Lords Sitting of 6 May 1983

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

Telecommunications: Privatisation
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Beswick, I should like to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper. Unfortunately my noble friend is unwell today.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received a copy of the case against privatisation from the Society of Telecom Executives, and what comments they have made in reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the Government received a copy of the Society of Telecom Executives' publication, The Case against Privatisation of British Telecom, on 26th April. A reply will be sent shortly.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I wonder whether the Government have discussed the report with the members of the Society of Telecom Executives. The noble Lord will know that this is an authoritative report which soberly sets out the case against privatisation.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as I have said, the document has only just been received, and it has not yet been possible for me to reach a considered conclusion on it.

Psychiatric Secure Units: Places
11.7 a.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many places are now available in permanent psychiatric secure units.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, one permanent regional secure unit, providing 30 beds, of which 20 are currently in use, opened in November 1980 at St. Luke's Hospital, Middlesbrough. In addition, facilities at the Towers Hospital, Leicester; Langdon Hospital, Devon; Rainhill Hospital, Mersey; and Prestwich Hospital, Manchester, offering among them 160 beds, should begin to admit patients shortly.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for the information which I requested, disappointing though it is coming nine years after the Butler Committee submitted an urgent interim report recommending these units. I should also like to thank the noble Lord for the information he gave for which I had not asked, which looks distinctly more impressive. May I ask him two supplementary questions—and I know that he has been giving a great deal of thought to these matters. First, are the Government still committed to an overall programme of 1,000 places in the first instance; and, if so, when does he think the programme will be achieved? Secondly, do his plans envisage that when the units are available on a more substantial scale some worthwhile relief will be given to the special hospitals and to prisons?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's first supplementary question is: Yes, we are still committed in principle to achieving 1,000 places in regional secure units, and I hope that by the end of 1985 about 600 places will be available in such units. As the noble Lord is aware, these units are designed as a medium-secure facility between the special hospitals, on the one hand, and the psychiatric hospitals in the National Health Service, on the other. Certainly when they are fully in use they will provide some measure of relief to both.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether the reason why some beds at St. Luke's Hospital are not in use is because there is not an adequate number of trained staff? Before the other units open, will the Government train more staff for this specialty?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right when she says that the reason why some beds are not in use at St. Luke's is that there is not yet a sufficient number of staff available. This is a new venture within the National Health Service, and therefore it is not surprising that we have not yet been able to obtain all the staff which we want for the programme; but recruitment is proceeding, and so is some training.
Baroness Faithful: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister what has held up the opening of the regional secure unit in the Oxford region, since plans for it were being discussed nine years ago?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think that staffing problems were the principal difficulty with regard to the unit to which my noble friend refers. I have it in mind to visit that particular facility shortly to see the problems for myself.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that according to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and figures which were given just the other day, at the last count on 30th March the number of mentally disordered offenders in our prison system had increased for the first time since 1977, and that this is a matter for great dismay considering that the noble Lord took pride in appearing before the all-party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Committee last year and

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stating that considerable reductions had been effected as a result of facilities being opened in the National Health Service? Has not the money which was earmarked for this purpose in the National Health Service been spent by regional health authorities for other purposes, and is that not one of the reasons why we are not making greater progress in reducing the numbers of mentally disordered prisoners?
Lord Trefgarne: No, My Lords, the noble Lord is not quite right in that. The money which was allocated to the National Health Service specifically for this purpose has, by and large, though not exclusively, been spent on interim secure units, rather than on the permament facilities which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, was asking about. As for the position within prisons, a great many of the mentally disordered prisoners to whom the noble Lord refers are probably not sufficiently ill for detention under the Mental Health Acts to be justified, and therefore they have to be detained in prisons.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, if I may use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, may I ask how many mentally disordered persons there are now for whom, if other things were equal, permanent psychiatric secure units ought to be available?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do not know the precise answer to that question because it would depend on which of the patients could be certified under the mental health legislation. Naturally, I do not have that figure in front of me, but I could try to find out and write to the noble and learned Lord.

Cruise Missiles: Arms Control Policy
11.13 a.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the deployment of the cruise missile would invalidate existing arms control agreements and render it difficult if not impossible to reach any future agreements with the Soviet Union.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Belstead): My Lords, no. The deployment of cruise missiles in Western Europe would invalidate no existing arms control agreement. NATO proposals at the INF talks in Geneva have been for an agreement which would eliminate this class of missile altogether. But it is NATO's determination to deploy cruise missiles if necessary which has brought the Soviet Union to negotiate.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that while all this is going on, the risks of unintentional nuclear war, referred to in a United Nations report, are with us all the time? Is he aware that the deployment of cruise missiles at the end of this year would sharply increase the probability of nuclear
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war in 1984? Finally, is he aware that, in these circumstances, the Prime Minister's dismissal of Mr. Andropov's latest proposal is suicidally irresponsible?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the fact of the matter is that we are in a situation now when it is up to the Russians. The allies have made clear all along that what we want to do is to remove these terrible weapons from the whole European theatre altogether. That is the zero option which remains our ultimate objective. Since then, the Americans have put forward an interim proposal to limit the number of warheads on these INF missiles. The Russians are therefore now being asked what level of these terrible weapons they would accept in Europe. We now await a reply from them.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister look at cruise in relation to general defence policy? Did he see in the Church Times or maybe elsewhere, last week that a meeting of Church leaders from over 60 countries expressed serious views about nuclear policy, as did the clergy and the bishops of the United States? Will the noble Lord suggest to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence that he may be surrounded by "cannons" to the left of him, as he often suspects, and by "cannons" to the right of him, and that it is about time he reviewed his policies in the light of the views of the Church leaders? Will he also suggest to his right honourable friend that he should not do what he often does and discard almost anything that does not agree with his preconceived ideas?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord mentions the Church Times. The noble Lord knows better than I that the Synod voted for multilateral disarmament to try to reach security and peace for the future through that channel. That is the way. The Government are trying to secure it.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, will the Government insist on their view that British and French nuclear forces are not in practice intermediate weapons in exactly the same sense as the SS20s in Russia?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if one tries to go down that track, there are two immediate difficulties. The first is that the talks between the Russians and the Americans in the INF negotiations in Geneva have always been accepted as bilateral negotiations. That was the wish of both sides. It would mean changing the rules in the middle of the negotiations to breach that. Secondly, if those independent deterrents were brought into the negotiations, the effect would be to grant the Soviet Union, one of the two negotiators, superiority over the United States. That is not a very good start to that particular démarche.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend say whether the CND—or the voice of CND in this House as represented by Lord Jenkins of Putney—has made any representations to the Soviet Union about the deployment of its 320 SS20s? Is there any evidence that the Russians have radically cut down their S4s and S5s in addition to the SS20s deployed over the last three years?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, that, if I may say so, is a good question. May I give a general answer? People often talk at the moment about a moratorium or a freeze. If that happened, we would be freezing the number of intermediate land-based nuclear missiles in Europe targeted upon each of our countries in the free world at about 4 to 1 in favour of the Soviet Union. In fact, so far as land-based missiles are concerned, none is held by the West at all. Meanwhile, as my noble friend's question brings out, the Russians have been continuing to deploy SS20s and are not applying any idea or a moratorium to the Asian regions of the USSR.
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, may I ask the Minister why President Reagan and the Americans have not got the jitters, as we have, about the Russians having more missiles than we have? Is that really proven? I do not believe it.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Baroness's question brings us hack to the original Question. It is because the West is concerned about the enormous build-up both in intermediate range weapons in the East and also strategic weapons in the East that the allies have put forward proposals that there shall he no intermediate range weapons at all in Europe and that there shall be very deep cuts in the interballistic monsters that both sides hold. I repeat that it is now up to the Russians. We want to know if they will agree to no intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe. If they will not agree to that, what number will they agree to?
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, unless we can trust them a bit, where are we going to get to? There is this constant mistrust with Russia. After all, there was a time when we were allies in the First World War. So it is a possibility. It must be.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the concern of the noble Baroness about mistrust is, of course, well placed. All that the allies can do is to negotiate in good faith while remaining strong and vigilant.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that each side believes itself to be outnumbered by the other and that each side is perfectly capable of putting up a good case, provided that it is sufficiently selective about the particular type of weapons which it is matching with those of the other side? But international comparison suggests that overall, taking into account all the weapons, there is a rough equality. As regards the question raised by the noble Lord, the Minister might well have replied that he was not in a position to answer for the CND. But the answer to the question is that I—
Several noble Lords: Question!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the answer to the question is that I myself have raised the question of the SS20 in the Kremlin with Mr. Yuri Zhukov and I received a very courteous and lengthy reply from Mr. Zhukov to the effect that as far as the Soviet Union is concerned—
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does not the noble Lord want the answer to the question? Perhaps I can put it in an interrogative form. I am bringing my sentence to a close. Is the Minister aware, therefore, that in these circumstances, since the answer of the Soviet Union to this question is that all weapons should be counted, the Government must take into consideration all the weapons which are likely to fall on Soviet soil?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the answer to all that the noble Lord has just been saying is very simple indeed. Let both sides agree that there shall be no intermediate range missiles, land-based, targeted on any of the countries in Europe—namely, the zero option—and then the people of both Western Europe and the East can live in peace.

Greenham Common: Blacklisting of Contractors
11.22 a.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the decision by the Council of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to intensify the campaign against Tarmac Ltd., and other Government contractors at Greenham Common, they will indicate what legal and other measures they propose to take to prevent local authorities from following the example of the London borough of Southwark, in blacklisting the contractors concerned.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, local authorities should be very careful as to their attitude to this campaign. It is quite wrong that political considerations of this kind should affect decisions on contracts. Authorities taking such a course would lay themselves open to action in the courts for acting unreasonably by taking into account irrelevant or improper considerations. The Government will keep in view the question whether the remedies available to firms that are discriminated against are adequate.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Would he not agree that what is represented in the action of Southwark and other local authorities, is an abuse of power on a truly deplorable level? First, in the debate that we had on this matter in January, the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, indicated that there was going to be a reference to the Office of Fair Trading. Has that taken place and, if so, with what result? Secondly, would the noble Lord not agree that the Government have a duty to protect their own contractors and, what is even more important, the employees of those contractors, from arbitrary action by local authorities on the lines advocated now by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Finally, does he not agree that there is a need to protect the

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interests of the ratepayers in local authority areas where local councils behave in this intolerable fashion? Is it not wholly wrong that, even if a tender is the lowest, it should be rejected by a local authority simply on the ground that the councillors who form the majority party in that local authority dislike the fact that the company concerned has won a contract at Greenham Common?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, that was rather a mouthful of supplementary questions. Perhaps I can best answer three of them by saying that in my view it is clearly wrong that local authorities should spend money on propaganda exercises which have nothing to do with the proper functions of local government. Local councillors should remember that they are elected to serve all the residents and ratepayers in their area, and they have a responsibility to them for the proper stewardship of ratepayers' money.
As regards the reference to the Director General of Fair Trading, I understand that the Director General does not propose to make the Southwark resolution the subject of formal investigation. My own feeling is that action by the Monopolies and Mergers Corn mission does not seem entirely appropriate to deal with the manipulation of selective tendering arrangements by local authorities to support political attitudes.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, would my noble friend the Minister not agree that the existing common law if invoked would be adequate to deal with this situation? Would he not agree that it is open to a blacklisted contractor to apply to the High Court for a declaration that that resolution is invalid, is an unreasonable restraint of trade and is contrary to public policy? Would he also not agree that that contractor could also claim damages against the council and its members in conspiracy to injure him in his way of business without lawful justification or excuse or even perhaps—
Noble Lords: Order! Reading!
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, with the greatest respect to my noble friend, I am not myself a court of law. However, I can confirm that court action could be taken by a firm affected by the decision or by a ratepayer or a councillor for the area, if that were deemed to be appropriate.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, could not the contractor, if he submitted the lowest tender and it was rejected for whatever reason, be it political or otherwise, complain to the district auditor and could not then the councillors who rejected that lowest tender and preferred the higher one, be surcharged with the difference?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, but that goes very much wider than the general terms of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, the noble Lord has indicated this morning the anxieties of the Government as regards this matter. First, is he going to
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draw the attention of the local authority associations to the answers that have been given today? Secondly, do the Government not recognise that they have a direct responsibility to their own contractors and those who work for them? Is it not necessary for the Government to demonstrate that they are going to protect the interests of employees of companies of this kind who are going to be treated in this wholly unreasonable fashion by local authorities as a result of pressure from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I most readily undertake to inform the associations of local authorities as to the exchanges in your Lordships' House this morning, but I must make the point that it would be quite inappropriate for the Government to legislate because of a particular case. It would be wrong also to rush into new legislation without evidence that the existing remedies failed to work.

Licensing (Occasional Permissions) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Parochial Charities (Neighbourhood Trusts) Bill [H.L.]
11.28 a.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I am aware that in its present form, or perhaps in any form, it is not acceptable to Her Majesty's Government which, in effect, means the Charity Commission, whose advice the Government take. Nevertheless, I dare to think that the present unsatisfactory position in England and Wales of parochial charities for the poor should be brought to the notice of your Lordships' House. I am heartened that my noble friend the Minister may, if your Lordships agree that this Bill be read a second time, accept the recommendation that a Select Committee of the House of Lords should be set up to look into parochial charities in this country.
This is a complicated legal and social problem and I am grateful for the help that I have received from the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council and in particular Sir Charles Kimber; from the Humberside County Council through the good offices of Mr. Frank Courtney; and from those interested in parochial charities in Wales. Indeed, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, will speak on the Welsh parochial charities. I am grateful to the West Yorkshire Charities Information Bureau, the Community Council of Humberside, and the South Yorkshire Information Service, the many individuals up and down the country who have written to me, from Cornwall to Cambridge. There are in this country 140,000 registered charities. Of course, parish charities for the poor comprise approximately between a quarter and a third. Their endowments bring in millions, yet at present with a few notable exceptions they are largely a wasted asset.
This Bill recommends the formation of neighbourhood trusts whereby a number of trusts in a specific area, grouped together, use their joint

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resources to be allocated according to the wishes of the original donor. It is strange that this was first recommended in the Nathan Report of 1952 and agreed by the Charity Commission. Then again the same recommendation was made in a Select Committee Report into the accountability of the Charity Commission in 1975, and yet again in the Goodman Report of 1976. Yet still no effective action has been taken to deal with the chaotic position with regard to parochial charities in England and Wales.
Far be it from me to outline a social history of this country, but account must be taken of certain events long ago. After Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries where, in the main, the poor were assisted, the first Queen Elizabeth instigated the Poor Law Act 1601 whereby parishes were made responsible, through overseers, to assist the poor. Alongside this civil administration the religious and humane practice grew up for donors wanting to leave money to the poor to do so using parish personnel as trustees. In those far-off days the vicar and the lord of the manor were likely to be the only ones who could write. Historically I contend that the donors left money to the poor using the parish for purposes of administration as was the practice in those days. Except in a few instances the money was not left to the parish.
With the passing of the centuries came the development of the poor law Acts, social security Acts, national insurance and pension Acts, national health and education Acts, so that in this present age the relief of the poor falls mainly to central and local government. At the same time gradually donors tended to leave money for the poor to national and international organisations. Only a few continue to use the parish to administer their bequests.
The Charities Act 1960, based on the recommendations of the Nathan Report, was intended to render outdated charities effective in the new situation created by welfare provisions of the modern state, while ensuring that the money continued to go to the same general purpose which the donor intended? To this end the Charities Act 1960 provided for reviews of parochial charities to be carried out in every county and for review organisers, where possible, to persuade trustees to amalgamate their charities on a voluntary basis, thus rendering them more effective.
In May 1982, in answer to a Written Question, it was stated in Hansard that reviews of parochial charities had been carried out in part, or the whole, of every county in England and Wales. These reviews were usually carried out by rural community councils, charity information bureaux, and a few local authorities. Research has been carried out on eight of these reviews. Now what did this research reveal? The research revealed a generally chaotic position. First, the demographic changes in parishes. In the last two centuries there have been great shills of population. There is, for instance, a new estate with a population of 13,000 which was built only since the last war, served by four parochial charities which together bring in £8 a year. In the adjoining parish there are 800 people only, few of whom are in need, with an income from parochial charities of £3,000 or £4,000 a year, unable to spend it in accordance the donors' wishes. Then in Dunwich in Suffolk, once a borough with a
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charter and now with a population of 155 and an income from a parochial charity of £1,600 a year, there is a balance sitting in the bank of £11,000.
Then the research pointed out the number of outdated purposes. There is, for instance, one charity where a man centuries ago suffered grievously from a wart on his nose. He left money to anyone suffering from a similar disfigurement. This money has rarely been spent. In these days the National Health Service would take care of such a case. This money could profitably be used for allied medical problems. In the North there is a parish where bread was left to the poor. The vicar distributes to his parishioners a loaf of bread once a month, be they poor or not. I ask, is this what the donor wanted? Some trustees use money to give small Christmas presents, which does not meet the needs of those suffering real hardship. Then in another parish the vicar can claim £2 for preaching a sermon, and the churchwarden 50 pence for listening to it.
The reviews also showed a lamentable neglect of accounts. Of the eight reviews in which research was done, one-third of the parochial charities had no accounts, and another quarter had kept no accounts for 10 years. The money of a proportion of the parochial charities had not been properly husbanded. Money had not been properly invested. Also some trustees of land owning charities had not revised the rents in accordance with modern standards. In some charities only £12 per week rent was being obtained when the average rent per week should have been £30. Thus, in some instances farmers who rent charity land are the largest beneficiaries of parish charities for the poor. Again, surely not in accordance with the donors' wishes.
Then there are large unused balances. Total balances shown amount to over 18 months' income. Thus, roughly, if £20 million is the income of all charities in the country, it suggests that possibly there may be £35 million lying unused in banks. Again we come to inflation. Money left in past centuries was substantial but now the income, due to inflation, is so small as to be useless. Approximately as many as 20,000 charities may have an income of less than £10 per annum.
As this stage I cannot forbear to mention a Private Member's Bill on charities now before another place. I cannot agree with the Bill, which destroys trusts which individually may have become too small to be useful. I respectfully suggest that it offends the known principle of charity law on which donors have relied—namely, that a charity trust cannot be allowed to fail. I believe that these many small charities should be incorporated into neighbourhood trusts, as recommended in the Bill before your Lordships' House today, and not be dispersed as recommended in the Charities Bill.
I have taken long to set the scene. To meet the welfare conditions of our modern state, to concur with the wishes of the donors who left the money for the poor, this Bill recommends that the Charity Commissioners should study the reviews of parochial charities, should ask local authorities who in turn may, as they have done in the past, allocate to voluntary organisations such as community councils the task of grouping parochial charities into neighbourhood trusts

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with trustees some of whom will be from the original trusts. The neighbourhood trusts will still be administered by voluntary trustees and will continue to give and be a voluntary service as hitherto. This will be of inestimable value to those needing to apply. The task of offering advice, help and supervision to the neighbourhood trusts by the Charities Commission will then be a practical proposition.
I am fully aware that there are parishes which resent having to share their parochial charity resources with others, even if they cannot use them in accordance with the donor's wishes. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of London, may have something to say on this. When it was necessary because of changing social conditions for the Church to unite three or four parishes under one vicar, the position was accepted. Why, I wonder, do trustees feel unable to amalgamate into neighbourhood trusts?
Another contention is that the county councils will need extra money to spend to allocate to voluntary organisations or, indeed, to carry out themselves this small piece of reorganisation. The cost will be infinitesimal compared with the return. It has been costed at £2,000 a year for two years per local authority.
I am grateful to the Home Office for writing to me to let me know its objections to the Bill. I understand that the objections are:
"The reluctance of Trustees to co-operate with local reviews in modernising their Trusts; that Trustees should retain the right to decide what happens to the Trusts they administer and that such Trusts should be allowed to retain their identities".
I do not accept that argument when it means that the money left by donors is not being used as was intended, has been badly husbanded or is not being used at all.
I hope that I have shown how unsatisfactory is the overall position in England and Wales. I am bound to ask: for whom are the trusts run? If they are run for the poor, which was the intention of the donors, why cannot this be made possible? I am the first to admit that there are sound, well-administered parochial charities, but they are in the minority. Thus, the Bill makes the reorganisation in neighbourhood trusts mandatory simply because there has been and is under the Charity Act 1960 the possibility of trustees voluntarily organising into neighbourhood trusts. But I must point out that, except in a few instances (and those not very satisfactory) this has not been done.
I must say a word about the Charity Commission. In 1960, the then commission agreed with the concept of neighbourhood trusts. Since then, not only has the commission failed to deal with the many trusts which are failing both the original donors and those who should benefit, but now in 1982 the commission has changed its view on neighbourhood trusts. I am grateful to the new Charity Commissioner, Mr. Peach, and his staff for discussing the Bill with me. However, despite our good relations, I am still of the opinion that this quasi- independent judicial body, which is answerable to no one, should be reorganised as recommended in the Nathan Report.
In conclusion, the central argument is that money left by donors for a specific use should be used for that use; that is the relief of poverty. If it is not possible
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because of the circumstances of the bequest then the money should be used as nearly as possible in the spirit of the bequest.
Lord Renton: The cy-près principle, my Lords.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, as my noble friend says, the cy-près principle. I do not believe that originally the money was left to the parishes, but I believe it was left to the poor to be administered by the parishes. Should the Bill be accepted by your Lordships' House, many in need would be helped and assisted in a way that they cannot be at the present time. I beg to move.
Moved, that the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Faithfull.)
11.47 a.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, not for the first time will your Lordships be grateful, from whatever portion of the House the tribute comes, to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for raising a matter of which she has such great knowledge in the fields of welfare and the relief of distress. On a Friday morning on which the sun seems to percolate somewhat feebly, nevertheless apparently, through your Lordships' House, it is perhaps not an original remark to make that the noble Baroness is possibly the most aptly named in your Lordships' House because she has indeed been so loyal and faithful to the causes to which she has devoted so much of her life.
I hope that that introduction will enable the noble Baroness to realise that from these Benches, on behalf of my noble friends, we do not wish to be unhelpful to any approach to this difficult subject. It is a difficult subject and unfortunately one cannot leave it purely and simply on the basis that there is a problem to be solved in relation to the great waste that exists in parochial trusts; the relief of poverty; the many cases in which some of these trusts have become so small that they are almost useless; to the lack of administration by trustees, and many other cases of inefficient administration. All these are problems.
I was glad that the noble Baroness mentioned the helpful possibility of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. One wonders whether a Bill of this nature should not have further investigation, data and thought of that type about the interference with trusts which have been set up by people who have donated their own money for certain purposes.
I wish I could say that the law on charity in this land is clear. It has a hoary antiquity which gives it grounds for our reverence; but it also lacks certainty at times, which makes all of us who are concerned with this matter a little unhappy.
Your Lordships will know, I am sure, that we still rely for our interpretation of the law of charity upon an edict of the first Queen Elizabeth and that the rules that are quoted in regard to those charities go back to the last century when a very great lawyer, Lord Macnaghten, laid down four heads of charity: the relief of poverty; the advance of education, the advance of religion and the general good of the community.

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Much case law has been built up and, within the case law that we have, and the rules of Macnaghten and the statute of Queen Elizabeth, many conundrums still beset the lawyer who tries to administer the law of charity. I believe that I am right in saying that the right honourable and learned gentleman the Attorney-General has had a little difficulty when trying to present common sense, as many of us see it, to the interpretation of what is charity when looking at organisations like the Moonies, and finds himself as a lawyer up against some rigidity of the law when he receives a reply from the Charity Commissioners to certain questions that he poses to them.
It is a fact that this law is in a state of some uncertainty, but when one comes to look, as the noble Baroness asks us to look, at parochial charities, one finds that there are intense loyalties still within the parishes. If I may put it in one short sentence, the parish pump has not yet dried up in our tradition.
I noticed, as your Lordships will have noticed, that the Bill deals not just with charities that are limited to the relief of poverty; the Bill deals with those which have as their primary object ( as well as those which have it as their sole object) the relief of poverty. There are many parochial charities where local loyalties, local loves, local devotion, have meant that there are subsidiary objects which have very definite relationships with the parish concerned.
As the noble Baroness was fair enough and reasonable enough to admit, there are many parochial charities solely for the purpose of relief of poverty which are being very well administered. They may be small. The trustees are devoted people. Suddenly to confront them with a mandatory set of provisions, which means that very likely they are to be relieved of their trusteeship, in spite of the fact that they have been duly appointed in accordance with the wishes of the original set law, and that they are to be merged into neighbourhood trusts going beyond even the bounds of the parish, makes one think a little before saying that mandatory provisions should apply so that they are merged in neighbourhood trusts.
My Lords, it is a Friday morning and one must not be too long in addressing your Lordships otherwise one loses one's popularity, if it exists at all, very quickly. The noble Baroness mentioned the Nathan Committee and that was a very important committee. Indeed, out of its recommendations came the 1960 Charities Act. After dealing briefly, as I have tried to do, with some of the principles behind this Bill and a question mark—and I say merely "a question mark"—which hangs over them, there is no doubt that something has to be done about the waste that does exist. I have no doubt about that; I am sure your Lordships have no doubt; it is just a question of the way to do it. From the point of view of practicalities, away from the principles, the first thing that one has to say—and again the noble Baroness has said it in so many words; and I do not know whether she said it quite deliberately—is that there are not the data procured by the Charity Commissioners which many of us would want to see before even one could say very definitely that the instruction be given to the local authorities: "Please get on with a consideration of the parochial charities within your area! Here is a full list
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of them, here are all the trustees and here are all the details".
I believe that to impose a duty upon local authorities at this time of all times takes me back to a couple of sentences that I read at page 146 of the Nathan Report where the Committee said:
"We have considered whether it would be practicable to place an obligation on county and county borough councils to review the parochial charities in their areas and to submit proposals to the Commissioners who would then, if they thought proper, make schemes".
If I may pause for a moment, that is exactly what this Bill tries to carry out.
The Nathan Committee was in doubt, and goes on to give the reason:
"The formidable number of these charities makes us hesitate to suggest this. It is, we think, too difficult at the present moment to estimate what would be the extent of the task, what other and perhaps more urgent tasks may be imposed on local authorities or whether it would be found practicable to give the Commissioners the staff necessary to deal with the work at the centre."
The Nathan Committee was saying something prior to 1960 which your Lordships might think, unfortunately, is very true of 1983. I say that to impose this burden on the local authorities and upon the Charity Commissioners at this moment may be very difficult. On a matter of this kind one hesitates to introduce even a hint of politics; but one has to observe that the right honourable lady the Prime Minister said with some pride at a public meeting only within the past 48 hours that the Civil Service staff was now at its lowest in numbers for the past 17 years and that in one year's time it would be the lowest since the war. As fellow practitioners with me will know, the Charity Commissioners take a very considerable time to deal with urgent correspondence on the formation of charities and on queries arising even now. The reason given for this is shortage of staff.
The fact of the matter also is that local authorities, too, have had to cut down their staff. If the noble Lord the Minister will forgive my saying so, there are those of us who suffer now, even with his own department, when questions arise about immigration matters and naturalisation matters—and I know that it is a different department from the one which we are now discussing. The noble Lord the Minister will know with pain and anxiety of the terrible delays that exist in dealing with correspondence. This is sometimes urgent correspondence of immigrants who do not know where they stand and of people who are applying for naturalisation, and so on, who want to try to get some security in their life. The reason given, if one asks anybody at the Home Office Immigration Department, is this. As a rule it is a very courteous reply which says: "We are trying to get on with things but we have got so many applications that we are afraid that we cannot promise to give you an answer within weeks or months".
It is very easy to pass Bills of this type which throw upon the Charity Commissioners and local authorities very considerable burdens; but at the same time one has to look at the practicalities. You cannot take a pride in the economy in respect of numbers and at the same time take a pride in passing legislation, however good, which is going to be administered only with difficulty. By this Bill a duty is cast upon the Charity Commissioners—a very proper duty—to do something within 12 months, and the local authorities will

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have to produce schemes all over their area within five years.
The intention of this Bill to deal with a very real problem is very good and for that the noble Baroness deserves all our thanks. There is no reason why this Bill should not be given a Second Reading. The noble Baroness said—she will correct me if I am wrong—that a Second Reading should be given to the Bill because of her proposal, which she understands to be acceptable, for a Select Committee of your Lordships to be set up in order to consider this whole problem, to find out the facts and to make practical recommendations. At that stage I hope I am right in believing that the noble Baroness would say: "We have given the Bill a Second Reading; there have been consultations, and we have these recommendations. No doubt my Bill will have to be amended, but let us get on with it." I see that the noble Baroness is nodding her charming head, so I know I am right.
I feel that the House should give the Bill a Second Reading on this understanding. There are problems, and they ought to be solved. There is a waste. Let us see what the Select Committee of your Lordships' House has to say, and then, by all means, let us have a proper measure which is administratively possible so that it can be carried into legislation.
12.3 p.m.
Lord Foot: My Lords, a few days ago, when I was out of London, I was asked whether I would say a few words from these Benches about this Bill today. I was then in some doubt as to whether I could undertake the task, and at that stage I had not seen the Bill. But I was greatly reassured when I learned that the Bill was being promoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. We have all learned over the years that if some case is being advocated, promoted or defended by the noble Baroness, it is almost certain to be all right. The only thing that causes me some surprise from time to time is that the noble Baroness apparently finds herself at ease on those reactionary Benches in spite of the wisdom of her speeches in this House and her devotion to all good causes.
Having now read some literature on the matter, and having had the advantage of hearing the noble Baroness, I would have thought that some of the basic propositions on which this Bill is based would be a matter for almost general agreement. In this, I depart a little from what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was saying just now; but I will come back to that in a moment. I should have thought there was general agreement on the proposition of the noble Baroness that the present state of these charities, with their multiplicity of sizes, and so on, is wholly unsatisfactory. Something ought to be done about it in any event.
I should have thought, secondly, that there was a general consensus that this problem has extended back over something like 30 years, and nothing has been achieved during those years by way of resolving it. The third matter on which I should have thought there was general agreement is that the 1960 Act was intended by its authors to provide a machinery which might cure this situation on a voluntary basis, but that in the event all those expectations and hopes were not
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realised. The fourth proposition which I suggest will be generally agreed is that if a solution is to be found it is to be found in the general concept of the neighbourhood trust, as this Bill provides.
If it be right that there would be fairly general agreement upon all those four propositions, it is on the question of whether the Bill should be mandatory that disagreement is likely to arise. I listened with care to what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said about that, and particularly about the staffing burdens that would be imposed upon the Charity Commissioners and local authorities. I appreciate the difficulty, but I suggest it is not one which ought to kill this Bill, because one finds that the duty of the Charity Commissioners to furnish the local authorities with a list of charities in their areas is one for which they are given a period of 12 months. After that, the process of consultation by the councils with the trustees of the charities concerned may be spread over a period of five years.
Whichever side of the House one sits on, I do not think anybody will say that our economic situation will be as serious as it is now over the whole of those five years, because if the Labour Party get back they have already promised that they will expand bureaucracy at a great rate and no doubt will give the Charity Commissioners all the assistance they require. If, on the other hand, Mrs. Thatcher is successful after the election, whenever it may occur, surely we are being led to believe by the Members opposite that within those five years she will have accomplished her economic revolution and all will be well. So whichever party wins—and I do not, of course, discount the possibility of the Alliance winning—it seems to me that is not a serious objection.
But is this not the serious point?—and, it is, I suggest, the point which might very well be examined by the Select Committee, as the noble Baroness proposes. If there is a general consensus about those propositions to which I have referred, is it not really rather deplorable that we cannot devise voluntary machinery which will accomplish the purposes of this Bill? If one looks at the record over the last 25 years, as the noble Baroness pointed out, and if one looks at the lack of progress that has been made in spite of the general wish that there should be progress, is there any reason whatever to suppose that 25 years hence we shall not be in the same position as we are now?
In human affairs a time comes when you have to make decisions. I realise that one does not want to impose further obligations upon, for example, the local authorities. But if one is to take this matter seriously and is to have a radical reorganisation of the present unsatisfactory situation, I have come to the conclusion that it is necessary that there should be these mandatory instructions; and I hope that that is a matter which the Select Committee, in their time, will be able to resolve. Therefore, on that account, at this stage, I am strongly in favour of the noble Baroness's Bill, and I wish it every fair wind.
12.11 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, before I express my support for this Bill, I must ask for the forbearance of your Lordships, if it proves necessary for me to leave before the end of the debate. I have a pastoral engagement which I have delayed but which

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I cannot properly cancel nor delegate, and which I must go to fulfil if need be.
I wish to echo what has already been said in your Lordships' House about the qualities possessed by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and to express our gratitude to her for introducing this Bill. She has made very clear the reasons which make some reform of local charities urgently necessary—necessary, not merely as a matter of administrative tidiness, or for a better use of available resources, but as a matter of justice to the poor and the needy to whom belong the charities which are dealt with by this Bill. It is often forgotten, as the noble Baroness has pointed out, that they belong not to the parishes but to the poor and needy, and, in my judgment, the Bill enables their assets to be used for the benefit of those to whom they were given.
I believe that the Bill has the general support of those who sit on these Benches. I might add that the representatives of the main denominations who sit on the Churches Main Committee, of which I am chairman, have considered the Bill and expressed support in principle for the general objective. They would, I am sure, as I would myself, welcome the setting up of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House which could consider the best methods of achieving it and to which they might be allowed to give evidence.
There are, I believe, many excellent reasons for supporting this Bill, but I shall confine myself to mentioning two of them. The first is that it is based on the fine English tradition of adaptation to meet new circumstances. I must confess that I was a little surprised to hear the conservative advocacy of the status quo by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I look more to that flexibility which has given strength to our nation, and which has enabled progress to be made by evolution rather than by revolution or destruction.
The Bill which is being considered in another place, and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has referred, does not follow this tradition. It is based on a policy not of adaptation, but of destruction—and of destruction not merely of parochial charities which, as it were, are allowed to wither away, but also of the voluntary element which has played such an important part in meeting social needs in this country. I believe that a policy which is based on co-operation between voluntary effort and state provision is sound and is the best for our nation. It is this policy, I believe, upon which the Bill is based.
The present situation in regard to parochial charities does not encourage voluntary care at the local level and it is not surprising that people are now more disposed to contribute to national appeals and so on. But I believe that parochial concern should be encouraged. In that respect, I echo much of what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said about the importance of the parish pump, and I believe that by the formation of neighbourhood trusts much could be done to encourage local support.
My second point is that the Bill is based on partnership and sharing, which is something I wish to encourage. We who sit on these Benches are sometimes accused of preaching what we do not practise. There are, no doubt, occasions when this
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charge is fully justified. We are as Christians aware that, for us, these Benches are penitent Benches, but in this matter I believe that our penitence can rightly be muted, for the Church of England, through the Church Commissioners—as the noble Baroness has already briefly indicated—has, with the full approval of Parliament, sought to pursue a policy by which parochial endowments have been shared in such a way that all parishes benefit to the greatest possible extent.
There is an interesting parallel between the Charity Commissioners and the Church Commissioners, which have been operating for very much the same length of time. The basis is not very dissimilar, but the difference in the method of operation is remarkable. The Charity Commissioners have tended to look at each trust in isolation and primarily, as regards their legal commitments, have treated trusts as if they existed for the parish and not for the poor, which has led in large measure to our situation today. The Church Commissioners, on the other hand—formerly, before 1948, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners—have, with the approval of Parliament, consistently sought to see how the parochial endowments could be so used as to enable the purpose for which they were given to be fulfilled in the best way.
So it was that in 1975, when presenting the Endowment and Glebe Measure to the General Synod for final approval, the then First Estates Church Commissioner, Sir Ronald Harris, could say that any suggestion that by passing this Measure the Synod would somehow be doing something novel and out of keeping with the history and ethos of our Church would be to ignore history. He went on to say that for some 150 years action has been in train under the authority of Parliament to redistribute endowments. Of the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1836, it has been said that it represented the establishment, or rather the re-establishment, by Parliament of a principle; namely, that the benefits of a trust should be applied to those who needed them and were not to be attached to a place or a person irrespective of need.
I make this comparison between the working of the two bodies—the Charity Commissioners and the Church Commissioners—because I have heard it argued that it would be something quite new for us to agree to the trusts of one parish being shared with those of another. I cannot see that there is any justification for saying that a new principle would be established, because of the principle which has operated throughout with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and now with the Church Commissioners. I cannot see, when Parliament initiated and has continued to approve a policy of sharing parochial trusts by the Church Commissioners, there is any reason why the similar principle should not be applied to parochial trusts for the poor.
I am, of course, well aware that the amalgamation of parishes and of endowments has not taken, and does not take, place without sadness and regret, and perhaps at times even pain. But it cannot be denied that, without such amalgamation and sharing, the present pastoral provision for the parishes of this country which is now made would have been impossible.

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But I would make two points. First, provision has been made in the legislation under which the Church and the Church Commissioners operate for the views of interested parties to be made known and taken into account, with the right of appeal. I find it difficult to see why some similar provisions could not be made available for those who would be affected by this Bill. In view of what has been said about the administrative arrangements, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, I would say that what has been achieved by the Church Commissioners in a relatively short time, and with great administrative despatch, is very remarkable. That is a tribute to the way in which the matter has been handled and organised. I do not believe that it is so difficult as is sometimes made out. I would also point out that the actual number of appeals in cases which come to the Church Commissioners is relatively small. I do not think that the number would be significantly greater in the case of proposals for the sharing of parochial trusts.
The second point I want to make is that, much as we may regret, in some ways, the need to share and amalgamate parishes, and so on, the fact is that we are now spared the unedifying and scandalous spectacle of underemployed clergymen in tiny villages enjoying large incomes while their brother priests work their hearts out on a pittance in neighbouring large, industrial parishes. It was scandals and injustices of this kind which led Parliament to establish the Ecclesiastical Commission.
In the sphere of parochial charities for the poor, scandals and injustice exist today. Your Lordships may feel that those words are too strong. I do not believe that they are. I do not believe that it does the concept of a charity or trust any good to allow the present situation to continue as it is. We have the scandal of the situation in which trustees have more money at their disposal than they can possibly spend on the benefits of the trust as it stands. We have the scandal of resources remaining unused because the purpose of the trust cannot be fulfilled. I know from personal experience as a parish priest that we have the injustice of those who cannot receive the help which they sorely need because they live on the wrong side of the street which forms the parish boundary.
The Charities Act 1960 defined the functions of the Charity Commissioners as being to promote the effective use of charitable resources. I do not believe, with all the charity I can muster, that they can be said to have fulfilled this function. I believe that a Bill of this kind is necessary if the Charity Commissioners are to do so and if action is to be stimulated. As has already been pointed out in your Lordships' House, nothing has happened since that Act was passed and some action is needed to stimulate reform. I believe, particularly after hearing what the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said about the prospects of a Select Committee being set up, that the Bill will give stimulus for this matter to be dealt with. It is, I believe, a matter of injustice, of wrong use of resources, to allow the assets of our charities to remain as they are. It is a Christian duty to use resources in the best way for the relief of those in need and to encourage care for one another's needs by sharing one's goods. It is because I seek to respond to that duty that I urge your Lordships to vote today for the Bill.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether the right reverend Prelate will allow me to correct a misunderstanding he is apparently under about one part of my speech. I tried to make it perfectly clear that I thought the status quo should not continue, that there must be reform, that I welcomed the idea of a Select Committee in order that the House may be guided as to the way in which reform should be carried out.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lord, I thank the noble Lord for what he has said. If I referred incorrectly to what he said, I apologise and withdraw. However, the noble Lord laid great stress on the importance of the parish and on the dangers of trying to extend benefits from one parish into neighbouring parishes. It was that point about the status quo which I had in mind.
12.25 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in rising to support the Bill and in particular to express deep regret at the Government's unwillingness to sponsor it themselves, I do so not merely out of a sense of physical loyalty to the only other Peer who derives her territorial title from the same parish as I do nor, indeed, because of a sudden upwelling of charitable impulse, but for a specific reason: that the inquiries which preceded the Bill and the researches of Sir Charles Kimber and others to which the noble Baroness referred appear to me to reveal a quite surprising weakness in one of the organs of central Government; namely, the Charity Commission. This seems to me to be a matter of some concern to your Lordships' House and of general concern to those who feel not only that policy must be right but that we need to have the machinery by which policy can be made effective.
If we were to begin by creating a body to supervise charitable endowments in this country, I believe we should expect it to perform four functions. We should expect it to perform the function of registration, which means seeing that charities conform to the law and are properly, therefore, to be treated as charities by taxing and other authorities. That, no doubt, the present Charity Commission has, with some bizarre exceptions, fulfilled to the best of its ability, and on that score there is little at which to cavil.
Secondly, we should expect that body to supervise the activities of trustees in order to make sure that they keep their accounts in a proper fashion and that they treat their endowments so as to produce the maximum benefit for those for whom those endowments were intended. The researches to which I have referred seem to reveal grave lacunae: trustees who hardly ever present proper accounts and trustees who, as the noble Baroness has pointed out, let the land which is the basis of the endowment for much less rent than could reasonably be obtained for the benefit of the poor to whom the money should go.
Thirdly, we should expect such a body to have complete knowledge, complete statistics, of charities all over the country. They should know where they exist and what are their resources and purposes. I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, who said that we need to give this matter a great deal more

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thought and that we also need better statistics, more data, more information. But, after the 30 years which have elapsed since this matter was first considered and the period of over 20 years since the Act which we are talking about was passed, one would have thought that the Charity Commission would have at its fingertips the knowledge which local authorities require and that it should be a matter of telephoning and sending down a Xerox copy of an existing set of documents. If the Charity Commission have not done this, surely they have behaved in a way which would not be expected of the Church Commissioners in relation to their own endowments—nor, indeed, of other bodies which supervise the expenditure of money.
The fourth point—perhaps the most important point of all which relates most closely to the object of the Bill—is that the commission should have some degree of initiative. Just as, as the right reverend Prelate has told us, the Church has looked closely at the way in which its resources can best be spent for the purposes for which they were originally given, so one would expect the Charity Commission to realise that, even if the law dates from the first Elizabeth, we live in the reign of the second, that the basic function of private charity now must be to supplement the work of the welfare state, and that this clearly means looking at whether this is a genuine supplement or whether, as in the case of the vicar distributing loaves of bread, it would appear to be superflous. This initiative appears to be wholly lacking, otherwise the voluntary principle which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, pins his faith to or asks that we should pin our faith to would surely have had a better run over the past 20 years than emerges from these reports.
If, therefore, we have a Select Committee on this most important Bill, I hope that it will feel itself free to look at the machinery through which these neighbourhood trusts, if they come into being—as I hope they will—are supervised, because they in turn may be found wanting in some respects as social conditions and need change.
If one asks why the Charity Commissioners have not done these things and why they now require to be done, one can give two answers—one specific, and one more general. The specific answer (and this was referred to by the right reverend Prelate) is the business of treating each trust as a separate entity without regard to its possible relationship to other trusts. This is regarding the commission as a form of law court; a body separate from the machinery of Government and mainly concerned with adjudicating questions, such as whether or not a particular charity has the right to registration.
There is a more general answer, which is that it is no longer proper, whatever may have been the case in the past, for a body which does affect the expenditure of what are still, by any standards, quite considerable sums of money to be so removed and remote from our general machinery of Government—whether parliamentary or administrative. The Select Committee might therefore look at two possibilities. First, that the Charity Commissioners should be made responsible, as the Parliamentary Commission of Administration is, to a parliamentary committee. In this case, clearly, and particularly in view of your Lordships' experience
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in these matters, it ought to be a Joint Select Committee of both Houses.
Alternatively, that its present rather remote relationship with the Home Office—which is exemplified by the fact that we are to hear the arguments it has against the Bill from the mouth of the Minister representing that department in your Lordships' House—should be substituted with a relationship of a more intimate kind with the department which spends hundreds and thousands of times as much money on assistance to the needy—namely, the Department of Health and Social Security. It seems quite absurd that there should be this gap between private charity and—using the word in no derogatory sense—public charity. The fact that a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Security has not participated in this debate highlights the weakness in our governmental arrangements, which I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention.
12.32 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I should like to give positive support to the Bill which has been introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful, because I am satisfied that the status quo is not the answer. The House must be indebted to the noble Baroness for introducing this Bill and for the considerable volume of research which she and her small team of volunteers have collected over a short period of time. All that is relevant when one comes to consider the inactivity of the past 20 years on the part of other people.
The passing of the Charities Act 1960—and there has been a great deal of reference to that Act this morning—was a monumental achievement. Parliament in its wisdom made it possible for trustees to modify the objects in accordance with the spirit of the gift where such objects had become outmoded. That was made possible by the famous Section 13, which allowed charities to merge, to widen their area of benefit, or to take other steps to enable a charity to make the most effective use of its property—again, within the spirit of the gift. This morning we have not heard of Section 18 of the 1960 Act: but under that section the Act placed trustees under a duty to apply for a scheme to alter the objects in certain circumstances. I will return to that point in a minute or two.
The 1960 Act therefore had considerable potential. It provided the mechanism to promote better investment (and we have heard this morning of the scandalous state of investment in many of the trusts) and more effective administration and application of charitable property, to enable the ancient charities to play a positive role in the modern welfare state. However we have heard time and again this morning that the evidence shows that Section 13 has not been activated as one would wish. There may have been a misplaced sense of loyalties, but there has also been a great deal of sheer apathy.
In general, trustees have not grasped the initiative which was theirs to take. Since the period 1960 to 1965, the Charity Commissioners appear to have been content to exercise a passive role. One often hears of the Charity Commissioners' preference for saying "No". Since 1960–65, the Charity Commissioners do not appear to have seen it to be their role to facilitate

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and encourage charities to take advantage of the provisions of the 1960 Act to attain their aims. I believe that this negative response is tantamount to denying the existence of the problem; a problem that was recognised by Parliament a quarter of a century ago. We should not underestimate the significance of this non-activity.
It will be interesting to learn from the noble Lord the Minister—either today or later—how often the commissioners have exercised the power available to them under Section 18 to request the Home Secretary to refer a case to them where they are satisfied that the interests of the charity require a scheme but that the trustees have unreasonably refused or neglected to do so. The critical question posed by the noble Baroness is: How do we move forward so as to give effect to the principles of the 1960 Act and to the spirit of the donor's intentions?
We have heard that the Bill proposes a merger of parochial charities for the relief of poverty to form neighbourhood trusts to serve a group of parishes; and that a duty will be placed on the county councils (to be exercised over a period of five years—not 12 months) to prepare the necessary recommendations to the commissioners. We have seen already in the 1960 Act the principles of merger and of widening the area of beneficial benefit. So the new principle (and I am not so sure that it is new, given Section 18 of the 1960 Act) is the mandatory requirement. I agree with my noble friend Lord Foot: is that requirement to kill the Bill?
I support this Bill because something has to be done and I believe that this Bill takes the right approach. I wish to refer briefly to three matters in the light of our experience in Wales, where there is considerable concern about the inactivity of the ancient charities and where a steering committee has already been established to review the position and to make recommendations. The first point is a very minor one. The Bill throughout refers to parishes, which no longer exist in the Principality. It therefore requires a minor amendment so that the word "parish" is construed to mean a community.
Secondly, one would wish to know why the Bill is confined to those parochial charities whose aim is the relief of poverty. It has been put to me that in Wales there are probably more educational trusts than trusts for the relief of poverty. The state of the statistics is poor, and I am unable to verify that that is so, but I would wish to know why it is not extended to cover educational trusts. It may be that one cannot at this stage place an additional burden on the various authorities, and that I would accept, but in due course the educational trusts will also require proper consideration in legislation.
The third point is that in any scheme of reorganisation of the Charity Commissioners—this is not dealt with in the Bill, but reference has been made more than once to the role of the Charity Commissioners in the modern state—there is a need for the Charity Commissioners to establish a separate Welsh Office in Wales to which responsibility for oversight of Welsh charities could be transferred. The geographical area would not be extensive. Such an office would be close, or closer, to the eight county councils and to
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most Welsh charities. I believe that in co-operation with the county councils it could build up a bank of up-to-date standardised statistics about Welsh charities, and it would also relieve the burden on the Liverpool office of the commission and make it possible to bring a greater concentration to bear on the needs of the Welsh charities.
So, my Lords, initiative to integrate the ancient parochial trusts, and where necessary to reformulate their objects in order to achieve the donor's aim, is long overdue. Once again one says that the status quo is not an option. I believe that this Bill offers a new, practical and relevant approach to the problem, and it has many merits, which I trust will commend themselves to your Lordships' House.
12.43 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I, too, should like to congratulate my noble friend Lady Faithfull very much on bringing this Bill before us. I also very much support the idea of it being committed to a Select Committee; and I am delighted to hear that the Government agree with that approach. I will touch on only one or two small points, because the Bill has been very well dealt with by other speakers.
Before tackling the problem of supporting the Bill I consulted, as I do in these cases, the Isle of Wight County Council. It is, I think, of some interest that they indeed tried to make a list of the charities and to investigate them in 1977. They persuaded the junior branch of Rotary to do it. But in the event it was not found a suitable task for a group of young persons, so the work was not done, and nothing has been done since. I think that, perhaps—and here I would pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Beloff—had the matter been one for the Department of the Environment there might have been just that little more pressure, and acceptance of pressure by the counties, for this to be got on with; but because it was the Home Office, to which they do not directly report and which does not give them money in the ordinary sense, they perhaps did not. I know my noble friend has said that it should be the DHSS, but I do not think that would improve the position. I think there is a problem of the work in the counties, and I think this is something that will need to be examined by the Select Committee.
If, as my noble friend Lady Faithfull says, it is only a cost of £2,000 a year for two years, that is fine; but that needs to be properly established. Also, I think the counties should be encouraged to use voluntary groups to do it. It might even be almost an understood thing that that is the way in which it should be done. At the time I am speaking of, in 1977, the counties were not short of staff in the sense that they perhaps now are, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mischon, called our attention. It could be that it would be more difficult now. I think this is a point we have to study: how it is done and who by, not unnecessarily burdening the counties with the task.
The other point I took from the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, with which I agreed is the difficulty of persuading people to join in such a scheme as this. It is a shame that the right reverend Prelate has had to leave, because I have experience of church parishes being amalgamated and of the rivalries and difficulties

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that that can cause. I think it could well be that there are some charities which should be allowed, at any rate initially, to opt out of the neighbourhood trusts scheme. Of course, if they could show the Charity Commissioners, presumably, that they were a well-established charity and were being properly run, that there were suitable people existing to benefit from the charity, and a few obvious points like that—there could be some sort of guidelines—and if they satisfied all those criteria, they could be left alone for the time being.
One would hope that the neighbourhood trusts would grow in such a way that these other charities might be attracted to them in due course. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that one needs to go very carefully to ensure that one is not treading unnecessarily on the toes of those operating something which is working in this particular area. I think the Bill is perhaps a little too compulsory. I can see why it is. Perhaps one should have some sort of let-out on the lines I have described, and the Select Committee might look into that.
My final point is in relation to the Charity Commissioners. I must say they seem to have come out of this extraordinarily badly. I entirely agree with the general theme of what my noble friend Lord Beloff had to say. I should like my noble friend the Minister to tell me, if he can, when he comes to make his contribution to the debate, who the commissioners are. What sort of people are they? Are they civil servants, or are they lawyers? Are they of this generation, or is it necessary to be over 90 before you are a charity commissioner? There must be some explanation for it. Who selects them, and what sort of criteria do they have in selecting them? Something desperately needs to be done to bring them into the 20th century, and to do it before the 21st century is upon us.
I really think this is something that needs to be dealt with, quite separately from this Bill and from the need for it to be progressed through its Select Committee. I think the Church Commissioners—I mean, of course, the Charity Commissioners; I hesitate to say the Church Commissioners, and if my noble friend Lord Sandford were here he would be very upset—need a long hard look taken at them, and perhaps we should sack the lot and start again. But I hope very much that we will encourage this Bill to go forward, and that it will in some form or other eventually reach the statute book.
12.49 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I would wish to pay my own tribute to my noble friend Lady Faithfull, without whose initiative we should not, in all probability, be discussing this very important subject which bears upon the humanities. It is at her request that I speak in this debate, but I have no expertise whatever in charity law. It is not my purpose to criticise any Government department, or any division of work between Government departments, or the Charity Commissioners, but to support the board case for committal to a Select Committee which was advanced by noble Lords who have spoken before me in this debate, including of course the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said, there is general consensus on the need for investigation. I support the Second Reading in order to support the Motion for committal. But in this context it is relevant, in submission, to consider the Bill which, I understand, is about to passs in another place this afternoon; not at length, but very briefly. That Bill, which is to enable the property of small charities to be extended without regard to restrictions distinguishing between capital and income, will, it is understood, be opposed by certain of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lady Faithfull, not only on the issue of what is meant by value but on the fundamental issue of whether the Bill would not operate to destroy those ancient legacies to the detriment of the poor.
To this Bill now before your Lordships' House, which seeks amalgamation of parochial charities into neighbourhood trusts in order to preserve these legacies, it surely is relevant to consider that this will destroy nothing but will unlock dead funds and put them to some useful charitable purpose. These provisions include resort to the mandatory provisions of Clause 4. For some this would be too draconian. If I may borrow the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon (and it is not for the first time I find myself in total agreement with him) one must approach this with a considerable measure of care. That is one of the reasons why I am supporting the Second Reading—so that there should be this investigation.
With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, who thought otherwise, I adopt here the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I do not know if this was the thought of my noble friend Lord Mottistone—and I agree with him in the principle of his concept—but perhaps there should be a form of appellate procedure which could be invoked by any interested party so that the recommendation of the local council, which, subject to modification under Clause 4 by the commissiners becomes the scheme for the amalgamation of the charities, may be subject to general review by some revisory tribunal or court, even perhaps the Privy Council. It is a very important matter concerning the rights of donors, where the future of the willingness of people to give is concerned and where the more prestigious the tribunal perhaps the more appropriate it would be.
Is it not evident that on any showing there must be a measure of reorganisation of these parochial charities, quite outside the question of charities generally? The question is: what should be done about it? On that question there is, as has been observed, again by the noble Lord, Lord Mischcon, no substantial unanimity. It is common ground that we should do something but we are not agreed on what we should do. Is not this the classic situation where we should refer the matter, by committal, to a Select Committe? Indeed, is it not unneccessary, and indeed unwise, to allow two Bills which lie in conflict and which purport to deal with the same subject to entertain the time of your Lordships' House? Would it not be fare more preferable that we should have the benefit of those who are really skilled in this esoteric subject of charity law to assist us with our deliberations before we debate either of these Bills?
I have no intention of detaining your Lordships by seeking to canvass the merits of either Bill. That would

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be quite contrary to the main tenor of my submissions to your Lordships that the merits or demerits are relatively immaterial in the form of drafting and the form of purpose of these Bills. What matters is that we should receive expert assistance from the Select Committee in order to know how we should deal with them.
In conclussion, I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that it is no use saying that the voluntary reorganisation is a runner at all. Nothing will happen. I take, with gratitude, the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who observed that adaptation by statute is the only way forward and that we should free ourselves from the legalistic approach of the Charity Commissioners. By using the words "legalistic approach" in relation to a body set up to apply the law I am not seeking to criticise them. At this stage criticism, in submission, is totally idle. What we need is information and advice.
12.58 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I rise to express my appreciation of the initiative taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, my general sympathy with the objectives of the Bill and, in particular, my support for the proposed reference to a Select Committee.
Some of us have from time to time urged a review of the general law relating to charities and I, too, derive some comfort from seeing that the Attorney-General, to judge from remarks in another place, is now coming round to that view. But, although the debate today—inevitably, I suppose—has tended to go a little wide, what we are, or at any rate ought to be, concentrating on is just one aspect that, happily, does not raise any great political or philosophical question—subject to the one point about staff to which I shall come in a moment. Certainly what has been said in the debate demonstrates that all we are talking about is something of much greater significance than one might be tempted to think at first sight.
Some rather unkind things have been said about the Charity Commissioners. I do not propose to lengthen my speech by answering all the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, tempting though that is. However, I do believe that they have been handicapped by a lack of resources, for which historically I suppose I must accept some responsibility, and also by the somewhat confusing development of the law over the years both in Parliament and in the courts. Perhaps we need a new Charities Act, but certainly the Act of 1960, which reconstituted the commission and redefined its responsibilities, has turned out in some respects to have been lacking in precision, and it has indeed failed to meet some of the high hopes that were placed in it.
I took the trouble to re-read some of the debates on that Bill, and have been reminded of the importance which the Government of the day attached to the section authorising the review of local charities by local authorities and the contribution which they hoped these reviews would make towards promoting the more effective use of charitable resources. Unfortunately, though, this section did not attempt to define the purposes of these local reviews, and the picture which was conjured up of the Charity
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Commissioners, the local authorities and the charity trustees working together in harmonious co-operation to bring the local charities up to date and to avoid overlap with the statutory services does strike one as being—how shall I put it?—idealistic.
Nor has the register of charities set up under the Act proved to be the mine of information one had rather hoped for. Previous speakers have referred to the lack of precise information. One must say that we are today discussing the future of parochial charities for the poor without any precise knowledge of how many charities there are, what assets they have, what they spend their money on, what their income is—still less what their income ought to be, given the point the noble Baroness made about the tenant farmers using charitable land for which they pay what is now a ridiculously low rent.
On 27th May last (col. 1358 of Hansard), I asked the Government how many local and parochial charities having a permanent endowment were registered in three of the four groups as laid down in the Macnaghten judgment—that is for the relief of poverty, for the advancement of education and for other purposes beneficial to the community. I did not ask about those for the advancement of religion. I was told in reply that no distinction was made in the register between charities having a permanent endowment and others, and that this information—which was not actually what I had asked for—could be obtained only by examining the individual deeds, the cost of which would be disproportionate. My Lords, I can only say, Alas!
But I agree with what I understood to be the point that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, was making: that the absence of detailed information is not of itself a reason for sweeping the whole issue under the carpet and that if we do nothing there seems to be no likelihood of anything better emerging on its own initiative. We do know quite a bit, as the noble Baroness has said, from the county reviews. We know that there are a great many parochial charities which do not have very much money, but we know that there are quite a number which have a great deal. In spite of the picture which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, painted for us in such moving terms about the application and loyalty of the local trustees, I am afraid we do know that a great deal of the income is not being usefully and imaginatively applied. We know, too, that there is very little sign of the consultation between trustees and the statutory bodies that had been hoped for. What is perhaps even more important, there is very little sign either of anything being done voluntarily to make things better.
The crux of the problem dealt with by the Bill seems to me to be this. These charities were endowed for the relief of the poor and not for the amenities of the parish. It was quite natural at the time for the parish to be taken as the unit, since in the days of the Poor Laws each parish was responsible for its own poor. But, leaving aside the very tiny charities, in many areas it is now possible to ensure that the money is sensibly used for the relief of the poor in ways not covered by the welfare state only by enlarging the area of operation. The argument for the Bill is that it is much more in keeping with the intentions of the donors to do this, rather than to go on dribbling the income away in pretty useless doles; or, alternatively, departing from

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the wishes of the donors and ceasing to use the money for the relief of poverty, diverting it instead to amenities within the parish. This is the main purpose of the Bill, as I understand it, and I go along with it.
There are one or two aspects of the Bill itself about which I am not altogether happy, but this is not the time at which to go into detail about them. But I may perhaps just mention that I am a little uneasy about the definition of the objects of neighbourhood trusts, as set out in Clause 5. I am not sure what the sanction is if the local authority fails to put in its proposals within the five years specified in, I think, Clause 4. But points of this kind—and there are quite a few—can be threshed out later.
But before I sit down I should like to comment very briefly on two of the other objections to the Bill which have been voiced by Home Office Ministers—contrary though it is to my whole upbringing to voice the slightest doubt about their views. The first one is the point about staff. I understand the fears, but I think that it is possible to exaggerate them. Some of the preliminary work must have been done in the county reviews; and, so far as the counties are concerned, the further demands should be quite modest and voluntary bodies of a suitable kind could be called upon to help. So far as the Charity Commission is concerned, they already manage to put through each year a substantial number of amalgamation schemes of a rather different type—174 of them in 1981—and the end result of setting up neighbourhood schemes would mean such considerable economies for them in future in having to deal with fewer boards of trustees that some additional effort should be well worth while.
A second objection was that to compel the trustees of these old schemes to combine would deter potential donors now. I am sorry, but I simply do not understand this objection. No one is coming forward now to set up new parochial schemes for the poor, and I really should be surprised if anyone were put off making a charitable contribution simply because better effect was being given to the desires of people who endowed charities a long time ago. But if there is anything in the point, it must apply with rather greater force to this other Bill about small charities which appears on the agenda in another place this very day, and which, for some unaccountable reason, seems to have received some sympathy from Her Majesty's Government.
But I will leave it there, apart from striking just a note of warning about the extent of the remit of any Select Committee which is appointed, given some of the comments which have been made in the debate. I shall sit down, again saying that I support the proposals of the noble Baroness.
1.10 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I have just two small reasons for wishing to give the Bill my wholehearted support. First, like so many of your Lordships, at one time I lived in a village. The village had a small parochial trust, which was quite out of step with the current situation. This was the cause of very much thought and concern to dutiful inhabitants and parish councillors, who almost wished that it would go away.
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It seemed like fantasy. There was good money, and it was a puzzle to know how to spend it.
Secondly, a few years ago I was sent to work for several days on researching at the headquarters of the Charity Commissioners, to discover suitable charities to approach for a project with which I was connected. I was amazed by the lack of cross-referencing and up-to-date details afforded by the files. It was a question of wading through stacks of amazingly dusty files. Although I was very grateful to have permission to do this, I was much less grateful for the billows of dust from the files—dust which enveloped me and triggered off my asthma.
This exercise certainly aroused my interest in the Charity Commissioners. I was very ignorant about them. Who were they, and what made them tick? The nearest answer at which I arrived was that they are a quasi-quango, a quasi-judicial body, apparently accountable to nobody, but with the Home Office as their spokesman. From what I saw for myself it seems extremely unlikely that they have any necessarily detailed grass-root information on the numerous parochial charities on the scale that is needed today. Without this they can be in no position to administer the charities, as presumably was intended.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Faithfull on her customary skill and her adroit handling of a very delicate matter, and I am delighted to support the Bill's provisions. I hope that with the help of my noble friend the Minister the Bill will lead eventually to the funds in question being made available for the many needy rural and other causes that surely exist today.
1.12 p. m.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I shall not delay the House by more than a minute. I should just like to congratulate my noble friend Lady Faithfull on introducing the Bill, and on the way in which she did so. I wish to support my noble friend Lord Mottistone in some of his rather forceful questions about the Charity Commissioners. This has nothing to do with the parochial charity for the poor. I had a difficult experience with the Charity Commissioners, and I believe that as a result of the Select Committee's activities, the more we can hear about their work, their method of operation, their structure and accountability, the better we shall all be pleased.
1.13 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, I am grateful to all those noble Lords who have made such valuable contributions to the debate; and I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady Faithfull for giving the House an opportunity today to discuss the work of parochial charities. She has given us an admirable survey of the long history of the charities with which her Bill is concerned. She has also illustrated their great diversity, not always with examples designed exclusively for the benefit of the poor. I was particularly taken with the foundation which offered £2 to a preacher to preach, and 50 pence to the church wardens to listen. That is an interesting principle. If it were applied to this Dispatch Box and these Benches, I dare say that it would be necessary to reverse the proportions in order to secure an attendance.

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As we have heard, a similar Bill was introduced as a Private Member's Bill into another place, where there was no opportunity for it to be debated. Therefore I am glad now to have a chance to set out the Government's position on the Bill before us.
My noble friend has made the suggestion that the Bill should be handled by a Select Committee. I believe that that is a constructive suggestion, and it is one which the Government would not wish to obstruct. As my noble friend said, this is a complex field, fraught with a lot of difficulty, and not a little emotion. My noble friend's desire is to see the large, but fragmented, amounts of money in local charities brought to bear with greater effectiveness on real and pressing problems. While we sympathise with that, we have grave doubts as to whether what she proposes in the Bill sits well either with the spirit in which many of these monies were given, or indeed with the doctrine of cy-près, which lies properly at the heart of existing requirements for the change of the purposes of charitable trusts.
This difficult ground seems to me appropriate to be worked by a diligent Select Committee. This is in itself a large and potentially fruitful field. It could only suffer if it were to be dealt with in haste, and the pressures of the parliamentary timetable would almost certainly introduce an element of haste into any treatment accorded it by a Committee of the Whole House. But to widen the terms of reference as my noble friend Lord Beloff suggests, to cover the whole field of charities and their administration, would I think be to overload the consideration, and here I echo the wise, cautionary words of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
It is not in any case what my noble friend is proposing, and I would not feel free to support it if it was; nor do I feel that my noble friend Lord Trefgarne is at fault, if that was my noble friend Lord Beloff's suggestion. I do not think that my noble friend Lord Trefgarne is at fault in his absence from this debate. My noble friend Lord Beloff should not suppose that Ministers are so little pressed in their work that they can afford to attend personally every debate in which they may have an interest when responsibility rests properly in the hands of another.
We are talking of a Select Committee, and a Select Committee stands out of the pattern of the main traffic of committees, and I am perfectly content that my noble friend's Bill should be handled as she proposes.
However in the absence of such a proposal, I should have found it difficult not to pour a great deal of cold water onto the Bill, despite the fact that all of us share my noble friend's desire to see the resources of charities, both large and small, used to their greatest effect. We are well aware of the nature of the problem. Of the 144,000 charities registered with the Charity Commissioners, well over half have an annual income of less than £100. It is right that we should be concerned with the proper and relevant use of funds donated, sometimes hundreds of years ago, when some of the needs of the poor were very different from their needs today.
I think I heard my noble friend say that the value of the charities is £35 million. If the value is really as high as that—and I say this in ignorance of her grounds for
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stating it; I take leave to doubt it—it would arouse avarice. If, as I think, it is less, it still arouses a considerable and legitimate interest.
The Charities Act 1960 specifically entrusts the Charity Commissioners with the responsibility,
"of promoting the effective use of charitable resources by encouraging the development of better methods of administration, by giving charity trustees information or advice on any matter affecting the charity".
Moreover, they must so act,
"in the case of any charity (unless it is a matter of altering its purposes) as best to promote and make effective the work of the charity in meeting the needs designated by its trusts".
Your Lordships will not need reminding that under the cy-près doctrine the purpose of a charitable trust can be altered by the Charity Commissioners in certain circumstances, so long as the new purposes are as near as possible to the old ones. Certain procedures have to be followed, including the advertising of the proposals and the consideration of objections. I need not elaborate upon this now, except to emphasise the point that the commissioners' scheme-making power can be exercised only on a voluntary basis, on application by the trustees. The commissioners may, however, proceed on application by certain parties other than the trustees where the charity's income is not more than £50.
There is also power to proceed by compulsion where the commissioners are satisfied that the trustees ought to have applied for a scheme but have unreasonably refused or neglected to do so, and the Secretary of State endorses the commissioners' view. That power which resides in Section 18 of the Act has never yet been exercised. That answers the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone asked me who and, indeed, what the Charity Commissioners are. The Charity Commission is a Government department, but its functions on individual charities are quasi-judicial, and in these it is entirely independent of all Government Ministers. There are, as the Charities Act 1960 requires, three commissioners, of whom at least two must be lawyers. They are appointed by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The present chief commissioner was appointed in March last year, after selection through open competition. I must again emphasise that in their quasi-judicial functions the commissioners are not subject to direction by the Government, and also that with one exception, which I have already mentioned, they have no power to act independently, on their own initiative. They cannot therefore have had the opportunity to avoid the criticism of my noble friend that they have shown no initiative.
The 1960 Act also makes provision for local authority reviews of local charities in England and Wales. Section 11 empowers local authorities to initiate reviews of their local charities. They,
"may make to the Commissioners such report on the review and such recommendations arising from it as the council after consultation with the trustees think fit".
The charity trustees must consent to the review.
The question of the charity trustees' consent to these reviews was considered very carefully at the Committee stage of that Bill in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, expressing fears that a local authority

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might exert undue pressure on local charities to agree to a review, moved an amendment to Clause 11 that reviews of local charities should be initiated by the Charity Commissioners at the request of the local authority. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, thought that local authorities should be able to carry out a review without the consent of the trustees, and moved an amendment to that effect. Neither amendment was accepted after the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Kilmuir, had explained that the main purpose of the clause was a partnership in which both sides worked together voluntarily so that the best use might be made of their respective resources.
I can only echo those words. I think that it would be an unjustifiable infringement of partnership and cooperation on an equal basis—saving the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who, not for the first time, I believe, has ventured out of the safe ground delineated by his long experience to criticise the department—if the local authority could carry out reviews without the consent of the trustees. I must apologise to your Lordships for having dwelt at such lengths on the provisions of the Charities Act. I hope your Lordships will agree that it already provides a legislative framework for the review and modernisation of parochial charities.
I must nevertheless accept the arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Faithfull and supporters of her Bill that progress in carrying out the reviews and amalgamations envisaged in the 1960 Act has been slow, especially in recent years. I should, however, remind the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that reviews have been instituted in every county of England and Wales, and that in the 16 years until the end of 1980 1,242 schemes had been made by the Charity Commissioners as a direct result of local reviews.
To those who believe that it is in the best interests of charity that small and out-dated charities should merge to be more effective in achieving their purposes and in relation to the area in which they can be applied, the results of this part of the 1960 Act must be disappointing. While it is the case that the majority of small charities have already had their purposes modernised by the commissioners where this was necessary, the number of grouping schemes has not been as great as expected.
I think we have to examine the possible causes for this apparent lack of progress before we can give the Bill before us today proper consideration. As I said a moment ago, your Lordships' House itself originally considered the need for the consent of the trustees to a review to be essential. The experience of some local review organisers has shown that trustees of parochial charities guard their independence jealously, and they are often unwilling to see their benefits distributed over a wider area. Although this attitude is sometimes considered as intransigent and old-fashioned, it surely can also be seen as the proper respect for the donor's wishes, or the proper interpretation of those wishes with which the trustees have been entrusted. The reluctance of many trustees to participate in reviews only illustrates the point that most concerns the Government: that the imposition of a compulsory
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element onto reviews of local charities is objectionable in principle.
A further consideration was that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, who echoed a point made in the annual report of the Charity Commissioners in 1980 and placed on it a very polite and subtle but nevertheless political gloss. The commissioners said:
"With local authorities under increasing pressure to reduce their expenditure, it is not surprising that few of them are willing to embark on reviews of charities operating within their area. This is in continuation of a trend which has been apparent for some years".
In consequence, the report continues, the two local review sections were disbanded and the work absorbed into the mainstream of the commissioners' work.
While I understand and respect the reasons behind my noble friend's promotion of the Bill, I have to say that the Government see serious objections to it. It is fundamental to the law relating to charitable trusts that the property held on such trusts must be used for the purpose for which it was placed on trust. Any trust is protected in law, but charitable, trusts occupy a privileged position in that they are not subject to the rule against perpetual trusts, nor do they fail because their objects are uncertain or become impracticable. It seems right that we should take particular care to safeguard their original purposes as far as practicable. When the purpose of a charity is altered according to the cy-près doctrine, the new object must remain within the spirit of the original donation and be varied to the minimum degree necessary to enable the charity to serve a useful purpose. This is a very different principle from that of the Bill before us, which overrides the wishes of the donors in a way which we believe is out of keeping with the principles and spirit of charity law.
Charitable giving is, after all, essentially a personal and a voluntary activity. The Bill before us seems to have little sympathy with this. The thousands of local charities which would be affected by the Bill were established to help the poor in a wide variety of ways, reflecting personal interests and areas of concern. Much thought must have been given to the precise ways in which the donors wanted to benefit their localities, and it is worth remarking in passing that these charities are a fascinating record of how people in the past tried to help those in need. Certainly it is haphazard as a system, and it may not be the most rational way of using these resources.
The right reverend Prelate has suggested that this may be at the bottom of a perceived drift of charitable giving away from the very local and therefore very personal and welcome level. That is a point well taken, but there is another that we have to bear in mind. It is that charitable giving is already showing signs of decline. If people were not free to give as they pleased in the confidence that their wishes would be carrried out, it might well decline further still.
I do not regard this (as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, shakes his head) as a fanciful consideration. I think of the benefits left in the wills of people for local concerns. I would have thought that in drawing up their wills they would very much feel threatened by a sweeping and compulsory power operating on the field into which they wished to make a small and personal intervention, feeling that it might

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be absorbed into other purposes. Charity is voluntary giving, and charity law is based on the importance—
Lord Allen of A bbeydale: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Will the Government express the same sentiments in dealing with the Bill that is currently in another place?
Lord Elton: My Lords, when we come to see that Bill I shall address myself to that question.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord the Minister cannot get away with that very short, sharp sentence. Are we to understand that, in spite of what he says, this other Bill which is in the other place is in fact favoured by the Government? If it is, there are many of us who will feel very angry, especially at that short reply.
Lord Elton: My Lords, what I am doing at present is addressing myself properly to discussing a Bill on the Order Paper of this House. The noble Lord wishes me to start to discuss a Bill on the Order Paper in another House. I very much doubt if I can properly at this stage introduce the discussion of another Bill. If I can do so, I shall return to the subject. In the meantime, I spare the noble Lord the pain of interrupting me further.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Lord accepts the pain and is prepared to suffer it for the sake of justice and for the sake of clarity in this House. The noble Lord the Minister has just expressed the principle—a very clear principle—that it would deter people who might be wishing to make charitable gifts or, indeed, legacies in their wills, by the fact that their purpose may be frustrated. There is another Bill in another place which does frustrate that object by making it a fact that such trusts come to an end. Would the noble Lord the Minister say whether in his discursion into this matter he feels that that is consistent with what he has just said? If he feels that that object is inconsistent, may we take it for granted that the Government are consistent in their view and will oppose the other Bill?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the other Bill to which the noble Lord refers does not have an element of compulsion and we are in favour of the voluntary principle. The noble Lord will not expect me to announce the Government's proposed Second Reading speech on the other Bill before it reaches this House, which is what I thought he wished me to do. But if the noble Lord, asks me whether we are consistent in being opposed to compulsion, the answer is, Yes.
Central and local government may have a variety of ideas about how resources can best be deployed and they have access to resources with which to give effect to such policies and priorities in rational and efficient ways. It is to be hoped that similar principles will apply to resources contributed voluntarily, but it is fundamental to existing charity law that no Government compulsion of any kind should be admissible to achieve that.
We have received letters from a number of trustees of charities who would be affected by the Bill; most
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have raised objections to it. They accept that some charities are not effective but many of the letters point out that their charities are performing useful tasks efficiently, and on one occasion they even produced accounts to prove it. The trustees are understandably anxious to preserve their independence and express resentment that they might be forced into amalgamations regardless of how much of a success had been made of each charity. Trustees of local charities have considerable duties to perform and many of them take great pride in performing them well—a pride which is not directly related to how much money is at their disposal.
Although the Bill aims for the effective use of charitable resources it could well have an opposite effect both in the loss of active, thriving local charities which would be caught by the Bill, and in the possible loss of many interested and experienced trustees.
Nor is it the charity trustees alone who are to be subjected to the compulsory elements of the Bill: the local authorities also must carry out their reviews of the charities in their areas within one year of the Bill's passage and the Charity Commissioners must issue schemes giving effect to the recommendations arising from the review reports. We believe that most counties would not welcome the Bill on cost grounds, as they would simply be unable to carry out the provisions within their existing resources. I am as chary of my noble friend's optimistic assessment of the cost of those as I am of her estimate of the capital sums in question. We have already seen signs of a decline in charitable giving and we have already seen signs of unwillingness under the voluntary reviews so far carried out. The same is true of the Charity Commission: there is no way in which it could take on this work without extra staff and increased expense to the taxpayer. As my noble friend Lady Faithfull said, the commissioners have a difficult task and we are fortunate that they carry it out with such dedication and judgment.
Even were the principles not objectionable there could be no question, at the moment, of the Government allowing additional resources for either local authorities or Charity Commissioners to carry out the tasks which would be imposed on them by the Bill. But this does not mean that we are not prepared to look at ways in which the resources available to local charities may be appropriately put to more effective use, where this is thought desirable.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, we believe that we should know more about the difficulties which local charity reviews encounter, their possible benefits in persuading charity trustees to release resources for wider use, their cost-effectiveness, and the scope for establishing a neighbourhood trust or improving the use of local charitable funds by making information about their objects more widely available. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway has said, information is something which we still do not have enough of. To this end the Home Office Voluntary Services Unit is funding a local charity review in Lancashire. It has taken some time to get going but it has started work this month with the appointment of a review organiser. Progress in reviews like this is never as quick as one would like, but those concerned are very enthusiastic and I believe that it will give us a

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good opportunity to see how effective a review, which does not rely in any way on compulsion, can be in practice.
I have explained at too great length why the Government consider that this Bill is out of step with charity law, and how those most closely affected by it could not welcome it, warts and all. For these reasons, the Government are unable to advise the House to support this measure, although I would not be so churlish as to advise it to reject it.
Support for the idea of the Select Committee has been pretty general this afternoon, and I heard with particular interest the support given to it by the right reverend Prelate and, indeed, by the Churches' main committee. A Select Committee might be able to acquire a great deal of valuable knowledge and a welcome depth of wisdom on this subject. It might even enable the Bill to qualify to benefit from that charity to which my noble friend earlier referred whose founder suffered from warts on his nose, and get some of them off the Bill.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I should like to ask a point of clarification. I must have misunderstood. What is the point of sending this Bill to a Select Committee if Her Majesty's Government are committed to the other Bill? Perhaps I have misunderstood the position?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think that I have said very nearly as much as I can on this subject. I have told your Lordships of a principle which we find objectionable in this Bill; your Lordships have asked whether it is in the other Bill, and I have said, No. But I think my noble friend should consult through the usual channels if he wants to take the matter further, because I cannot take it further.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether I might extend this point. I am sure that the House does not wish to waste its time or that of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord the Minister expressed a point of view of principle and then said that he was now on another principle—that of compulsion or voluntary act. I am assuming, as I believe others of your Lordships are assuming, that the origional settler or testator is now dead and therefore cannot be consulted, and therefore cannot be said to be doing something voluntarily. He has a succession of trustees and they of course could, under the other Bill, cause his charitable trust to cease and be frustrated. That is not, from the point of view of the original settler or testator, a voluntary act because he is in another place—whether higher or lower—where his consent cannot be given.
Therefore, I am afraid that the question of compulsion or voluntariness does not apply to the principle that the noble Lord the Minister is trying to enunciate. I believe that this House would be extremely angry—and I have used that word before—if it were led to believe that the whole matter was being considered by a Select Committee when in fact another Bill was going to be given Government assistance in another place.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am not sure how long the conventions of this House allow us to play ping pong across the Table at Second Reading. On the question of compulsion not being exercisable upon a testator who had departed these realms to another place, the wishes of the testator nevertheless survive him in the hands of the trustees. It is the voluntariness of the actions of the trustees which we think should not be impinged upon. As I do not know the outcome of what is happening in another place at this stage, I still am not in a position to predict what will happen in this case.
1.41 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I think I should rise quickly because otherwise we might be here until tomorrow morning. What is perfectly clear is that,
"The time has come, the walrus said,
For something to be done".
All those who have spoken today agree that something has to be done, though many of us have been divided as to exactly what it should be. I shall not detain the House very long because there is further business. First of all, I thank every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate today. I know that the subject is a complicated one, and I am most grateful to all those who have spoken and contributed.
Perhaps I may briefly make a few points. First, we—and in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon—have talked about the question of resources. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, very well answered the question. If any other Government department—and we have learnt from my noble friend the Minister that this is regarded as a Government department—was running on such short resources that it had to be inefficient, because that is what it means, I wonder whether that would be allowed. I suspect not.
On the question of the mandatory and voluntary principle, it has been pointed out by many noble Lords that the voluntary principle for the formation of neighbourhood trusts has existed since 1960. This has been pointed out by many noble Lords, and it has not been effective. Another point is the question of data. I understand that there are data, because the reviews have been carried out throughout the country. This is in the hands of the Charity Commissioners. What I would suggest is that those data have not yet been properly analysed, but they are there.
With regard to the Bill before the other place, I am going to be careful over this, because otherwise we could continue. I would support other noble Lords who have said that this is an extraordinary situation. I have on other Bills found myself in disagreement with my noble friend the Minister. I have the greatest admiration for his ability and, usually, for his logical approach to everything. In this, I have to say that it is not a logical approach to support the Bill before the other place and not to support the principles of the Bill before your Lordships' House today.
Many noble Lords have talked about the composition of the Charity Commission and the way it works. Many noble Lords have said that it is an independent, quasi-legal body. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister will forgive me if I say that

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his speech today bears that out. I would suggest that he is speaking to a brief, and obviously, with all that he has to do, he cannot possibly have the time really to know how the Charity Commission operates. This point was well brought out by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone.
I am grateful for what has been said. I must make my position clear over the Charities Bill before the other House. Should it come to this House I could not possibly support it. If your Lordships are going to grant a Second Reading, followed by the agreement to a Select Committee, I would suggest that the Bill before the other House should be considered by the Select Committee rather than us having yet another debate, though that is not for me to say. I thank your Lordships for your support, and I thank the noble Minister for what he has had to say, although I cannot fully agree with him.
On Question, Bill read a second time.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee.—(Baroness Faithfull.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill committed to a Select Committee accordingly.

Copyright (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
1.46 p.m.
Lord Willis: My Lords, it is just over a year ago since I last addressed your Lordships on the subject of copyright. On that occasion, I said, if your Lordships will allow me to quote:
"What is needed is the political will to bring the copyright laws into line with the present conditions. The present law has been out-distanced and out-dated by modern technology. It needs to be changed as a matter of urgency … It is in the interests of all that our arts, and the industries which support them, should flourish … they earn millions of pounds for the economy and do a great deal for the prestige of Britain abroad. But they would not have been able to do any of this without the copyright protection which at present exists—and they will not be able to do so in the future unless that protection is brought up to date".—[Official Report, 31/3/82; col. 1439.]
In that year, my Lords, all the evidence goes to show that the situation has become worse—far worse—and that the introduction of still newer technology and the great increase in piracy has made the need for action even more urgent. The present Bill before your Lordships is a modest measure designed to plug one or two of the more obvious holes. It is essentially a minor first-aid job, which will, so to speak, help to staunch the flow of blood until more substantial remedies are available.
The background to the Bill is the growing practice of private copying of records and films, what is known as home taping, and the question, yet again, of piracy. When I spoke a year ago, I regret to say that Hansard, usually the most reliable of chroniclers, got one word of my speech wrong. I do not blame them for that because it was a difficult word, but it was also a vital word. Hansard reported me as saying:
"You can now record, if one can make a new phrase, music from records or films and programmes from television in the privacy of your own home.—[col. 1437]
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What I actually said was that you could do all these things in the "piracy" of your own home. A subtle but vital difference.
What was true then is doubly true today. The latest estimate from the music industry is that it is losing something like £300 million a year as a result of illegal copying. It cannot be too strongly stressed that when I speak of the music or the record industry I am speaking of a host of people who depend, directly or indirectly, on music, records and films for their livelihoods—writers, composers, musicians, shopkeepers, printers, engineers and so forth. It is these people who are being robbed. For that is exactly what it is, my Lords; it is robbery.
I must admit that I have my doubts about the use of the words "piracy" and "pirates". It has connotations of romance and glamour enshrined in Holywood films starring bold buccaneers like Erroll Flynn. Believe me, my Lords, the present pirates are nothing like that. I believe that we should call a spade a spade, and a thief a thief. But I very much regret that I think we are stuck with the word "pirates", and, if we are, then, my Lords, I tell you that Britain today is a great market for the thieves and pirates. Britain has today become Treasure Island for those who steal the copyright of other people.
One new feature of the situation that is causing alarm to the record industry is the development of retail outlets which are devoted to the rental of gramophone records and cassette tapes. The retail cost of a record or a pre-recorded cassette can be between £4 and £5. The rental shops offer these out for a nightly hire charge of about 40p or 50p. There can be no doubt that the vast majority of people, quite innocently, hire these records and cassettes for 40p or 50p to record them in their own homes. They may record two or three copies for their friends. From their point of view it is good value for money. A blank tape costs £1 or less, and the hire charge added to that means that for about £1.50, about one-third of the retail price, the borrower can have the latest recording. It does not concern him or the rental shop that in doing this he is actually cheating, that he is as guilty of the theft of other people's property as if he were a shoplifter or a pickpocket.
Let us think of it in this way, there are some 20 to 25 million sound cassette recorders in private hands in Britain. If, at a conservative estimate, only 50 per cent. of these are used illegally to record borrowed records, and if at an even more conservative estimate, this 50 per cent. copy only one record each year, that means a potential loss to the record industry of about 20 million sales a year. It might be argued that not all these people would go out to buy the record. I think it is very conservative to say that they would record only one a year, but, even so, if we were to slash the figure by half or three-quarters the loss is still absolutely staggering. I defy your Lordships to think of any other industry in this country which is subject to such undeserved losses. No other industry is being plundered and pillaged on a regular, recurring basis. I must stress again that when I am talking of "the industry" I mean writers, composers, musicians, artistes and everyone.
I am not suggesting that we should appoint an army of investigators who would have the power to enter

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people's homes and check on what they get up to with their recorders. Heaven forbid! It is my belief that the only long-term answer to illegal home-taping is to recognise that it exists and that it cannot be policed, and to impose a royalty on all blank tapes and recording machines. That would be a simple and effective method of licensing, and I hope that the Government will look at this possibility. But that is for the future; it has nothing to do with the present Bill. What we can do in the meantime is to make it just a little more difficult for the home-taper, particularly for those who use record rental shops for the purpose of copying.
As yet, rental shops have not developed in Britain to the same extent as in other countries. But there are ominous signs. The record industry is alarmed about them. The threat is there, and it is my hope that in this instance the Government will act before the horse has bolted.
Let me give your Lordships one example—the experience of Japan. It will give your Lordships some idea of the immensity of the threat. In June 1980 the first rental store for records and pre-recorded cassettes opened in Japan. It was such a runaway success that in the space of nine months the number of rental shops in Japan had risen to 800. That was in nine months. One of the enterprising newspapers in Japan took a poll of the people using rental shops, and 98 per cent. of the people who hired records and the pre-recorded cassettes admitted that they did so to copy them at home. All this had a disastrous effect on the legitimate business in Japan. The sale of official records and prerecorded cassettes dropped, on average, 30 per cent., and in some cases in Tokyo it dropped 60 per cent. Imagine the outcry if any of our high street shops were subject to such losses as a result of illegal trading.
The threat is there, and the first purpose of the Bill which I now present to your Lordships is to widen the scope of the law so that it covers record rental operations. It is necessary because the present law, the Copyright Act 1956, was framed before these new problems arose. The present Act gives the record industry little or no protection from unauthorised rental of its products. I do not want to burden the House with the legal technicalities. Suffice it to say that the industry brought a test case against an unauthorised record business in 1981, and it was found that the Act of 1956 could not give it the protection it needed. The present Bill, although it would not automatically condemn a record rental business, would give the record industry a fairer crack of the whip and enhance its ability to defend its products against theft.
For example, in Clause 1, the new subsection (2A) would impose on the courts the obligation to apply an objective test to the circumstances of a rental business so that it could decide whether as a question of fact those circumstances were likely to lead to copyright infringement. If the answer is "Yes", then the proprietor is deemed to have authorised a copyright infringement and may be dealt with on that basis. This subsection removes once and for all the need to argue abstruse points of law on the subject of authorisation—a problem that has dogged the record industry in its attempts to bring offenders to book. It makes the law more even-handed. It does not in any way attack the legitimate record business.
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The new subsection (2B) in Clause 1 is designed to get round an obvious ploy by the proprietors of rental businesses. For example, in the test case I have already mentioned the proprietor in fact displayed a notice in his shop pointing out that home-copying was an infringement of copyright. It seemed from the results that this notice had about as much effect on the public as the health warnings on cigarette packets. The home-copying went on. Nevertheless, this little ploy seemed to find some favour with the judge in the test case.
The insertion of the new subsection (2B) would simply mean that the display of such a notice, cynically meant, could not be a defence in itself. It would be only one of the factors that the court would have to take into account. It could not ignore it, but it would not necessarily be justification for copyright infringement.
I now come to the new subsection (2A)(b) in Clause 1, which deals with a different but equally serious aspect of the problem. This provision is aimed at those people who copy tapes and records for the purpose of re-selling them to the public—a form of dubious enterprise which is widespread and growing. I have here, for example, a cassette that one could buy in a market, street or sometimes in a pub for about £2—half the normal retail price of the genuine article. It is a piratical copy. It is a theft, a robbery; but thousands of these tapes have been sold. The fact is that they are not as good as the original because the pirates do not take that amount of care, but to the uneducated eye it looks a reasonable tape which is cheap. It may feature a favourite group, and the person thinks: "Fine; I will buy that because it is cheap". Hundreds, but hundreds of thousands, of these tapes are being sold this weekend in the marketplaces, in streets and in pubs. Each lost sale costs the record industry between £3 and £4—and, again we are talking about composers, musicians, salesmen, shopkeepers and so on. All these people are being robbed.
The record industry has been fighting these thieves for years with some success, but they are handicapped by the weakness of the law on copyright. Its fight is not helped when manufacturers bring on to the market machines which can only help the thieves and counterfeiters. For example, a Japanese company called AIWA intoduced a new machine last year and they issued with it a press statement. The press statement says and I quote:
"Tapes can now be copied at four times the speed of conventional tape decks"—
I am talking about sound tapes—
"with the introduction of AIWA's latest model … this means that the entire contents of a 60-minute cassette can now be copied in an incredible 15 minutes".
My Lords. I have quoted only two sentences in that paragraph and in each one there is a reference to copying. Copying what, for Heaven's sake? What they are talking about is copying records and pre-recorded tape cassettes which have been made at some cost by the recognised music industry.
This machine costs less than £200 and it is being offered for sale to the public. Your Lordships will know as well as I that the general public have no use for such a machine. Who wants a machine that can record a cassette in their home in 15 minutes? Who is going to pay £200 for that? It has a limited use,

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perhaps, in education and in commerce; but, basically, the only people who are going to buy that machine are the pirates, the counterfeiters. And it may well be that because of its low price, it will attract yet more thieves into the business of robbing the record industry.
The machine can copy four cassettes an hour. Used for only 12 hours a day, it could produce 400 tapes—forged tapes—in a week. Those counterfeit tapes will yield a profit of some £300 to £400 to the counterfeiter. It means that the small man can now enter the pirate industry as well as the mafia, the heavy-money boys who really are in the pirate video tape and cassette recording business in a very big way. There is heavy money in this. In one week therefore with one of these machines that you buy for £200, you produce 400 tapes and sell them on street corners or in pubs, you make a profit of£300, you pay for your tape-copying machine and you are already in pocket. That is a measure of the seriousness of the problem. So far, this machine is confined to sound copying; but there can be little doubt that, before very long, a machine capable of doing the same thing for films and video will appear. If this happens, there will be a new explosion of piracy and, as I said earlier, the expression "Treasure Island" will have a new meaning to this country.
Section 2A(b) is designed to discourage manufacturers and distributors from offering machines with this capacity for sale to the public. I do not want to put a limit to new technology. I am not a Luddite. But where a machine appears to have no other function than to copy other people's products, some halt must be called. I am not seeking even to ban those machines. I am not seeking in the Bill to penalise the owner of an ordinary cassette recorder, no matter how sophisticated. This section simply puts the courts in a position to look objectively at any particular machine and to decide whether, by its nature, it is likely to be used to infringe copyright. The manufacturers and distributors will not be unfairly penalised. They will have full opportunity to defend their products in the courts.
That in essence is the scope and purpose of this Bill. It is brief but, like everything else connected with copyright, it is a little complicated. I have done my best to explain the background of the Bill but, of necessity, there are points and arguments which I have been unable to deal with for reasons of time. I am delighted that Sir John Eden's Bill (which deals with some other aspects of the problem) has made progress in another place and will be here soon. I am even more delighted that it has received Government blessing. May I hope, because the industry is bleeding savagely from these wounds, that your Lordships and the Government will give my small Bill a similar fair wind. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Willis.)
2.5 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for the way he brings this matter to our attention. We are all the richer for having noble Lords like him who specialise in particular matters and bring amending legislation before your Lordships' House at varying intervals. In
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this particular case, there is no doubt whatsoever that the problem that he has brought before us is a very real one, that it causes distress, it causes financial loss and that it is something which, as a whole, the legislature should look at and should make up its mind on how it is going to cope with the whole problem of piracy.
Having said that, I must now say that in my view and that of my colleagues on these Benches, this Bill just will not do and does not begin to be acceptable. There is a balance always between the protection of artistes and the good of the community; and the protection of artistes should be very high on our list of priorities. But it seems to us that this Bill would start with laying burdens on the courts with which they would be totally unable to cope and which, even if they did cope with them, would lead to injustices.
Moreover, it seems to go further than that. I was about to use the word "Luddites" which the noble Lord, Lord Willis, himself disowned; but I hesitate to do so because I am not totally against Luddism on the right occasions. I suspect that the approach to modern technology and, in this case, the approach to the machines in this kind of way, are rather like the courtiers who would have King Canute attempt to stem the tide. King Canute, of course, was far too wily an old bird to fall for that one. He knew perfectly well that he could not. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, said that these machines now being used for sound tapes are merely the precursors of those to be used for video tapes. I have no doubt that that is so. I think we could probably say that the machines which now record accurately and well at four times the speed of the original tapes will probably be overtaken in time by ones which can do so at 10 times the speed—or even better.
It does not seem to me that the way to deal with this is effectively to ban the sale of these machines or to ban the businesses which deal with them. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, said it was not his intention to ban the machines; but I really cannot see how else the Bill would work. The courts would have the difficult job of deciding whether the businesses which were up before them were bona fide rental businesses or supplied bona fide machines for bona fide use in other cases. It is very difficult to see on what evidence they could come to conclusions. Of course, some cases would be clear and others would be very unclear. I would have thought there was, frankly, the possibility of self-respecting judges and self-respecting courts going on strike. The difficulties for the law would be too great.
It is for these basic reasons that we from these Benches cannot support this Bill. However, there are methods of dealing with the problem and my Party has adopted a policy which goes along with the taxation of blank tapes and also with recorded tapes—because a point that has been made by one of the bodies which have approached Members of your Lordships' House on this matter is that if the blank tape is taxed the recorded tape should also be taxed since a recording could be taken off and the tape re-used. A basic tax seems to be the right approach to this.
This afternoon is not the time to argue the rights and wrongs of that, except to say that as a basic principle it is probably right, as often as one can, to bridge the gap that exists in many cases between, on the one hand, complete licence and, on the other hand,

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complete banning, which is what I believe this Bill would lead to, by some form of progressive taxation. That is the approach that we take, for instance, in the matter of cigarettes, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. I think it is the way to approach a number of other subjects. I merely mention the alternatives because it is right that those who object to this Bill should say how they would deal with the evil. There are methods of dealing with it, I think; but this Bill is unacceptable.
I hope that there is not going to be a vote on it. I think that the growing habit of voting against Second Readings of Private Bills is a great pity. It may be that this Bill is capable of amendment, although at the moment I think there is some doubt. But I am afraid we cannot accept this Bill as it is and certainly we would not be in favour of its further progress through your Lordships' House in its present state. However, we admire and are grateful for the thought and the motives behind it which have prompted the noble Lord, Lord Willis, to bring it before your Lordships.
2.13 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, in his congratulations to my noble friend for introducing this Bill. I rather suspect that my congratulations are somewhat more wholehearted than his were because, having congratulated my friend on introducing the Bill, he then went on to say that he could not support it.
It is sometimes worthwhile to introduce a Bill for the sake of discussion, but I very much hope that my noble friend has done no such thing here this afternoon because, although I go along to a certain extent with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, in thinking that the Bill at present is far from perfect—I think that my noble friend may agree with me on that point and I have myself reservations over some parts of it—nevertheless it does attempt seriously to tackle for the first time a problem, attention to which is long overdue.
My interest in this matter stems from the fact that for many years I worked full-time for Equity, the actors' trade union, and I still have a great interest in the welfare of performers. This is one case which ought to commend itself to both sides of the House, and I say that for this reason. In this matter there is no division whatsoever between the employers and the employees. The trade unions concerned fully recognise that, in the present situation, they may be inhibited from getting a square deal from the makers of the records.
Let me try to translate this situation and consider it in relation to the motor-car industry. If a manufacturer of motor-cars made a few of them and then somebody copied them without charge and sold more than the original manufacturer, how then could a trade union negotiate a reasonable remuneration with the manufacturer of the original motor-cars if it was not retaining the profits on all the cars which were made? This is the position that has arisen. The original manufacturer of the article is not only losing his own profit but is unable to give a proper remuneration to the people who make the records. There is not the slightest difference here.
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What is happening, without putting too fine a point on it, is that the community is exploiting the producer. This must be stopped, because it is possible—although the National Consumer Council does not appear to think so—for the consumer to be against the community as a whole. It is in the interests of the community that the person who makes an object shall receive a fair reward. If that proposition is accepted, and if the consumer is getting round that by getting a product without paying for it, then it is the consumer who is at fault. It is the duty of Government not only to protect the interests of the consumer, but, from time to time, to protect the interests of the producer, both employer or employee. As I said, the interests of the employer and the employee go together.
This is not a case where, in their nightmares, noble Lords sometimes see employer and employee getting together to exploit the rest of the community. On the contrary, as I have said, this is a case of the community exploiting the producer. We are surely all agreed that we need to protect the producer and to give him a reasonable reward for his endeavours, whether that reward comes in terms of profits or in terms of salary, wages or other remuneration.
I said that I am not entirely happy with the Bill as it stands, but I am entirely happy with Clause 1(2A)(a). It seems to me that this goes to the heart of the matter, because it states that an offence occurs at the point at which the product is sold. That is quite easy to define. What this means—and this needs to be done—is that, if I make a film or a record for my own use, that is no longer a technical offence as it is at the moment. It becomes possible to do that without breaking the law. Under this Bill an offence will occur when I take that record to a market place and try to sell it—or not merely one, but dozens or hundreds. That is definable and is no problem in law.
With paragraph (b) we run into problems. It will not be so easy for a court of law to define an offence there. So I hope that my noble friend will say that, in return for getting a Second Reading this afternoon, he will be very ready to accept improvements at the Committee stage; or the Bill might conceivably go to a Select Committee, as the previous one did. But certainly the Bill ought not to be withdrawn. We ought to be making some progress on this matter, and one way of doing that would be to give this Bill a Second Reading, in the hope that some improvements can be made to it so that the main purposes of the Bill, which are long overdue, would come into effect.
Your Lordships will have received an advocacy of the Bill from the British phonographic industry. That advocacy seems to me to be convincing, with the qualification that I have made. We have also received objections to the Bill from the tape manufacturers group. They object to subsection (2A)(b) rather than to subsection (2A)(a). I understand their objection to that paragraph. I believe there is much to be said for placing a levy on the machine itself and for that levy going back to the manufacturer. Even if the product is made only for home use it is an additional use of the product, and the manufacturer is entitled to some remuneration for it. The levy on the machine would be collected and would go to the manufacturer. I hope that it would go not only to the manufacturer of the film or record but also eventually—by way of royalty

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or something of that kind—to the performer on the record: the singer, or the musician, or the writer. My noble friend will not mind, I am sure, if I include writers. Have we no consideration for the creative and the interpretive artist? They are the people who make such recordings possible; without them, nothing would happen and they must be protected.
I believe I have said enough to indicate that the observations of the National Consumer Council are not in this case correct. I agree with some of their remarks, but a great deal of what they say is irrelevant to this small Bill. It may, however, have some relevance to further changes which the Government intend to introduce.
I hope I have said enough to make it clear that I trust the House will give a Second Reading to my noble friend's Bill and that it will proceed. Like so many other things, it may conceivably fall because of electoral events which overtake us. But many other things, including those which might be even more important than this, will fall if there should be a general election. However, that would be no excuse at all for not giving the Bill a Second Reading this afternoon.
2.23 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, in the battle against thieves, robbers, pirates and the mafia—phrases which have been rightly used by my noble friend—this House will be united. I cannot imagine any noble Lord deciding to take the part of anyone who deserved that description. There is no doubt that not only is there a threat but that thieving, robbing, pirating and mafia activities are going on in an industry which is vital to this country, and which your Lordships would wish to encourage: that of the creation and practice of art, whatever form it might take. Therefore I join those noble Lords who have already spoken in expressing gratitude to my noble friend Lord Willis for bringing this very important matter to your Lordships' attention.
Having said that, I wonder whether your Lordships would permit me to say that it is a great pity that in our legislature we cannot keep up with the times. The fact of the matter is that by virtue of all the technological changes which have taken place, especially in the industry which we are discussing this afternoon, the Copyright Act 1956 is grossly out of date. As a result, many quite innocent people in this country in the privacy of their homes, without any ulterior or commercial motive, are likely to be infringing at this very moment the copyright law. I shall give a brief example. The mere copying, on an ordinary, a slow-moving machine of a record at home, without any desire to sell it at all, constitutes a breach of copyright. This means that with the technological advances we have had, it is vital that the whole law of copyright be given a very definite examination, in order to bring it up to date.
My noble friend Lord Willis has said that this is a very urgent matter. There is no doubt that he is right. Therefore I cannot, on behalf of my noble friends, be content to say that we should look at the whole question of the law on copyright and wait for that consideration before we do anything about it. I
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immediately concur with those who say that this Bill should undoubtedly be given a Second Reading.
Having said that—and I promise to be very brief—may I tell the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that there are certain categories of people in this country who do not go on strike, and that judges are one of them. The noble Lord can therefore rest assured that whatever legal problem we may set them, the one reaction we shall have may be a criticism of Parliament but will certainly not be a walkout or a work-to-rule.
There is no doubt at all that there are legal problems connected with the matter we are now considering. They are undoubtedly problems which can be considered at later stages of this Bill, and I am sure that my noble friend, with his usual reasonableness, will give consideration to any point that is raised on the various clauses of this short Bill.
Perhaps your Lordships will bear with me if I spend a few moments telling the House of the case to which my noble friend briefly referred and which has given rise to the difficulties and problems which caused this Bill to come before us. It is not a very complicated case. It was the case of CBS Inc. and Another v. Ames Records and Tapes Limited, which was reported in the 1981 All England Law Reports at page 812. The noble Lord the Minister, with his usual attention to detail, waves before us a copy of that actual law report; but I trust that when he comes to address us after half past two this afternoon, it will not be his intention to read that report in extenso.
This case concerned a man who owned a record shop in the North of England. He started a rental scheme for records and also sold blank tapes. As my noble friend intimated, a rental charge is usually a very small amount, and people were encouraged—or so it was thought—to acquire both sets of this trader's wares—to rent the records and buy the blank tapes. The result, obviously, was a nice recording on tape at home, achieved as a result of the rental transaction.
Mr. Ames also had—and I use my words discreetly—a notice which brought to the attention of those who did business with him the fact that it constituted a beach of copyright if one copied material at home. That case was brought to court. The court was in some difficulty because there was no direct connection between the transactions I have just described and the actual infringement of the copyright, in the sense that the gentleman who rented out these records and sold blank tapes did not directly know—because he was not a visitor to the homes in question—that this was being done. Therefore, although it was very likely that the result of this transaction was the piracy to which my noble friend has referred, nevertheless he could not be proved to have knowledge of the breach of copyright. So my friend's Bill aims to put this right.
Your Lordships will see the relevance of the facts of this case to one clause, for example, in this Bill, and that is subsection (2B) of Clause 1:
"Use of a disclaimer notice shall not of itself prevent conduct from falling within subsection (2A) of this section."
That is a very interesting section to read in view of the facts of this case.

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Your Lordships, and I hope my noble friend, will think very deeply before we, in saving one industry or trying to protect it, harm another industry. There is no doubt about it, there is a perfectly innocent industry which we would want to encourage: that of making and selling recording machines. If one looks at what happens under the provisions of this Bill to somebody who dares to sell this type of machine in a retail shop, one would come to the conclusion that he would be a reckless man even to start stocking it, because if you look at subsection (2C) it says:
"Conduct may fall within subsections (2A)(b) of this section notwithstanding that the person supplying the machine had no knowledge of the use to which the machine was to be put and no control, whether direct or otherwise, over the first or subsequent purchasers of the machine."
Again, from the facts I ventured to outline to your Lordships one can see why this clause was put in; it was because of the previous judgment in the 1981 case. But, if I may say so, I think my noble friend will find that lawyers will tremble somewhat at the absolute nature of these clauses, to which my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney also referred. These matters can be dealt with without any doubt in Committee and at Report stage, and I have no doubt my noble friend will be able to agree to some of the amendments that lawyers may put forward without in any way spoiling the principle of the Bill.
My Lords, it is in those circumstances that I hope that this Bill will certainly have a Second Reading in your Lordships' House.
2.34 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, we have listened with fascination to the points that have been raised this afternoon, and I am sure your Lordships will join with me in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for introducing his Bill in such cogent terms, so briefly and in very amusing terms; indeed, it gave us the opportunity to listen to the wit of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, about whom I shall have a little to say later in the course of my remarks. I promise I shall be brief. I hope I shall be forgiven if I address myself first to the Bill.
The House will agree that the Copyright (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill raises some very interesting and important questions, but at the same time your Lordships will not be surprised to know that the Government have some serious reservations about the provisions contained in it. The Bill is essentially concerned with the issue of unauthorised home-taping, of both sound recordings and films, and this includes video films. This is one of the most important and difficult areas of copyright that the Government are currently examining as part of our general review which follows the publication in 1981 of a Green Paper. We hope that before too long we shall be able to bring forward a comprehensive set of proposals for the reform and modernisation of all aspects of copyright law.
Lord Mishcon: Hear, hear!
Lord Lyell: My Lords, the noble Lord gives sound approbation and encouragement, but I assure you and
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the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that this is a particularly complicated subject. Indeed, the subject we have been discussing this afternoon is equally difficult.
Your Lordships will have noted that the Bill has two distinct limbs. The first is in Clause 1 under the proposed new Section 1(2A)(a) of the Copyright Act 1956. This concerns rental and similar transactions involving copyright records and films. Under this provision anyone who, without the consent of the copyright owner, engaged for profit in the business of rental, lease, exchange or the like of copyright sound recordings or films—here we come to some difficult points—in circumstances likely to lead to their unauthorised copying would be deemed to have authorised an infringement of copyright, and hence to have himself committed an infringement.
I am sure that all of your Lordships will agree that one of the most striking features of the sudden and surprising growth of the video market in this country has been the predominance of rental. This was raised very forcibly by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. It has been estimated (although I cannot vouch for the precise figures) that about 1¼ million video cassettes are rented each week in the United Kingdom. This rental is such a recent phenomenon that it has not yet been possible to assess its full implication for those whose interests are at stake. We have heard that there are many more interests than just the mere simple transaction between the renter and the first customer.
In particular, at the time when the copyright Green Paper was published in 1981 video rental had not been raised as an issue and consequently it did not receive any mention in that document. The publicity that this Bill will receive may be the first intimation to many of us, or to the public at large, that video rental has any implications for anyone other than those directly involved in a particular rental transaction—the video shopkeeper and his customer. For this reason the Government are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for bringing this issue to the attention of your Lordships and to the wider public at this stage. However, having said that I must go on to express the reservations that we have about the rental side of the Bill. Indeed, these are serious reservations.
There are three main reservations. The first is the Bill's provisions that the copyright owner would only be given a right in relation to rental,
"In circumstances likely to lead to the unauthorised making of any record embodying the recording or any copy of the film".
That appears to be reasonable but it also seems to be a recipe for confusion and misunderstanding. It would put an impossible burden on the rental operator if he had to decide in each case whether the circumstances were such that illegal copying was likely to result. The second reservation is about the phrase,
"rental, lease, exchange or the like".
This would be a fertile source of uncertainty. In particular, we are not clear what sort of behaviour would be caught by the words "or the like".
The third main criticism of the Bill's rental provisions is on the question of timing. I did touch on this. The Government welcome the opportunity that the Bill presents for an examination of the issues involved in video, and indeed record, rental. We recognise that this is an idea that merits the closest

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scrutiny, especially in view of the way that video rental has developed. But, at the same time, we consider that it would be premature to prejudge these issues by introducing legislation in this way and just now. The real need for a rental right has not yet been demonstrated—not for video and still less for records, since there seems to be very little commercial record rental activity in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, mentioned Japan, but we stand by what we believe to be the case in this country. It has yet to be established, for example, that videogram producers cannot adequately protect their interests in relation to rental or exchange by contractual means.
Instead, I hope that bodies representing all groups affected—film and record producers and distributors, retail, rental and exchange operators, as well as their customers—will take this opportunity of the matter being raised this afternoon to let the Department of Trade know their views on the subject. We would hope that they will get in touch with the Industrial Property and Copyright Department. I give the full commercial address, which is 25 Southampton Buildings, London, WC2A 1 AY. In case your Lordships did not gather that, I am sure that it will be in the Official Report. That may also help members of the public who might be interested. We assure your Lordships that the department will then be able to give the fullest and most balanced consideration to all the issues that are raised in the Bill, and will be able to decide whether to bring forward proposals for a rental or exchange right, at the same time as the general reform of copyright is announced.
I turn now to the second main limb of the Bill, which is dealt with in Clause 1 under the proposed new Section 1(2A)(b) of the Copyright Act 1956. That is on the first page of the Bill, in line 18. Anyone who for the purposes of trade sold, distributed or otherwise made available any machine capable of reproducing a record or film, where the nature of the machine was such that the primary or a substantial use of it was likely to result in unauthorised copying of a copyright record or film, would, under this provision, he deemed to have authorised infringement of that copyright and so to have infringed it himself.
Proposed new Section 1(2C) (over the page in the Bill at line 6 on page 2) states that this would be so even though the person supplying the machine had no knowledge of the use to which it was to be put and, above all, no control whatsoever over the first or subsequent purchasers of it. Just here I would mention that under the proposed new Section 1(2B) at the top of the page, the tape rental or equipment retail operator would not be saved from proceedings for his, so to speak, "contributory infringement" by the display of a disclaimer notice, as we popularly call it, warning his customers against unauthorised copying.
This provision is full of problems both of interpretation and of principle. The equipment it covers is by no means clear. With the increase in technological advance and these new wonder implements that were mentioned—I hardly dare say advertised—by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, it becomes even less clear. The provision apparently covers not only the recently emerged high speed, tape-to-tape audio recorders, but also all domestic music centres, as they are popularly known, and combined
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radio/cassette recorders. Indeed, it may even extend to simple tape recorders, both audio and video.
Whether an item is covered depends, as always in legal matters, on the circumstances. I have mentioned a number of items of equipment, and I hasten to add that we are not in the Tottenham Court Road, or in an audio and video equipment bazaar. All these items which have been brought to my notice, even the high speed recorders, have legitimate uses which simply do not involve the infringement of copyright. Many such items are purchased by people who have no intention of ever using them for infringing purposes. That is undoubtedly true of very many music centres and combined cassette/radios. It would be quite wrong to put every distributor and retailer of all such equipment at risk of finding himself to be an infringer of copyright.
However, the Bill would make such a person an infringer of a particular copyright only in circumstances in which the owner of copyright in a particular record or film could show that the sale or otherwise of the equipment was likely to result in unauthorised copying of that particular record or film. This provision would be very difficult for a copyright owner to apply, and it is very hard to conceive of circumstances that would with any certainty enable him to seek redress.
We must ask ourselves whether the sale of equipment alone would in practice ever entitle him to relief. It is difficult to see how it could, given that a particular copyright must be threatened, and yet new subsection (2C) states that the equipment vendor may not be saved by his own ignorance of the use to which the machine is to be put. If not irreconcilable, these two concepts taken together could be difficult to apply—and that is putting it fairly mildly. We should also consider whether the supplier is to be required to make inquiries about the proposed use of the equipment by his customer, or, for that matter, by anyone else.
Perhaps the circumstances to which this part of the Bill may apply are very unlikely to arise. Let us suppose that a video shop that rents out videograms to its customers at the same time both sells blank video tapes and makes available in the shop video recording machines on which customers are encouraged to make copies of their newly-rented tapes. Perhaps the proprietor makes a charge for the use of the machine in this way. Such behaviour on the part of the proprietor would, I suppose, be within the Bill, and would, furthermore, be objectionable, since clearly he would be encouraging the infringement of copyright. However, one might expect the court to regard such provocative behaviour as amounting to the authorisation of infringement, and it would be caught even under present law. So the Bill seems to fill no existing loophole even on this extremely narrow interpretation.
I wish briefly to turn to the very interesting comments that have been made by your Lordships in the course of the debate on the Bill this afternoon. During his very amusing remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Willis, raised the question of pirates, and this was alluded to even more succinctly by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. The noble Lord raised the matter in a very romantic way, but we accept that there is here a very serious problem, and that is why we hope that he

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and anyone who has a commercial or other interest in the matter will get in touch with us at the department.
I was very interested in the noble Lords's "commercial" (if I may so describe it) for the high-speed recorder. He probably got the name right. I am not a great speaker of Japanese, though there are Members of your Lordships' House who have great facility in that language, and no doubt they could help the noble Lord. He also pointed out the advance of technology; and these new high-speed tape recorders will probably be obsolete by next year.
There was much mention of art from technology. I wonder how far technology can be extended to taping and to what degree it can be taken into the privacy of our own homes. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned that there would be many of us who might be taping at normal speed—not at four times normal speed—from a record onto a tape. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that he, and no doubt other Members of your Lordships' House, have technological knowledge which is certainly not possessed by some of us and certainly not by me, for a start. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Willis, would consider that buying blank tapes and a video recording machine covers home taping of even his beloved football team. When it comes to art and artists, would it cover the said Mr. Hoddle who distinguishes himself in the noble Lord's beloved team? Is that covered under a copyright? Or is it an infringement? I promise that the comments made by the noble Lord and the points raised during discussion on the Bill will be taken into account.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, made some typically trenchant comments. However, as this is not a Government Bill I shall allow the noble Lord, Lord Willis, to field those trenchant comments from the Liberal benches. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, had some interesting thoughts on the copying of cars. Many non-technical Members of your Lordships' House may feel that one already needs a technical eye to understand overhead camshafts, twin valves or what seem to many of us to be heaps of metal with various accoutrements that seem to convey us from our homes to your Lordships' House and back. It seems to many of us that the copying of cars already goes on. We note the trenchant comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, about artists and how they could do with protection.
When we come to legal matters and, above all, the matters we are discussing, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, brings the art of wit and no little amusement to our debate. The noble Lord mentioned that technology had overtaken the Copyright Act 1956. This is also the view of the department. All judges at all levels will be glad of the noble Lord's support that they never work to rule or delay their judgments especially in home taping cases. The noble Lord mentioned a case. He should know that, like all good Scouts, Members of your Lordships' House and, above all, Government spokesmen, try to be well prepared.
I did, with no little difficulty, find the interesting case that was mentioned both by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to it as a simple case. I should like, with your Lordships' forbearance,
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to mention that in Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases No. 25 in 1981, we start at page 407. The case of CBS Inc. and Another versus Ames Records and Tapes Limited, dated 8th October 1981, took place in the Chancery Division before Mr. Justice Whitford. Your Lordships will be interested to know that the judgment of Mr. Justice Whitford carried on to page 428. These are pages of 45 lines or more. We therefore take the noble Lord's comment that this is a simple case with a pinch of salt.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that some judges, like some noble Ministers, have very long briefs and very long judgments, and that sometimes it is usual, especially at this hour, to abbreviate them.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I take closely to heart the judgment of the noble Lord. Lord Mishcon. I would however draw to his attention and to that of your Lordships that this case covers fascinating observations on the making of trap orders. Furthermore Mr. Justice Whitford took a close look at a publication known as Music Week. Apart from working hard, judges seem to do all kinds of things. Later on that page Mr. Justice Whitford took a close look and quoted extensively from Billboard magazine, which goes to show that clearly such matters of technology and art penetrate even into the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice. But we took a great deal of encouragement from the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, when he said that this was a simple case. We take his word for it, and, indeed. I am sure that my noble and learned friend will be grateful for his support for the legal profession in this and, indeed, in many other areas.
I would conclude our discussion and comments on the Second Reading of the Bill before us this afternoon by making the general observation that the Government do not see the piecemeal approach to copyright reform embodied in this Bill as the correct way to modernise our law. We believe that it can lead to distortions and anomalies by dealing with different but inter related sections of the subject in different ways. As your Lordships will be aware, copyright is a complex subject with many facets, but those facets are closely interlinked and need to be considered together if unforeseen inconsistencies are to be avoided.
The Government are in general opposed to the piecemeal approach to copyright reform, but it is a mark both of our constructive attitude and, indeed, of the extreme urgency that has recently arisen in the field of video piracy that we have been prepared to support two immediate measures to counteract it—one which became law last Session and one which will shortly be considered by your Lordships' House having completed its passage in another place. While we do not deny that the home-taping question is pressing, it simply cannot be solved in the ways proposed in the Bill before us this afternoon. We hope that your Lordships will agree that it must await the completion of the Government's review. I have stressed—and I stress it again—that the outcome of this review will emerge as soon as possible.
I may have expressed some strong criticisms of the Bill, but at the same time I welcome the opportunity that it presents for a consideration of the question of

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rental. We really do not want to hinder debate in your Lordships' House on this important subject, and, therefore, we would certainly give the Bill a fair wind this afternoon.
2.57 p.m.
Lord Willis: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken today. I must say that this afternoon I felt that I had one of my greatest triumphs when the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said that there were certain clauses in this Bill that would make lawyers tremble. It has long been my ambition to make lawyers tremble, and if this Bill goes a small way towards achieving that lifetime's ambition then I shall be delighted.
I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. There is one phrase that I have learned to dread over many years and that is, "Having said that …". I remember that when I took my first script into the producer he said how fantastic and brilliant it was, and then of course, he went on to say, "Having said that …". I had the same feeling when listening to the debate this afternoon.
I do not think it would have been necessary for me to bring this Bill forward at all—and I do not want to be unkind to the noble Lord the Minister—if the Government had hurried a little more with what they have called their thorough overall review of copyright. Your Lordships will recall that last year I said that it had been seven years since the report had been issued and the Government had said that they would let us have a public debate on it. It is now eight years that that public debate has been raging, and that is why this piecemeal legislation is coming forward.
There are one or two other points which I shall not bother to go into with your Lordships, but as regards the question of video rental we are rather running on one leg because at the moment people do not rent videos to copy; they rent them to view. To hire a television film on a video tape and then take it home and copy it on to another tape is a very expensive process. At the moment you cannot buy the machines for that readily in the market. So that is not really an issue at present, and neither are one or two of the other points that were raised. I am very cognisant of the fact
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that I have kept your Lordships away from your country retreats quite long enough. Therefore, I beg to move.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

National Heritage Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments.
House adjourned at three o'clock.