training Initiative which was published on 21st May by the Manpower Services Commission. The document invites all those concerned with training to forward to the commission by 30th September comments and indications of actions they have taken in furtherance of the document's objectives. The response so far has been generally favourable.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that helpful reply, may I ask if he can give any indication of the numbers of people who are likely to take an interest, their age range, and the types of jobs that might be available?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, what the Government are trying to move towards is a situation here such as that which obtains in Germany, where far fewer young people are seeking employment because far more are going on into some form of vocational education.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, on a related matter, may I ask the noble Earl to say when the Government will be in a position to respond to the Manpower Services Commission's request, referred to by the Prime Minister in another place yesterday, that provision should be made for more places under the Youth Opportunities Scheme? Can he hold out any hope of more being done for the increasing number of young peope who have been unemployed for more than 12 months?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, to answer the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary, my previous answer indicated a fair degree of hopefulness. As I said, we are concentrating on the school-leaver—the 16 and 17 year-old—on the principle that far too many people in this economy seek real paid employment in that age group in relation to our competitors.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether consultations have taken place with the relevant trade unions, and whether the maximum cooperation is being achieved in that area?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, there are some disadvantages to decentralised bodies such as the Manpower Services Commission, but one of the advantages is that they are tripartite bodies, as it were, and the consultative document which we have welcomed is of course backed by the trade unions, and I am very glad that that is so.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, does not the noble Earl agree that the principle of the return to voluntarism, which is enshrined in the Employment and Training Bill, due for Second Reading in your Lordships' House early next week, is likely to make it more difficult to implement the new training initiative? Will the initiative not need some statutory framework?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, will no doubt be aware, I shall be moving the Second Reading of this very Bill on Tuesday of next week, and so perhaps this point had better wait until then.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, would the noble Earl care to comment on the fact that people taking advantage of the Youth Opportunities Scheme are paid only marginally more than they would receive in unemployment benefit? Does not the noble Earl agree that, since additional costs are incurred in the Youth Opportunities Scheme, to that extent there is a disincentive towards taking advantage of the scheme?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the "marginally more" referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, is in fact £8·25, and it seems to me that when you are 16 or 17 that is quite a lot of money.

Wimbledon: Low Flying Aircraft
11.15 a.m.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what air traffic control permission was given to the twin-engined light aircraft which circled Wimbledon Village at a height of 1,000 to 1,200 feet between 15.05 and 15.25 hours on Tuesday, 23rd June.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, I understand from the Civil Aviation Authority that air traffic control clearance was given for low flying over Wimbledon last Tuesday. The authority granted an operator's request for an exemption from Rule 5(1)(a)(ii), of the Rules of Air and Air Traffic Control Regulations 1980, to permit flying at not less

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than 1,000 feet within one nautical mile of Wimbledon for the purpose of taking aerial photographs.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer, and I have no doubt that the safety factor here was taken good care of. But may I ask the noble Lord about the nuisance factor? The aircraft involved was a small, twin-engined aircraft, much noisier than a modern, large airliner. As the noble Lord said, the purpose of the aircraft being there was to take photographs of the tennis. Will the noble Lord ensure that the following factors are taken into account if there is any question of further permission being given? If I may say so to noble Lords, Wimbledon tennis fortnight, with its garden party atmosphere, was at one time an asset to the area. Today, in its commercial form, it is what many residents would call a damn nuisance. Will the noble Lord ensure that residents are not now subjected to unnecessary noise from the air, in addition to congestion on the ground?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry that Wimbledon no longer attracts the approval of the noble Lord in the way that it did in former years, though I am not sure that that is due only to the low-flying aircraft to which he refers. However, I can assure the noble Lord that these permissions are granted only in exceptional circumstances, and indeed I think that this permission was the only one granted during this particular period.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord why a helicopter could not have been used?
Noble Lords: It would be noisier.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the operator applied for permission to use his own particular aircraft, which was a fixed-wing aircraft. But as the noble Lord will appreciate, a helicopter would doubtless cause even more disturbance.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there might be further applications for use of small aircraft of this kind by those who would wish to be able to watch the tennis without having to hear some of the language used by the players?
Lord Trefgarne: That is an interesting suggestion, my Lords, but they would then have to listen to the language of the noble Lord opposite.
Lord Morris: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that a more peaceful way of taking aerial photographs would be by dirigible?
Lord Trefgarne: Doubtless, my Lords.

Business of the House
The Lord President of the Council (Lord Soames): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 43 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with for
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the purpose of taking the Local Government and Planning (Amendment) Bill through all its remaining stages this day.—(Lord Soames.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Licensing (Alcohol Education and Research) Bill
11.18 a.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. In moving the Third Reading, I wish briefly to place on record my thanks to all those who have made the Bill possible, and so enable a sustantial fund of frozen assets to be unlocked and put to useful work in the battle against alcoholism. Such a seemingly simple and worthwhile objective in a Bill is deceptive as to its simplicity of drafting and to the achievement in reaching an amicable financial agreement among interested parties.
My thanks go, first, to the committee of my noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale, which first highlighted the problem in 1972; then to members of the Brewers' Society for their responsible agreement and good will; to the department of my noble friend Lord Belstead for its hard work in grappling with the complexities of drafting and advising outside interests; and not least to my honourable friend the Member for Harrogate, for choosing to introduce the Bill in another place. Along with other noble Lords, I wish the objective of the Bill well in the future. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the Bill has the universal approval of the House, and I should like to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on his introduction, control and steering of it through the House. It deals with the hardy perennial of the compensation authority funds which, when I was sitting in another place, came up almost monthly. It is excellent that it has now been resolved by agreement among all the parties concerned, and we on this side of the House wish those involved in this valuable work every success in their endeavours.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, perhaps I may add the voice of the Government to this. I think my noble friend and the honourable Member for Harrogate in another place are both to be congratulated on the work they have done in steering this Bill through both Houses. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones: it really is very valuable that these funds have been unlocked and I am sure they will now be put to good use.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

Local Government and Planning (Amendment) Bill
Report received.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, with the amendments.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. On this Motion I should like to say a word of thanks to my noble friend Lord Avon and to my noble friend Lord Bellwin, and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who unfortunately cannot be with us today. We have significantly improved the Bill during its brief passage through this House, and it will make a valuable contribution. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Nugent of Guildford).
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

Indecent Displays (Control) Bill
11.22 a.m.
Report teceived.
Clause 1 [Indecent Displays]:
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 7, at end insert—
(" ( ) In this Act "indecent matter" means matter (other than the printed word) whose unrestricted display is seriously and widely offensive by reason of the manner in which it portrays or deals with or relates to sexual, faecal, urinary functions, or genital organs.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first amendment standing in my name. The amendment that I moved at the Committee stage was based on the recommendations of the Williams Committee. They wanted to get rid of the word "indecent" altogether and they thought it better to substitute a term with a wider meaning—the word "offensive". That appaers not to have been acceptable to the sponsors of the Bill, either in another place or in this House, so I am reconciled to the inclusion of the term "indecent". The question, however, is whether we attempt to give some statutory meaning to the term for the information of the public, traders, producers, and the courts themselves.
I think myself that the term "indecent" can mean different things to different people; and it is desirable, I think, to draw the line on a moving canvas. We do not know what any court will say about the word "indecent" because, quite obviously, there have as yet been no prosecutions on this basis. Indecent displays have not been unlawful up till now. There have been laws about the import of indecent material and about the use of postal services for the carriage of indecent material, and these matters have been dealt with under Acts of Parliament, but indecent material seized by the Customs and Excise or stopped by the postal authorities may be, and in many cases is, of an entirely different character. We are concerned in this Bill with display, with what people can see, but elsewhere the construction of the word "indecent" has included the content and not only what it looks like.
I make no apology for trying to make a better Bill of the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. I do not think your Lordships' House should be indifferent to the quality of legislation merely because
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it has something to do with bad people and bad things. Most law has to do with the protection of rights and with the administration of justice impartially as between one citizen and another, and I do not dismiss those who are in the business of so-called indecent displays as the enemies of society or as corrupting the minds of the young, or anything of that kind. We may object to them, we may thoroughly dislike them, but they are entitled to be treated as fairly as they can be under the law we make.
That is why the substance of this amendment has been under debate for the last eight years. It really began when the Society of Conservative Lawyers sought to find an answer to the question, not only of indecency but of obscenity, which had been bothering people for some time before they produced their report in 1972. The chairman of the Society of Conservative Lawyers' committee on this subject was Sir Michael Havers, who is the present Attorney-General; and other members of the committee were Mr. Rees-Davies, a Member of another place, and Mr. Temple-Morris, also now a Member of another place. They proposed a new offence, and so far as I can tell this is where the idea of a new offence originated. That new offence is the one upon which this Bill is based.
It was to deal with the public nuisance of indecent displays, and their recommendation was that any material displayed in a public place shall be indecent if it is grossly offensive to the public at large. That was the attempt of that committee, under the conspicuous auspices of its chairman and members, to find the answer to this question; and it was along similar lines that the Williams Committee ultimately developed their own recommendations. But in between was the introduction by the Government of the day, through the noble Lord, Lord Carr, who was then Home Secretary, of a Government Bill on this subject, among other things—the Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill of 1973.
However, in 1973 the Government did not accept the recommended formula of the Society of Conservative Lawyers. Indeed, the Home Secretary of the time was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 5th October 1973 as giving his explanation of why no attempt was made to define or draw the boundaries of the term "indecent" or "indecency" in the Government Bill. He said—and I am quoting:
"On the whole, we have found in this country that the courts do not find it at all difficult to decide as a matter of common sense and current standards of taste what is indecent and what is not indecent. The courts, whether magistrates' courts or courts with judge and jury, are better determiners of current standards than any precise words I can possibly think of to write into an Act''.
That seems to be the philosophy that has prevailed in the introduction of legislation since, with the exception of the Bill introduced by Mr. Rees-Davies as a Private Member's Bill in the last Parliament, who followed his own recommendation as a member of the Society of Conservative Lawyers.
In any case, the Government Bill of 1973 fell. The Labour Government decided not to take it up, the Labour Home Secretary Mr. Roy Jenkins said that the word "indecent" had lost its useful meaning for this purpose and his view was confirmed by the Williams Committee. Nothing was done by the

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Labour Government. They appointed the Williams Committee and it reported in October 1979. The present Government have had the benefit of the Williams Committee report since October 1979. There has been no debate on that report in another place; the Government have done nothing to introduce further legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has shied away from the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and by myself that it is about time the Government tackled this more comprehensively in Government legislation; he has not responded to that suggestion at all. The Government seem to have left it to the hazards and frustrations of the Private Member's Bill procedure.
We now have the same problem before us, and I think that we must consider what we do about the word "indecent". Do we leave it alone, to the construction of the courts and to the judgment of the public or of those concerned with it, including the police and the traders; or do we try to give some fuller, statutory meaning for the purposes of the law? Except for once, we have not introduced into our law-making the word "indecent" for 21 years. Never since the Obscene Publications Act 1959 have we introduced the word "indecent" into any legislation except at the time of the introduction of the Protection of Children Bill which was passed into law in 1978. When that was done I thought that on all sides we would agree that the need to legislate for that particular purpose at that particular time was so urgent that we could not wait for the Williams Committee to complete their report before taking action upon it.
The Protection of Children Bill 1978 was a makeshift, stopgap measure. All the attempts that were made to define the word "indecent" for the purpose of that Bill were rejected on the grounds that it would do to be getting along with and that the more comprehensive review of the situation would not be long delayed after the report of the Williams Committee. But, alas! nothing has been done. There is no promise of Government action, no expectation of it, I should imagine; and I think the House today has to decide, probably conclusively and for a long time to come, whether the word "indecent" shall be given some statutory meaning. I know that it can be argued that we do not need telling what indecency is; we know what it is. It is like some other things: we know it when we see it.
But that is never a satisfactory basis for legislation unless we are satisfied that the absence of a definition would be more useful and more convenient than the existence of one. But it is not what Ministers say; it is not what members of the public say, or even what Members of Parliament say as to what a term means in legislation; it is for the courts to decide. If the Acts do not give any meaning to words, the courts themselves put meaning into words used in statute law. That is why we have such an array of case law. We have had some judgments in the past, not in this context, although relating to indecent material under Post Office restrictions and also the right of seizure by Customs and Excise. Some judges—and I quoted them at the time of the Committee stage—have said that the word "indecent" goes very wide. Others have said that it is what the average man thinks is
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indecent. We all know that there is no such thing as the average man. There is, however, a consensus of opinion, if it is obtainable that can be used for the purpose of the construction of words in a court of law.
This amendment is an attempt to define the boundaries of those matters which we find indecent for the purposes of this Bill. If we want the meaning of "indecent" to go beyond what many people think it means, then we must use a different word. That is why the Williams Committee suggested using the word "offensive". The version of my amendment on the Marshalled List, I should explain, is derived from two sources. First, I have taken some words from the formula of the Williams Committee which were defining the wider offence of offensiveness and narrowed it down to relate to what I believe is intended by the word "indecent".
I have also drawn from The Times newspaper, a most reputable source (as your Lordships know) of wisdom and guidance in these difficult matters. I came across a leading article in The Times of 3rd November 1973. That article was about the Government's own Bill at that time. It dealt with displays which were then in Part II of the Government's proposals. I quote:
"… it is not clear that indecency will be any easier to recognise".—
having referred to the difficulty of recognising obscenity—
"On balance it was probably wise not to attempt to provide a definition in the Bill and to leave it to magistrates and juries to use their common sense; although the Bill should be amended to make it clear that the indecency must be of a kind that is seriously and widely offensive …".
That is why I have included in my amendment the term suggested by The Times newspaper—which was not adopted in the course of the discussion on the Bill of 1973, and, as the Bill fell, it was never tested finally in Parliament. The words "seriously and widely offensive" could be combined with a somewhat clearer definition of what, for our purpose here, is indecency—and we are dealing with display and not with the written word or with the human body.
I think that it should meet the common sense of the matter and should give more precision to what we mean by the term. This definition should meet the wishes of the sponsor of the Bill in another place, because when he was asked whether he had in mind violence as being covered by the word "indecent" in his Bill, he said that the sort of display that this Bill is about does not include violence; so he evidently distinguished indecency which might be regarded as flowing from offensive portrayal of violence and that (although he objected to it as we all do) was not within the scope of this aim under this Bill. It is "indecency" in its narrower sense that the sponsors of the Bill had in mind. To me, that seems to be fully set out in the amendment itself. I am not going to dwell on the variety of public attitudes to what the public see. We all have our different responses according to our upbringing, our outlook on life, our sense of what is becoming, our sense of taste, whether we are puritans or whether we are liberals. We all have a different approach to what we see. I believe that is why it is desirable to say in the statute that when one is looking

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at something that offends, it should be fitted within this broad definition of what is unlawful in order to provide a case for legal proceedings.
There are some extraordinary differences in the public's attitude. How on earth can we justify putting on television, for example, a picture of the foulest murders, even for children to see, and yet be affronted by an act of love on the screen which in marriage is called a sacrament, but outside marriage is called a sin, but which never seems to be called indecent by those who look at the matter broadly? Yet, many people regard it as grossly indecent to portray an explicit act of love anywhere. As I have said, these matters are for individuals to decide, but I believe that your Lordships' House should now decide what are the actual offences to which the sanctions apply.
The working paper of the Law Commissioners, No. 50, states in Paragraph 9:
"Legal rules imposing serious criminal sanctions should be stated with the maximum clarity which the imperfect medium of language can attain."
I hope your Lordships' House will continue to believe that common sense is not so plentiful on the Bench, in the courts, among the public, and among traders and retailers, that there is no reason to tell people what is indecent. I therefore move this amendment with some confidence, because this is perhaps the last genuine attempt to improve the Bill in this respect and to end the controversy over an issue which has been under debate for the past decade.
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, for once I disagree with my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby about this amendment. Perhaps I am wrong, but I regard this Bill as a good Bill but a limited Bill. It was not intended that this Bill should cover the whole area of pornography; it was meant to help children by stopping displays that children might see. It seems to me that this amendment is making very heavy weather of this Bill, at a serious time in our country. The amendment would not work. I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister, am I not right in thinking that while this is a good Bill, it is the Government's intention that it should be a limited Bill, with limited objectives, and not a wide-spreading Bill at all?
11.44 a.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, as I am responsible for this Bill, perhaps I should say a few words in reply to the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, has so aptly asked. The noble Baroness is perfectly right: this Bill is of very limited scope; it deals simply with indecent display and nothing more. The greater part of the interesting and perceptive speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, was directed towards a different definition of the offence of obscenity. As those of your Lordships who have read the Williams Report will know, that particular aspect is the one which the Williams Committee was dealing with in the definition which it suggested. In this context, which is a much more limited context, the general thought up until now—certainly in the House of Commons—has been
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that "indecent" was the best description, and one well understood.
In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, was incorrect when he said that this would be a new departure, because this is already the law. True, it is the law based on very ancient laws of the past century, which are couched in archaic language and are somewhat confusing. The effect of the Bill now before your Lordships is not so much to make new laws as to consolidate and modernise old laws. The word "indecent" has been well understood by the courts for many years. I should like to refer to a leading case, also mentioned at Committee stage, which was that of R. v. Knuller in 1972, from which I quote Lord Reid:
"Indecency is not confined to sexual indecency: indeed it is difficult to find any limit short of saying that it includes anything which an ordinary man or woman would find shocking, disgusting or revolting".
That understanding, apparently, is the correct one in the courts, but of course I agree with the noble Lord when he says that it is a matter of taste and of judgment what definition one puts on the offence.
If one were talking about a case of obscenity, I would entirely agree with the noble Lord that something much more precise was needed. We have all seen the failure of the 1959 Act. We know that a new definition is needed and that the law has really collapsed. Just the word "indecent" certainly would not be sufficient. Perhaps I may give the noble Lord opposite this crumb of comfort about the Government's intentions, about which I know no more than he: it is that the House of Commons is in fact debating the Williams Report today, so perhaps we shall hear something that will indicate that progress is being made. At any rate, it indicates that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is seriously concerned about this matter. I know him to be seriously concerned, but he needs some kind of consensus behind him before he tackles what everybody knows to be an extremely controversial and difficult subject.
I am with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in wanting to see a clearer, stronger and better definition of obscenity and a review of the law in that connection to cover the major offence; but in the contest of this Bill we are dealing with the very narrow offence of "indecent displays", particularly in regard to sex shops and, to some extent, to newsagents, which is a very narrow context indeed. I should also like to make the point that if we change the definition today in the way that the noble Lord has suggested, and given the very limited scope there is for a Private Member's Bill, it is almost certain that there simply would not be time to debate something which has already been very fully debated and upon which agreement was reached in the end. If the whole debate were opened up again, it is almost certain that the Bill would be lost. I personally feel that that would be a serious loss, because we have the advantage of knowing that a great many of the sex shops which have been creating the major offence are in fact conforming with the new law already. They are already taking their displays out of their shop windows, putting them in a back room, and putting up a warning notice.
We are making progress—it may be a narrow form of progress, but it is progress and it is putting indecent

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display out of sight of parents and of young children walking down the street, where the children's curiosity is aroused by seeing these unpleasant displays—something which undoubtedly disturbs very many people up and down the country, Having given this very interesting topic a further airing, before a fuller House than that at Committee stage, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, will feel that it would be better now to withdraw his amendment and to reserve his fire until we have a chance in the future, with Government legislation on the major issue, to deal with the matter again. I believe that 75 per cent. of what the noble Lord said would be entirely appropriate in that respect, because there must be a clearer, stronger, and more comprehensive definition then. In that spirit, I hope that the noble Lord will feel that the right thing to do now is to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Robbins: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships' House for more than a moment. I confess to very great sympathy with the object of Lord Houghton's amendment. But I suggest to him that the wording is liable to run into very great danger, especially in regard to the reference to genital organs. My recollection of the history of the arts is that all sorts of people through the centuries have made fools of themselves by painting out depictions of genital organs. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, at one stage a painting by Michelangelo was thus defaced.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I think that it is time that somebody gave some more unqualified support to this amendment. I think that my noble friend Lord Robbins is wrong in his reference to genital organs. Lord Houghton's amendment talks about the manner in which it depicts and not just simply the display. When we are creating yet another new criminal offence—because hardly a day seems to go by when we are not doing so—we must be extremely careful to be precise in order to avoid injustice. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, said that everybody is more or less agreed on what is indecent. I submit that indecency means a thousand different things to a thousand different people.
At the risk of possibly offending some of your Lordships, let me give an example. Let me take a case of that well known "soft porn" cliché to be seen practically every day in television commercials which shows a girl in a bikini or otherwise scantily clad eating a banana or possibly a cylindrically shaped bar of chocolate with a look of rapturous ecstasy on her face. A child—whom this Bill is presumably designed first and foremost to protect—is not going to be offended because a child will not understand the implications. For the same reasons, elderly people, brought up in a pre-Freudian era, will not be offended. However, many people between the ages of 16 and 60 may be offended to some degree and it is certain that some of them will find it positively indecent.
If this Bill goes through as it stands and they are allowed to bring private prosecutions, they will do so and some poor shopkeeper will have to bear the consequences, while at the same time scenes such as I have described can be viewed every day on the films and television. For that reason, I think Lord Houghton's amendment deserves support.
Lord Sainsbury: My Lords, I hope that this amendment to my honourable kinsman's Bill is rejected. This is another attempt to attach a definition to the word "indecent". I think that there are many advantages in keeping the simple word "indecent" in preference to any other word or phrase. This has been discussed, as your Lordships know, at great length in the other place. It has been discussed at great length here at Second Reading and Committee stage.
I think that "indecent" is a word that is part of our everyday language and therefore its meaning is easily understood. It is defined as offending against recognised standards of decency. Also—as has already been mentioned—the word has been used in legal statutes for over 100 years. As the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, has just said, the Bill is an attempt to simplify the laws of indecent display. To introduce new words and phrases untried in the courts and without precedent would be a complication and not a simplification. The more one tries to define the term in this most controversial of areas, the greater difficulty the courts will have in applying it, leading to lengthy litigation and the frustration of the purpose of the Bill.
Concern over the use of the word "indecent" sterns from the rejection by the Williams Committee of the term; but it cannot be said too often that the Williams Committee was considering a much wider subject. Their brief was to review the laws concerning obscenity, indecency and violence in publications, entertainment and films as well as displays. I regret the confusion that arises from bringing the Williams Report in all the time. I hope your Lordships will reject this amendment.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I promise the noble Lord the Minister that I shall not prevent for long the speech which I know the House will want to hear him make. At all stages I have tried to make it clear that, this being a Private Member's Bill, if I venture to address your Lordships, it is upon the basis that it does not bind any of my noble friends sitting behind me. I feel that the House in the main wishes this Bill well. It hopes that the evil that it is trying to deal with—and it is a small and limited evil—will be dealt with as soon as possible, without the complication of definitions which may cause lawyers greater difficulty than the simple word which has stood the test of time in our courts ever since it has been discussed after the Vagrancy Act 1824.
There is only one other observation that I wish to make. There is no need at all, in my judgment, for floods of mercy to pour out regarding the difficulty that some sex shops or other such vendors may be in in deciding whether or not they are creating an indecent display. I have said before regarding this Bill that if they are in doubt then they can err the wrong way. Personally—as I have said before—I am not prepared to weep because they have erred the wrong way.
It is in that spirit that we ought to look at this amendment. We ought to get on with passing a Bill which most of us would like to see on the statute book as soon as possible.
11.59 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I shall detain your Lordships for only one moment for this reason: the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, opened up the point that the formula used in the Williams Report was really dealing with a much wider ambit than the much narrower scope of this Bill. That point was taken up with great effect by my noble friend Lord Nugent and has been referred to other by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury. I shall not therefore go over that ground because it would be tedious.
The reason I wanted to intervene was that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said let us be accurate. As I understood the noble Lord, he felt this amendment would lead to accuracy. I wonder whether that really is so. I would suggest that in one very important respect the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is asking us to consider now differs from the amendment which the noble Lord tabled at Committee stage in that it would be necessary under this amendment for the prosecution to prove that the matter was "seriously and widely offensive". That would place a significantly greater burden on the prosecution than either the Williams formula of "offensive to reasonable people" or the noble Lord's formula which he put earlier of "offensive to the public at large and to the general public". I do not know whether it is the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, to want to make the test even harder, but certainly it does so and I have not heard any arguments put forward as to why it does.
There is one other point I should like to mention. For some reason, which again has been unexplained, the amendment does not deal with the printed word. I think the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, judging by the remarks he made at Second Reading, may have assumed that the Bill only applies to pictorial material. That is not the case; this is a Bill which also deals with the display of things which would be indecent which are printed. If that really were the intention of the noble Lord, we ought to be made aware of it and to be sure that that is exactly what the noble Lord means. So, on grounds of detail as well as on grounds of principle, I hope the noble Lord will feel it would be right to reconsider the amendment.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I shall not take more than a couple of minutes now on this amendment. It may be that we are in search of a solution to the insoluble, but that suggests that this is probably a bad Bill anyway. If one cannot legislate in terms which are meaningful in the construction of the Statute Law for the purposes of public consumption and the administration of the courts, then we are probably on bad legislation and we ought not be be passing a Bill of this kind at all. But that is not the point before the House this morning.
The Bill has reached this stage. I do not think that what happened in another place is necessarily conclusive from our point of view. We are a revising Chamber and are entitled to look closely at what the other place may do, especially on matters as difficult and complex as this. I can only leave it to the judgment of the House—which, after all, is the function of your Lordships' House. I would be content if that judgment were expressed by the noble Lord on the
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Woolsack collecting the voices on this amendment. But I think that, having proceeded so far, the noble Lords present this morning—and they are more numerous today than Members were when we last considered this Bill—would be able to express a judgment which would be regarded as the voice of the House of Lords in this matter.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Clause 2 [Powers of arrest, seizure and entry]:
12.4 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 25, at end insert—
("(4) A list and form of receipt of goods seized under this section shall be given by the police to the occupier of the premises from which the goods were removed not later than five clear days after the date of removal.").
The noble Lord said: This, my Lords, is a much simpler amendment which refers to a matter which has been the subject of grievances expressed by many people whose premises have been raided by the police under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. This Bill provides in certain circumstances for seizure and for compulsory entry and seizure. I think those who have their goods taken away under the right of seizure given to the police are entitled to a receipt for the material which has been removed.
In the case of raids under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the volume of goods removed can often be very considerable indeed. If something is obscene there may be hundreds or possibly thousands of copies of that publication on certain premises. The whole lot may be seized, and in some cases the police have almost cleared out the shop to make sure they have all the incriminating evidence needed against the trader. But here we are dealing with a much narrower circumstance. An indecent display is usually not a voluminous display involving thousands of pieces of material and publications. It would be within bounds to expect the police to account for it within a matter of days after removal. I therefore propose in the amendment that—
"A list and form of receipt of goods seized under this section shall be given by the police to the occupier of the premises from which the goods were removed not later than five clear days after the date of removal".
I think that the man whose goods are taken is entitled to know what was taken away and to have a list of it, so that he may know the loss he has suffered and exactly what material has been removed from his premises and which may be used in evidence against him. I beg to move.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: I think I can, my Lords, give the noble Lord some comfort in this matter. First, as I think he knows, the seizure in this instance is not the wholesale seizure he has spoken of under the 1959 Act, which would be a seizure under a court order where the material is to be confiscated. "Seizure" in this case is to take a sample sufficient as evidence to bring a prosecution. Therefore, the amount taken is tiny and will not endanger in any way the shopkeeper's business.
In addition to that, I am told that the practice of

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the police varies a bit from one place to another, but certainly the Metropolitan Police do just what the noble Lord is asking for. They do require station officers to issue receipts as quickly as possible on the request of the owner and, of course, after a court case the owner would get the material back again. I think there is some objection to putting a minor provision of this kind into legislative form, especially, as I say, when it is the normal practice of the police to give just such a receipt.
In addition, I am told that if the shopkeeper concerned has not received a receipt and did not receive his goods back again, he has an action against the police for the recovery of his property under the 1897 Act, and of course if his case was made out he would get a judgment from the court in his favour. So I hope that the noble Lord will feel that in practice his point is substantially covered and therefore it will not be necessary for him to press the amendment now.
Lord Sainsbury: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. I am told there is no precedent for introducing such a clause. In other legislation of this nature the requirement is not made. I am also informed that the Law Commission has this procedure on receipt under review, and therefore surely it would be better to wait for the outcome of their deliberations if changes are thought necessary. Would it not be more effective to pass separate legislation rather than tinker with it in this Bill? I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, this is not a substantial matter, though it is important. I do not wish to trespass on the time of the House any longer than is necessary, because there is an important amendment to follow. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.10 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
"Protection from vexatious prosecutions
(". Proceedings for an offence under this Act shall not be instituted except with the consent of a justice of the peace.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I told my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney that I would move his amendment in his absence. I seem to have allies on this Bill who disappear on the appointed day. In the Committee stage, I stood in for two other noble Lords on both sides of the House. I now stand in for my noble friend Lord Jenkins. I am, however, in some difficulty about this amendment in that it is in the wrong order, from the point of view of my own strategy on protection from vexatious prosecutions. It would be inconvenient to debate this amendment and have a decision on it, and then go on to the amendment that follows. So with the utmost affection for my noble friend Lord Jenkins, now I see the place of his amendment on the Marshalled List, I am bound to give first preference to my own amendment which follows. In the circumstances, may I move and, at the same time, beg leave to withdraw the amendment?
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Derwent): My Lords, I think it would probably be more in order if the amendment was not moved.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby moved Amendment No. 4:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
"Protection against vexatious prosecution
(". Proceedings for an offence under this Act shall not be instituted except by a constable, a local authority, or the Director of Public Prosecutions.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now come to the question of the right to prosecute. This carries further the amendment that I put down in Committee. I then proposed that a prosecution should be instituted only by a constable of the rank of superintendendent or above. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, in an intervention in the debate on the matter, suggested at col. 300 of the Official Report for the Committee stage on 10th June, that this was an unusual condition to put into the law on proceedings; that he was unaware that constables below the rank of superintendent had been barred from undertaking prosecutions in any other connection and that, therefore, it was probably an unsuitable proviso to make in this Bill. I took that straight away. He asked that I should consider the matter further, which I have now done. So I propose to put the right to prosecute in the hands of the police, to follow their normal procedure, but I have added the local authority and, as a longstop, the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I am not expecting for a single moment that the Director of Public Prosecutions would have to intervene, except in the most unusual circumstances, but I have put him there in case he may be needed. It may be that I need not put him there to be needed, and that he is probably there all the time. I am afraid that I am not sufficiently familiar with the structure of judicial proceedings to know. Nevertheless, he is there in my amendment.
The circumstances in which he might come into play would be if, for some extraordinary reason, there was default or neglect on the part of the police to prosecute in a case which was a clear one for proceedings, and the DPP might undertake the prosecution himself. There, again, I do not know whether that is a feasible hypothesis. But if there is any difficulty about having the DPP in, there will be no difficulty in taking him out.
The other addition that I make is the local authority. I am advised that the local authority come into the scheme of proceedings in a number of connections. The local authority, being responsive to local opinion and open to representations from citizens, might respond to pressures of that kind rather more freely than the police. The police might feel that they have a national duty, a national obligation, not to bow too readily to the Methodist conscience, or any other conscience, somewhere, but to look at the matter more broadly from the point of view of the national duty of the police. In those circumstances, a local authority could under my amendment themselves undertake proceedings. The important point about this amendment is the deprivation of the right of private proceedings by the ordinary citizen. In another place—
Lord Hale: My Lords, my noble friend was rather less clear in the last few minutes than he normally is. Am I to understand that the local council of Sodom and Gomorrah, or of Sodom or Gomorrah, are to be entrusted with the investigation of their type of offence, while what my noble friend, with rather less than his usual discretion, was referring to as the Methodist conscience might be found in some of the hills of Wales? Does it not rather mitigate against the proposition of even justice? Unless he has himself dismissed the Director of Public Prosecutions, could he tell your Lordships—because some of us do not know much about the Director of Public Prosecutions—how many cases of various kinds go through his hands at the moment, how many he sees himself and how many are dealt with by staff, who may or may not be able, and may or may not have special qualities, but certainly do not have those which were specifically required when the institution of Director of Public Prosecutions was established by this House?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, that was a long intervention. I thought that my noble friend had taken over the rest of my speech. I am not familiar with the district council of Sodom and Gomorrah, so I really cannot say what they would do, if they were entrusted with the authority which this amendment gives them. As for the Methodist conscience, I had one myself for a very long time and felt able to refer to it without offence to others. But I would certainly withdraw that reference, if it caused my noble friend or anyone else any deep feelings of distress.
I thought I was being clear enough in giving a local authority power to institute proceedings on behalf of the citizen. After all, if the citizen is to be given the right of taking proceedings, an elected local authority could well stand in for the citizen or for a number of citizens in embarking upon a prosecution under this amendment, if they felt it was justified and the police were, for some reason or another, not ready to take it up. That is really what I am driving at here. I am anxious not to deprive the layman entirely of the right to take proceedings. But I thought it was better to transfer the right of the individual citizen to an elected local authority. That seemed to be the repository of local democracy, and it would express a more collective view than might be put forward by one single individual or small groups of individuals. That is pretty clear. It seems to me to be a rational development of my argument that it is better not to have a private citizen taking proceedings in a difficult and delicate matter of this kind. At the same time, however, we must protect the interests of the citizen to have proceedings taken on his behalf. That is why to give this right to the police and to nobody else, apart from the ultimate right of the Director of Private Prosecutions, might be felt to be unsatisfactory.
We have to be careful about the activities of pressure groups. Here I must tread warily, I have no doubt. But there are pressure groups around which have assumed responsibility for public morality, for public taste and so forth. They have, under present circumstances (and would have under this Bill) the right of personal prosecution: not under the Protection of Children Act 1978 (they are all ruled out from that)
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but under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, where the right of individual prosecution still remains and has been exercised in a few notorious cases. We have seen how laws which we thought had long ago gone into limbo have been revived by ingenious organisations on behalf of citizens, and proceedings have been taken upon them. When I was in another place I remember the activities of the Lord's Day Observance Society who were the praetorian guard over the observance of what was called "the English Sabbath". Many people who wished to embark on activities on Sundays found themselves being proceeded against by persons sponsored by the Lord's Day Observance Society.
One has to be careful about harassment, threats of prosecution, blackmail, almost intimidation. Some horrible things can happen when people get worked up over things of this kind. I am seeking in particular to protect the retailer from having people come into his shop, complain bitterly at what they see, create a fuss and a row, threaten proceedings, walk out again and probably go off to the police. As my subsequent amendment suggests, some people make threats and do not carry them out, which may be even worse than if they carry on with the threat of proceedings. I think that the arguments of the Williams Committee, which everybody can read on pages 128 and 129, against retaining the right of private prosecution are very persuasive indeed. In this field we ought to continue some protection against those who might be accused. We did it under under the Protection of Children Bill in 1978. I think there are strong grounds for questioning whether this right ought to be retained under the Obscene Publications Act 1959.
I hope that the House will give serious attention to this matter. We want indecent displays to be banned, but we do not want to set people upon those who probably believe that they are not transgressing and expose them to unreasonable action and offensiveness by citizens at large. We must not cloud our judgment by a feeling about those who are making fortunes in Soho out of the sex shops. This is a different problem. These are traders throughout the country who are in the hands of producers, wholesalers and publishers.
We find as time goes on that people are taking a bolder line not only with the written word but with the portrayal of things on television. The word "bloody" used first a year or two ago on television, was a shock, but it is now commonplace; you hear it every day on television. Even more offensive words are now coming into common currency. I think I have heard one word perhaps only once on television but I have certainly seen it in print a number of times. Who is to know what will be the next move forward by editors, producers and wholesalers in whose hands the trader largely carries out his business? He cannot be sure what stage the level of public taste has reached in his particular locality and he must tread warily. But at least he has to try to carry on his business. We see many things. The covers on the most classical of works are suggestive these days. You look at a cover and may hope or expect to find something interesting inside, but you find it is the same old thing that you read when you were at school. These are the problems. We must be realistic and take notice of them.
Therefore, if I may say so with the greatest respect,

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to let the individual citizen loose to function and operate under this Bill can be accompanied by the infliction of some very unpleasant experiences and injustices upon traders and retailers. Therefore, in a Bill of this kind, at this date, I hope the House will not think that we should, as it were, reintroduce the right of private prosecution. We struck it out of the 1978 Bill on obscenity and indecency relating to children. When it was put there in 1959, which was a long time ago, it was in a much more comprehensive measure than this narrower Bill. In the circumstances, I think it would be retrogressive if we were to restore the right of private prosecution by including a new offence in this Bill when we are satisfied that the law can be enforced and that adequate steps can be taken to protect the public from this nuisance without the aid of the private citizen. We have got it in the police. Under my amendment we would have it in the local authority, too. But if the House were of the opinion that it should be left with the police, I would settle for that.
It must remain for my noble friend's own judgment as to what he may wish to do with his amendment which we have just passed over, if the need should arise later on. However, if my amendment is carried, or if any hope is held out that this matter can be dealt with by means of a more satisfactory amendment at the later stage of the Bill, then I should feel that it was unnecessary to proceed with at least the next amendment on the Marshalled List. I beg to move.
12.29 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, as the noble Lord will remember, we had a very long and interesting debate on this point during the Committee stage. Once again the noble Lord has put the arguments forward very cogently. The first point which I ought to make to the House is that the right of private prosecution is a common law right which belongs to every citizen of this country now, and always has. Nothing is being put into the Bill. What the noble Lord is proposing is that that common law right should be removed. Therefore, the onus is absolutely on his shoulders— and broad they are—to show why it should be removed.
The noble Lord referred us to the Williams Committee as being his authority for removing this right, but that committee was discussing the offence of obscenity, which is a very different offence from that which we are discussing now—this narrower offence of indecent display. Obscenity, because it goes so wide and covers so many things, has in it a big element of censorship. It is because of that element, according to my understanding, that the Williams Committee felt that these safeguards should be put in and that prosecution should not be brought without reference either to the Attorney General or to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
But in this particular case we have this very limited offence of indecent display, and I really do not think that the noble Lord has made out a case for this right to be taken away from the private citizen—a right that he now has. The danger on which the noble Lord focused our eyes, of newsagents being persecuted by pressure groups, is not a reality. It is not the scene that we are discussing today; it is not the scene that we all know exists in the country. These things are always
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a matter of balance and we have to use our judgment. Of course I do not want to see small newsagents being persecuted and pursued by anybody. The fact is that under the law as it now exists action could be taken. The private citizen may not be very familiar with 19th century vagrancy Acts on which he could proceed, but he has the right, and the fact is that these prosecutions are rarely brought. They are onerous for the private citizen to bring; they are costly and probably pretty unpleasant, so people do not readily take them; but it is a safeguard if the police do not act.
I acknowledge that the noble Lord accepts that something is needed here, and his gesture of including the local authority in his amendment shows that he is aware that something is needed, but of course the local authority is often the police authority. There are some areas in the country where a local authority will say, "We will leave that area; let them do what they like there"—and they jolly well do, and the sex shops proliferate. There are cases—not often, because our police forces are very good, but there are cases—where the police are suborned by pornographers. There is huge money in this business, as noble Lords may well know. Pornography goes right up to the margins of crime—indeed it goes into crime. So we are in a field where action does not always take place, and if the private citizen has the right (which he now has) to take action if he feels that the police are not taking action, I should have thought that that was a reasonable safeguard to preserve the balance in this matter.
The noble Lord will remember that we had an interesting short debate when he boldly took up the amendment tabled by his noble friend Lord Donaldson (who again was not present), which was a proposal that instead of the offence being one of indecency it should be of public nuisance where an offensive display existed in a shop. It is quite an interesting thought that these sex shops which display themselves at the side of the street are creating a public nuisance; they are polluting the place. It is that thought that I have in my mind, that the private citizen, going along the street with his children who are upset by a display, is dealing with what is in fact a public nuisance. He is allowed to go and complain about that and to "have a go" at the local authority, and they take action. It is necessary in this particular field that the private citizen should retain his status. We are not giving him a status; he already has one. He should retain that status and be allowed to take action where he feels that the authorities are not willing to do so for reasons of their own or are not courageous enough to do so.
I say again, the private citizen will not do this often, because it is a jolly unpleasant job to take on a prosecution of this kind. Therefore, I would urge your Lordships not to take this right away from the private citizen. It is his right now and there really is not a case here. We are not dealing with an element of censorship. The kind of Acts where Parliament has taken this right away from the private citizen are Acts where there has been some element of censorship or major importance which was at stake and therefore that safeguard was needed. In this case nothing of the kind is at stake; we are dealing with a simple matter of display. Therefore I very much hope that although the noble Lord has heard these arguments from me before without being persuaded, on this occasion he

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may be persuaded and may feel that he should withdraw his amendment.
12.35 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I should like to support this amendment. I do not share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that if this amendment is not carried there will be no vexatious prosecutions. Indeed, I believe that if it is not agreed to the small shopkeeper will be at the mercy of every latter-day Savonarola in the country. I believe he will be intimidated in the same way that small businessmen and businesswomen are intimidated by—
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, merely to remind him that Savonarola was burnt in the end.
Lord Monson: Well, my Lords, we shall see what happens in this case. I believe they will be intimidated in the same way that so many small businessmen and women are intimidated by the unfair dismissal proceedings. I know of several cases where small businesses have paid substantial sums of money to dishonest, lazy or grossly incompetent employees in order to get rid of them, because they could not spare the time to go to court and did not want the publicity, even though they were in the right.
The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, has spoken about the right of citizens to prosecute and particularly in cases of pollution and public nuisance, but I am sure that he was not correct in saying that the citizen has an unqualified right to prosecute. For instance, if the owner of a large dog allows it to foul the pavement outside my house I believe I have no right to prosecute. Indeed, it is not even an arrestable offence. I know this because I once asked a police constable to arrest a dog owner who allowed his dog to foul the pavement outside an old people's home where many partially sighted and disabled people passed by, and he replied that he had no power to do so. I considered the offence in question to be positively an indecent one, and there was no right for the citizen to prosecute there or for the police constable to arrest the owner of the dog. So I do not think the right is unqualified and I consider this amendment has a great deal of merit.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, I should like to oppose this amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for drawing attention to the right of the citizen to invoke the criminal law as an important constitutional right and constitutional safeguard. Clearly, this is a right which from time to time has to be limited in, for example, such matters as national security, but I think we should look very closely at any attempt to widen the deprivation of the citizen of the right to invoke the criminal law. In fact I think it was a mistake to do it with the Protection of Children Bill and I think there were other cases where it could well have been left where it was—the citizen with his right. Otherwise we run the danger that this kind of matter will be decided behind the closed doors of officialdom rather than in a court of law.
Lord de Clifford: My Lords, I should like to oppose this amendment as well. I am very touched by the faith that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has that local authorities will act on behalf of the citizen. May I give a small example? On one occasion I discovered two dead sheep in somebody's water supply, so, filled with indignation, I rushed to the local authority—in fact to the environmental health authority—and they said, "How very interesting! We cannot do anything about that. You will have to proceed under the Dogs Act 1906". I have a feeling that if you go to the local authority you are liable to get an argument like that thrown at you. Further, the basic principle of whittling away citizens' rights to my mind is wrong. Far too many people are trying to do it on every side. I stand up for the citizen's having a right under common law to do exactly what he considers fit.
Baroness Hornsby-Smith: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford. I rather think that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, drives a coach and horses through the purpose of this Bill, because if somebody is outraged by a display which he sees and, possibly misguidedly, voices his opinion loudly enough for the owner of the premises to hear it, and then whips off to the local council, presumably, if this amendment were passed, an officer of the local authority would have to come and view the display for himself. By the time he got round to that the whisper would probably have gone round; the display would probably have been removed, or an alternative one which did not apply would have taken its place. Equally, if you have to bring in a policeman, if he is uniformed he will be seen a mile off and, again, the display will be temporarily changed.
I am very surprised that the noble Lord, who in many debates is so vehement about the rights of individual citizens, should seek to exclude them in this matter on something which is of very real concern to people who live in London or any of the other great metropolitan cities where these unfortunate displays are more common, particularly when one considers the many tourists who come here and are appalled at what they see in some of these displays. I think it quite wrong that it has to be limited so closely that it would cause great evasion, and take heaven knows how long, because if it was thought to be a fairly serious case by the local authority once they had seen it—if they did see it—then presumably they would have to refer it to a senior officer; it might even go before a council committee. The result would be not what the noble Lord requires, that we should take action, but such delay that action would never be taken.
12.42 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I do not want to detain the House, but I really feel I can hardly keep altogether silent. I must join with those who are appealing to my much revered friend Lord Houghton, to do the decent thing, to use that word as interpreted earlier, and withdraw this amendment. I agree very much with what was said just now by the noble Baroness opposite. Anyone who tries to tackle pornography or indecency or any such unpleasant activities is met with the argument, "You must not

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interfere with liberty". Now the boot is being worn on the other foot. We are told that this fundamental right of the citizen must be interfered with. There is nothing more fundamental in the way of interference with liberty that can be imagined.
Let me base my appeal to my noble friend Lord Houghton on another aspect. He spoke sharply, though he tried to restrain himself, about people who set themselves up as supplying the moral conscience for the nation. No one does that more effectively than the noble Lord, who has aroused our sympathies for animals, in this House and elsewhere, so intensely. In another connection, where I felt he was misguided but where he himself was animated by the highest moral principles, who has done more for the cause regarding abortion than the noble Lord, Lord Houghton? He has fought those causes, he has stirred up the moral conscience when it happens to suit his high ideals. May he not do the same for others?
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I want to tell only briefly of my own experience. In 25 years as a magistrate I have only had two cases of indecent pornography in large windows, both brought about by private citizens for the reason that my noble friend Lord Nugent gave. Both felt that not only they but their friends' children were being harmed by these two particular window displays. The matter was brought to court, and I am happy to say that the magistrates felt overwhelmingly that there was a case and the offender was fined. Without the private prosecution it might have gone by default.
Lord Morris: My Lords, my main objection to this amendment lies in this question. How come that a local authority could possibly know better whether a person is harmed than that person himself? Why is it that nanny must always know best? I agree entirely with all other speakers who have spoken against this amendment, and I believe it would be very wise to withdraw it.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, while listening to the debate I have wondered why I am torturing myself so much. I am obviously espousing unpopular causes in your Lordships' House this morning. But there are some things that I feel keenly about. One is that matters of this kind should go through the mincer of Parliament with critical care so that we know what we are doing. We are looking with every care to the creation of new offences, with a new set of penalties, with new rights of seizure, entry and so forth. That, I feel, is the inspiration behind this good-natured martyrdom.
This amendment really deals with whether or not the private citizen shall have the common law rights of proceedings. That is the real issue here. As the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, said, the citizen has these rights under the common law and the question is: Do we deprive him of these rights in this connection? That is the issue. If we decide to do that, we can consider where the rights shall go, whether they shall be extended or rest wholly with the police. We did, of course, take the common law right away from the citizen in the Protection of Children Act 1978. We were not dealing there wholly with a public nuisance;
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we were dealing with a different form of pornographic activity in the use of children, which could be private. One had to be very careful in connection with that Bill that we did not give prying people rights of proceeding against possibly innocent people; before prosecutions were taken care had to be exercised as to whether it was a suitable case coming within the provisions of the Act. I acknowledge that freely.
However, we do do it where we feel it to be necessary. That is what that experience showed. So the question is, should we do it now, feeling it to be necessary, or even strongly desirable? I think that is the issue. The judgment of noble Lords is, with great respect, as good as mine. I have said all I can usefully say about the dangers of the individual citizen being allowed to retain his common law rights, and we may have to see whether they are exercised with discretion and with suitable restraint.
Another reflection which occurred to me during the morning was this. Does it not show how remiss the Government have been by keeping their hands free of this difficult problem in the two years they have been in office, leaving it to all of us to find a solution one way or another? It has been left to the Private Member's Bill procedure; it has come to your Lordships' House so that we may fight it out between ourselves. The Government ought to have given more attention to this matter earlier. However, they have had a lot of others things on their hands and their burdens appear to be getting heavier and heavier. Again, in the circumstances, I do not think I ought to insist on your Lordships traipsing through the Division Lobbies, but I would ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to put the Question and collect the voices.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
12.50 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
"Right of trial by jury
((" ) A person charged with an offence under this Act may elect to be dealt with summarily, or be tried by a judge and jury.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6 which deals with the right of trial by jury. I confess that I am not very clear as to what are the rights of a citizen, an offender, to have a trial by jury under the provisions of the Bill. However, I want to make sure, if I can, that they are there. After all, the jury has been referred to in many comments on this Bill and related matters. We hear such things as, "the jury will decide", and, "it is a matter for the jury to consider". I think that when it is a matter of judgment which goes little more deeply than a matter of taste then one can rely on the judgment of a body of people rather more so than on the judgment of a few. Therefore, I think that an offender, a person charged with an offence, should be able to elect to be dealt with summarily or to go before a jury. If I can be assured that such a right is there then there will be no need to pursue the amendment. However, I feel that that right should exist.
I have not had time to investigate all these matters, but I may be told that if a person is convicted in a magistrates' court his right of appeal would take him before a jury. That might be a satisfactory safeguard against a conviction that might be challengeable. In any event, I move the amendment feeling that the right of trial by jury is also the right of the citizen in cases of the criminal law where a sentence of imprisonment or a heavy fine, or both, may follow. I seek a more expert opinion on this particular dilemma than I can myself express. I beg to move.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord the assurance that he requires, that the defendant does have an absolute right under the Criminal Law Act 1977 to opt for trial by jury. It is for the magistrates to decide whether they would wish to take the trial summarily; if they think that it is a lie defence they then put to the defendant whether he would wish to be tried summarily or prefer to go for trial by jury. He then has the choice. Therefore, the option and the right are firmly his. He cannot opt to be tried summarily if the magistrate decides that in its nature it is a serious offence and should go to the higher court; but he always has the right to opt for trial by jury if he wishes it.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Representation of the People Bill
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

Horserace Betting Levy Bill
12.55 p.m.
Lord Crawshaw: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. This is not the occasion for a long speech or, indeed, to repeat what I said on the Bill on Second Reading. But I thought that it would be appropriate to thank your Lordships for the general support which you have given the Bill which, although small, will do something to enhance the sport and industry of racing which certainly in certain quarters is hard pressed.
The Bill itself deals with only two aspects of the racing scene—that is, the assessment on the bookmakers being based in future on current turnover rather than on past turnover, and to put right or to fill a loophole which has been apparent for the last few years about the question of the legal avoidance which I explained at an earlier stage in the Bill. As I said three weeks ago on Second Reading, the Bill has been in the offing for at least 18 months and is patiently awaited by racing interests. It may not be as comprehensive as some noble Lords would like, but having been thwarted last year it was my belief, and it has been my belief during the passage of the Bill, that a bird in the hand is worth two or more in the bush. Having been
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stuck in the stalls once, when I saw an opening this time I have been keen to kick on for home as fast as possible. I hope that in so doing I have not been discourteous to your Lordships' House.
It is my hope that as we have not been tiresome or demanding to the Government on this occasion we have earned some good marks in the eyes of the Government both, at the Home Office and at the Treasury. So in a world in which in political circles we hear a good deal talked about the heritage of this country, I should like to point out that racing in this country is very much an important part of that heritage which is in constant need of attention and consideration. A great deal of manpower is involved in the training, particularly of racehorses, and there is no need to tell your Lordships that to keep a race horse in training takes possibly half of one man's time. It is obviously very labour-intensive.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, reminded us on Second Reading that the Exchequer received some £172 million in 1979–1980 from racing, whereas only about a tenth of that figure came back into racing itself. Many of us believe that that is a rather small proportion. I wish gently to probe my noble friend Lord Belstead. On Second Reading he said that the Government in due course expected to initiate legislation as a result of the proposal of the Rothschild Commission. I hope that possibly he might take the opportunity to develop that today because I know that it would be of tremendous interest—if he felt able to do so—to those concerned with racing in this country. I think that that is all I need say this morning, except again to thank all those who have helped with the Bill both here and in the other place. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Crawshaw.)
12.59 p.m.
Lord Wigg: My Lords, I had hoped that I would be able to follow the Government's spokesman because, following the debate last week, I wrote to the Home Secretary pointing out that there were one or two matters which ought to be questions of common agreement. First, it was apparent that it was necessary some time in the future to look at the membership of the Levy Board, and that it would also be necessary to look at the composition of the Bookmakers' Committee. But the main reason why I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has not spoken is because I wanted to hear what the Government had to say about a statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, to whom I also wrote, who argued that it was a very important point—it may have influenced a number of noble Lords in the way in which they voted—that if the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peart, had been carried, it would have put members of the Bookmakers' Committee, who would have become members of the Levy Board, in the position of hearing matters that would be regarded as confidential by bookmakers, who felt that they were aggrieved and who appealed. He went on to argue that had the Bill been amended in that way, it might well have dissuaded bookmakers who were aggrieved from appealing because they might think that confidential information could go to their competitors.

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I want to be absolutely courteous to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, and I mean no disrespect to him because he was in a difficult position; he was standing in on a Home Office brief. It was perfectly clear to me—and, after all, I have been around these parts for quite a while—that this particular piece of nonsense had its origin in the Levy Board. I must tell noble Lords why. The situation that would have existed had the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peart, been carried, is precisely the same as existed in the original legislation. It was there in Section 28 until Section 28(1) and (3) was repealed by the 1969 Act. I speak with just a little authority on this because I had something to do with getting the 1969 Act on the statute book. Therefore, there was no change in the situation. Why the Government should go out of their way to accept—without question, it seemed to me— statements of this kind, can only be because they were short of arguments and something was better than nothing.
But there is an additional reason. The truth is that until I became chairman the practice in the Levy Board had been that when matters were referred to the Bookmakers' Committee for decision under Section 28, they were considered not by the Bookmakers' Committee but by the secretary of the Bookmakers' Committee. Therefore, when the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peart, suggested that members of the Bookmakers' Committee should be brought into consultations, that of course was an innovation—it was something that had not happened before. Perhaps it should. But the practice which had existed, like so many other practices which had existed, was ultra vires. It was unlawful for matters to be referred to the secretary of the Bookmakers' Committee because the statute required a reference not to the secretary but to the committee itself. That may have been a good or a bad thing. I want to point out that in the original legislation it was the Bookmakers' Committee, and if the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peart, had been carried, it would have been the Bookmakers' Committee again. Therefore, for the Government spokesman to come here and use the words, "Oh this is very important" was, to my mind quite wrong.
I have not received a reply to my letter from the Home Secretary; that does not surprise me. But be it noted that the only provision of the 1963 Act which involves, as it were, a breach of the law, is the disclosure of information, and in all the years that I have been associated with this business, I have known only one example. That was not so very long ago, in connection with the matter which this Bill seeks to put right. It was a disclosure to the Daily Mail of the name of the firm that was seeking to avoid which the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, described as unscrupulous.
Although it seemed to me perfectly lawful to avoid, there is a difference between "avoidance" and "evasion". This information could have come from only one of two sources. It could have come from the firm itself or it could have come from the Levy Board, because they were the only people who knew. I had thought that today the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, would get up and say, "Yes, perhaps my noble friend Lord Sandys did overstate the case for, in fact, it was the practice". I suspected that it existed, but when I became involved in the controversy over the 1969
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Act, I established the facts that I am putting to noble Lords.
Of course, I should like to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Belstead—I presume that he speaks with the authority of the Secretary of State—whether he accepts the view that there ought to be legislation to deal with the question of the membership of the Levy Board: but this will be in the future. Of course, it may be a long way in the future because I am sufficiently a political animal to know why, when Lord Butler—Mr. Butler, as he was when he was Home Secretary—introduced this legislation in 1960, he did it at the beginning of a Parliament. That is the time when you deal with matters of this sort; not half-way through, when the Government in office have the death rattle, because this Government are clearly running up to a major electoral defeat at some time in the next two years; they have a mandate for nothing and will not touch anything that is controversial. If any noble Lords care to lay me a little odds as to whether there will be the legislation which was promised following the Rothschild Report, I will take them on.
En Passant, I noticed that in the debate last week the Jockey Club had done its whipping. There were either 15 members of the Jockey Club, or those who might be regarded as nearly members of the Jockey Club present and so they had quantity. But I was fortified by one fact: I had quality. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, the Chairman of the Gaming Board, who had been Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and who knows the background to this legislation, voted with me. So my numerical defeat was made up in the absolute certainty that in the long run I am on a winner.
In his discretion the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, decided to speak after me so he will have time to think what to say. I cannot speak again, but that is not quite the end of the story. I should like to detain the House for just a minute or two and ask noble Lords to bear in mind that this is the penultimate stage—we have yet to pass the Bill—in a legislative process that goes back over 21 years. It started, of course, with Lord Butler, the Home Secretary, faced with a major problem, not of racing but of the consequences of illegal betting. In the Betting and Gaming Bill Lord Butler was not concerned to help racing; he was concerned with the effect of illegal betting which was so widespread and so rampant, and with the mafia activities which flowed in its train. The Government concerned had given a pledge at the election to do something about it, so there was that Bill.
No sooner had it started on its way, in late 1959 and early 1960, than the Jockey Club lobby got to work. Lord Butler was threatened—the same as the Home Secretary has been threatened this week or in the last few weeks—with pressure from the Jockey Club. The backwoods were searched, the levies were all found and told to come and talk to the Home Secretary. The point was put, "If you are to legalise betting, we want our snout in the trough". It was as blunt as that. This embarrassed Lord Butler because when he took the proposals to the Treasury, in the form that they were made, they would have none of it because it was hypothecation.
So a way round was found through the energies of two people; the late Lord Crathorne was one, and my

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dear old friend Jim Chuter Ede, Lord Chuter-Ede, was the other. The Peppiatt Committee was set up. I played some part in it because I had been drafted on the Racecourse Betting Control Board because nobody else wanted to go, and I was a member of a small committee of about two with the late Sir Dingwall Bateson, and we carried out all the negotiations.
The formula that was arrived at was spelt out in the Betting Levy Act, particularly in Committee on 14th December 1960. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is not here because he was the Government spokesman at the time, as indeed my noble friend Lord Peart was leading for the Opposition. At that time I was in opposition to Lord Peart, who supported the Government. Indeed, I had to be, because I had been a party to the negotiations, and Lord Peart was particularly interested to get the vets represented in a form which cut across the principles that were agreed.
What were they? It spelt out that the Government agreed—and they knew the words we used—on the assumption, indeed on the understanding, that the Jockey Club are going to play a dual role. They were going to represent, quite properly, the interests of the Jockey Club, but they are going to represent the wider interests as well. On that assumption, their membership of the Levy Board was increased so that, with the ultimate amalgamation with the National Hunt Committee, whereas the Bill provided one in the Act there were three Jockey Club Members.
There was something else. Lord Butler said—and he had to say this, because the Treasury would not have agreed otherwise—that the last word about the distribution of the levy would rest in the hands of the Secretary of State. That is given effect to in two sections of the 1963 Act: Section 24, which laid down the three conditions on which money could be spent, and Section 25 which requires that any schemes must be approved by the Secretary of State.
From the very word "go" the Jockey Club entered into an undertaking which they had no intention whatever of carrying out. There was no attempt by the Jockey Club to honour the agreement to represent any wider interests, until I became chairman of the Levy Board and reminded them of their responsibilities. Furthermore, from 1st September 1961, until I became chairman in November 1967, every single penny that had been spent was unlawfully spent because no applications for approval were made to the Secretary of State. This was the situation.
The reason for that was that the Jockey Club—and it is partly reflected in the speech of Lord Crawshaw this morning—believed that all the money generated as a result of taxation belonged to them. Indeed, when I became chairman I was told by the senior steward, "Your job is to collect the levy. It is for us to decide how it is spent". I told him shortly and briefly—I can sum it up; I was too polite to put it quite like this to him, because he is a nice man—"Go and get stuffed. I was appointed by the Secretary of State to carry out an Act of Parliament and that I shall do, or I shall resign". Of course, the Jockey Club were already trying to find a way round this. They set up the Benson Committee—that is a nice lot of old rubbish —because that was another way of handing over levy money to a private body. But that was not enough.
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They had another go. They instructed the Economist Intelligence Unit, who said they did not need any more money.
It has some practical effects. I am going to deal with one or two of them. The first is that the Jockey Club got £614,000 to rebuild the Rowley Course at Newmarket. Part of the deal was the grounds of the National Stud. This is where we come in with the pheasants. I regret that the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, is not present. I mentioned the pheasants, for this is quite a significant matter. When the Levy Board acquired the land, it was clear in the lease that they had the lot. But not to the Jockey Club—oh, no.
When I became chairman, as a result of the fact that no lawful action had been taken to send the schemes to the Secretary of State, I gave instructions that no money was to be paid unless it was covered by a resolution of the board; and not only a resolution of the board, but whatever the money was being spent on had to have the Secretary of State's approval. So in 1971, a bill came in from the Jockey Club—because they had no modesty —asking for £190, or round about that sum, for the salary of a gamekeeper cum vermin killer.
The staff could find no record of any approval, so they refused to pay it. It was referred to the National Stud Committee, and to me as chairman. I gave instructions that an investigation should be made, and drew it to the attention of the chairman of the National Stud Committee, who was a member of the Jockey Club. He was a man for whom I had a great deal of respect, the late Lord Crathorne. I asked the Levy Board during the week to release to me the minutes relating to this matter.
On 12th July, 1971 the administrative officer of the Levy Board visited the National Stud and came back and this is the note:
"I went round the whole of the Stud with Colonel Gray, mainly with an eye to seeing the extent of under-utilisation occasioned by the existence of maintaining a shoot at the Stud.
"There is no doubt whatsoever that large areas of the Stud have been and are being rendered unusable for Stud purposes by the existence of the shoot. Cover belts of long grass and purposely planted kale were in evidence, although Colonel Gray had that morning given instructions for a 50-acre paddock to be cut and for the pheasant coops to be removed and the pheasants to be released.
"The effect of these long grass cover belts on the appearance of the Stud was one of shoddiness."
That was sent to me. It was considered by the chairman, and here are the minutes of the National Stud Committee, the chairman being Lord Crathorne. In it he said:
"Although the arrangement to meet half the cost of maintaining a gamekeeper/vermin controller at Newmarket has been in existence since the Board acquired the lease at Newmarket, there is no record in the Board's files that the Board, as opposed to the staff of the Board, were aware of this."
It then goes on to say that this fact had been revealed, and came about because of the new accounting procedure, which I introduced; and that was because no board authority existed. That was me carrying out the duties which Parliament had imposed on me when I became chairman.
Now Colonel Gray, who was the director, and the board's administrative officer, went into it, and they came forward with proposals: the discontinuation of the shoot; savings of the cost of a half-share of the gamekeeper running at £157 a quarter; the cost of

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running and maintaining and the eventual replacement of the gamekeeper's car. He was given a car at the public expense by the Jockey Club. Then:
"The maximum utilisation of Stud land in that:—Kale and Lucerne would no longer be grown for 'cover '. The absence of rearing-coops would make available an additional paddock … The tree plantations serving as shelter belts would be restored —considerable damage has been sustained by the current practice of allowing grass to grow rank, thereby disturbing hundreds of young trees."
So it came to an end, and on 16th October 1971 the board received a report from the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, which I supported, and the matter was put right.
I noticed in the Sporting Life yesterday a letter from Mr. Burrell, who said it was only a question of a few eggs and half an acre. In fact, on the first day they released a paddock of 50 acres, so the House can judge who is right and who is wrong. In terms of cost, it was many thousands of pounds, not taking into account the damage to the National Stud; and it all comes about, of course, because the Jockey Club wants its cake and eats it as well. I should mention that among the members of the board who approved what I did and supported the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, was the noble Lord, Lord Manton, who was in the House last week—I do not know if he is here today—but who did not get to his feet and comment on the matter. Nevertheless, he was a member of the board which adopted a resolution designed really to put right that, as I say, basically corrupt practice.
Let us turn to the question of Cheltenham, which was owned by a company and there were Jockey Club members who were shareholders. They wanted to dispose of Cheltenham to Racecourse Holdings Trust and they put forward proposals. They were considered by the then Home Secretary, who on 22nd September 1964 told a meeting—I have a copy of the record with me—that he was bound to pay attention to Treasury advice; and the Treasury, after going into the matter carefully, had advised that £40 a share was generous but that £60 was grossly extravagant. As I say, that was September 1964. By 1st October 1964 the old Jockey Club influence had got to work and the Secretary of State approved the sale of Cheltehnam shares at £60 per share, which 10 days earlier had been described as extravagant.
That is not all. To pay for it, they borrowed money from the banks and insurance companies, and they did it without the authority of the Secretary of State; his authority under Section 25 was necessary, but it was never even obtained. By similar methods, the Jockey Club gained possession of five racecourses for £1,800. They did it because we agreed that the 18 nominal shareholders, all Jockey Club members with £100 each, should transfer the shares to Racecourse Holdings Trust, which would be a joint venture between the Levy Board on the one hand and the Jockey Club on the other. Having got the shares transferred to Jockey Club trustees, they refused to transfer them.
I advised the board that the only thing they could do, the Jockey Club having got five racecourses for £1,800, was to let them keep them, but that any further expenditure should be paid for by the Jockey Club. But the present Levy Board, completely dominated by the Jockey Club, has just agreed to lend £1,600,000 to Cheltenham interest-free. Last week, the noble
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Lord, Lord Manton, said that the biggest interest-free loan was made by me when we acquired Sandown. But what are the facts? United Racecourses owned Sandown and Epsom. There was a threat of legislation by Mr. Wootton about the way they behaved, and he said to me that if the Levy Board would take it over he would give Walton Downs to the nation. He entered into a lease for 1,000 years, and Epsom racecourse, 600 acres, is now owned by the nation. Of course, part of it is extremely valuable; there was planning permission for it.
At Sandown the stand was falling down and it therefore had to be acquired to be rebuilt. I persuaded the Secretary of State to let me borrow German Deutschemarks to get the money to buy it. There was no loan and I am wondering whether the noble Lord, Lord Manton, knows the difference between buying a place for the nation and some other activity. I say that because today the nation owns Epsom and Sandown and on top of that, through the generosity of Mr. Robinson, they also own Kempton.
There was a provision in the Finance Act to roll over the cost of the Sandown stand against a gravel development at Kempton. But the Levy Board did nothing about it, and that was lost because that section of the Finance Act was repealed. I thought that if we put in a chute at Kempton and cut off the old last two furlongs of the Jubilee Course, all we might lose would be a couple of six-furlong races. We entered into negotiations, which were promising, to sell the top part of the course for £3 million. That went too, because the Jockey Club exercised its control not to use the chute.
That is the story, and it is going on all the time. That is what happens when Parliament releases the control of money which has been raised by taxation, leaving it in the hands of private individuals. It all adds up to the fact that our 18th century forebears knew what it meant; it meant corruption. I have described what has happened, and what the noble Lord, Lord Peart, did was to utilise this Bill, which in any case is a piece of nonsense; it will not work anyway. However, if they want it, I would support it for the simple reason that if one-third of the bookmakers pay, I see no reason why the other two-thirds should not pay. Once the Bill was passed it was a useful opportunity to put matters right, not to alter the balance on the Levy Board but to make it possible for those who know something about it—those who have a financial stake in the industry—to have the right and opportunity to make their voices heard.
The Bookmakers' Committee was linked up with 19 BPA organisations, which are bookmaker protection organisations and are in no way concerned with the job of the Bookmakers' Committee, which now consists of one simple thing. The only thing they are required to do arises under Section 27(3); namely, that when asked by the Levy Board they make recommendations about the levy, and that is the sum total of it. That was a possibility and it would have cleared it up easily and restored the situation to that which existed under the noble Lord, Lord Butler. The principles that Lord Butler laid down would have been restored, and that was very evident. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, was aware of it—that was clear from his speech—but so was Mr. Timothy Raison

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who, on Third Reading in another place, laid down exactly the same principles that were spelt out on 14th December, 1960. If that is done, it will be possible for those of us who want the levy to work to let it work in a way that does not impinge upon or contradict the objections of the Treasury, which were very obvious in the evidence that it gave to the Royal Commission.
The Treasury is opposed to any extension of the levy; the levy should be under Treasury control; and if Parliament wants to give money to racing, it should say how much, how it is to be spent, the way in which it is spent, supervised by a Secretary of State who is answerable to Parliament. I have never wanted that. I do not want it now. That is why I was so pleased to read what Mr. Raison had said, and why I was pleased when the noble Lord, Lord Peart, put down his amendments. It seemed to me that here was a chance to have another deal and to get things back on the ground as Lord Butler had intended in his legislation in 1960.
Now Jockey Club pressures have decided otherwise. I have not heard one single speech on the other side—not one—that really made sense, or gave any indication whatever that the Jockey Club spokesmen know what they are talking about. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, a question last week. He did not answer it. I ask the Jockey Club representatives here the same question: tell us the answer to this? In paragraph 9.95 of the Royal Commission report it is stated that the Jockey Club were parties in a joint submission asking for a levy of £22 million at 1976 prices; that is £40 million today. Can the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, tell us whether the Home Office accepts that? Does the Jockey Club still stand by it? I ask that because they have not given up, and they will not give up, the recent report that they have put through, called the "blue report". At the back of their minds they want money to develop at Newmarket. They are never satisfied; they are insatiable. That is why they are wealthy men. They and their forebears have always had their snouts in ordinary people's pockets. That is how they get rich. That is why the Royal Commission's report has not been implemented, nor debated.
The whole prize money concept, and the concept of interest-free loans, is an absolute contradiction to common sense and—may I say something else?— to the long-terms needs of British racing. The glory of British racing is based on diversity. It is not Ascot, it is not Epsom; it is the small courses, which are more concerned with sport than with money, and which bring pleasure to the countryside. This is the glory of English racing. They are destroying that because they are going to knock out the small courses. To those who have, it shall be given, but when it comes to those who have not got, they will even take that away.
Therefore, so far as I am concerned, I have done what I have done. I know that in the long term I am right. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, was not made aware of the fact that the Home Secretary has not replied to my letters. But in conclusion may I say this? If anyone tends to say, "Oh well, that has all passed", I would remind him that only last week I heard that the Levy Board was to be asked to
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sanction expenditure of £178,000 at Ascot, which included £55,000 for a house for the accountant. I phoned the Home Secretary. This was to be done under the capital grant scheme, which again when I came in I found was being exercised only for Ascot. I insisted that the whole scheme should be submitted to the Board of Inland Revenue and that what Ascot got, everyone else should get if they wanted it. It was the scheme whereby prize money could be converted into capital grants. So I wrote to the Home Secretary, having phoned him as well, and asked whether he had appoved this proposal under Section 25. There has been no answer. I do not know whether the Minister is to give me answer today. But I shall tell your Lordships what happened: the proposal was withdrawn.
So the rats are in the granary. They are still there. They still believe that every penny that is raised by taxation belongs to them. So far as I am concerned, they are not entitled to one penny. The Jockey Club for two centuries—and Weatherbys—have grown fat on British racing. They should not get another penny so far as I am concerned, and the sooner that this matter is looked at by a Select Committee, the better. I should be perfectly willing to make available both my knowledge and the evidence, including that relating to the pheasants, that I have spoken about today. But this must be put right, and I am sure that it is going to be put right. It is only a question of when and how.
1.36 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Crawshaw on the way in which he has sponsored the Bill in your Lordships' House and taken it through the House. The Bill was originally introduced in another place by Mr. Charles Morrison and has been introduced into your Lordships' House by my noble friend, and I believe that it will be a very useful measure. My noble friend asked me one direct question; namely, when will more general legislation be on the way? It is true that on Second Reading I stated that the Government are aware of the need for more general legislation, but I am not today in a position to say when legislative time can be found.
I noted that in Committee there was an interesting discussion about the composition of the Levy Board, and I apologise to your Lordships for the fact that it was not possible for me to represent the Government interest on that occasion. In particular, there was discussion about the proposals advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Peart, to the effect that the chairman of the Horse Racing Advisory Council should have his own seat on the board, rather than continue to sit on the board as one of the nominees of the Jockey Club, and that the board should also include a second bookmaker.
I also noted that in his speech on the amendment my noble friend Lord Manton expressed the view that while he believed that the Levy Board had done a very good job under very difficult circumstances, it seemed to him perfectly reasonably that its constitution might well be reviewed at this stage. As I ventured to say on Second Reading, this is however a matter which needs to be approached with the greatest care, and I am sure that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will take full account of what was said by my noble friend Lord Manton and others on this subject.

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My noble friend Lord Manton also said in Committee that any review of the constitution of the Levy Board should include the Bookmakers' Committee, in order to see that it reflects the present requirements of the bookmaking industry. This is a matter about which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has recently written to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. My right honourable friend is very conscious of the fact that some bookmakers feel that the present composition of the Bookmakers' Committee does not accord them the weight of representation that they believe they should have. However, my right honourable friend did not think it right to pursue this matter while this Bill was before Parliament. I have no doubt that my right honourable friend will give careful consideration to what has been said about this whole matter in the course of the debates both in this House and in another place.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, referred to a letter that he has written to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, raising issues concerning the functions of the Bookmakers' Committee as originally conceived in the 1963 Act and under the subsequent amending legislation, and their relationship to the amendments which the noble Lord, Lord Peart, moved in Committee. My right honourable friend will be writing to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, on that issue.
1.40 p.m.
Lord Trevethin and Oaksey: My Lords, in case it should be thought to be the sort of interest one ought to declare, I should like to start by saying that I have never shot a Jockey Club pheasant, and the only one I ate appeared to have been there since Lord Wigg's day. I think that, at any rate in the timescale, that puts the problem of the pheasants in perspective. I think everybody present will be delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, back, so close to his peak form. If only racehorses had similar recovery powers, backing would be a lot easier.
Everybody who is interested in racing has a bee in his bonnet about how it ought to be run, and it is nice to hear Lord Wigg's bees buzzing so healthily. Not all of them, of course, can or should be brushed aside; and, as my noble friend Lord Belstead has said, there will be a day when subjects like the composition of the Levy Board will be debated, and I hope widely debated. But this is not the day, because the Bill before your Lordships is simply designed to close a couple of loopholes. It is very common in racing to hear that such and such a horse has been badly trained or badly
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ridden. That is often criticism through the pocket, but it may be justified; and sometimes a change of jockey or trainer does have an effect. But I have never heard such a critic also suggest that the horse's food should be reduced, and that is what we would be doing if we did anything to hamper this Bill.
My noble friend Lord Wigg is fully entitled to say that the good horse Betting Levy is being badly trained by the Levy Board and deplorably ridden by the Jockey Club. He is not, in my view, entitled to say, as he has seemed to suggest, that it is being corruptly ridden by the Jockey Club; and I much regret that he made that charge or, indeed, appeared to make it. He said, I think I am right in saying, that members of the Jockey Club have grown fat on racing. There are some fat members of the Jockey Club, but it is not my experience that they have made money from the hard work that they do in the service of racing.
I can also say, simply as somebody who loves Cheltenham, that I do not believe it has done Cheltenham any damage to be owned by the Racehorse Holdings Trust; nor do I believe for a moment that it and four other courses were bought for £1,400. I do not understand how these sums are done, because that is a nonsensical figure: and I believe Cheltenham to be well run.
This Bill, as I have said, was designed to close loopholes. We have heard of rats in the granary—I use the word "rats", of course, in the least pejorative sense, in the nicest possible sense, but they are hungry little so-and-sos, and through two holes, legal avoidance and then the interest payments which were necessary to avoid or frustrate that legal avoidance, they have been eating away at the corn which ought to have found its way into good old Betting Levy's manger. This Bill, if passed, will stop those holes. It is, therefore, welcomed by the racing world. I think it would be right to say that anybody who supports this is on the side of the horses; anybody who opposes it is on the side of the rats.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

Fisheries Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before two o'clock.